Winners & Finalists for the 2021 Palette Poetry Prize
We are honored to share with everyone the winners, finalists, and longlist of the 2021 Palette Poetry Prize! Please join us in congratulating these remarkable poets. Immense gratitude to all who shared moving, necessary poems with us—we are humbled by your trust. The winning poems were chosen by this year’s judge, Jericho Brown, and will be published throughout the week!
Winners of the 2021 Palette Poetry Prize
1st & $4000— Katie Hale for “The Gallery of America” (to be published on November 10, 2021)
Based in the north of England, Katie Hale is an internationally recognised poet and novelist. Her debut novel, My Name is Monster (Canongate, 2019), has been translated into multiple languages, and was shortlisted for the Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award. Her second poetry pamphlet, Assembly Instructions, won the Munster Chapbook Prize, and she was recently longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. A MacDowell Fellow (2019), she won a Northern Writers’ Award in 2021, and has been shortlisted for the Desperate Literature, Mslexia and Manchester Prizes. She has also written for theatre and immersive digital performance, and has featured on national radio and television. She is currently working on her second novel, as well as a full-length collection of poetry, for which she received funding from Arts Council England.
2nd & $300— Claire Wahmanholm, for “A“ (to be published on November 11, 2021)
Claire Wahmanholm is the author of Night Vision (New Michigan Press 2017), Wilder (Milkweed Editions 2018), Redmouth (Tinderbox Editions 2019), and the forthcoming Meltwater (Milkweed Editions 2023). Her work has most recently appeared in, or is forthcoming from, The Account, Ninth Letter, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Couplet, Good River Review, Descant, Copper Nickel, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She is a 2020-2021 McKnight Fellow, and lives in the Twin Cities. Find her online at clairewahmanholm.com
3rd & $200— Len Lawson, for “Hypotenuse” (to be published on November 12, 2021)
Len Lawson is the author of Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019) and the chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017). He is also editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017) and The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry (Blair Press, 2021). His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He has earned fellowships from Tin House, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Callaloo, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Watering Hole, and Obsidian Foundation (UK), among others. His poetry appears in African American Review, Callaloo, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and has been translated internationally. Born and living in South Carolina, Len earned a PhD in English Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and is currently Assistant Professor of English at Newberry College.
Finalists
Farnaz Fatemi for “I Name the Eight Muscles of My Tongue”
Amy Wang for “clashing”
Ben Kilne for “It Was Never Supposed to be Mine”
Bethany Dixon for “Corylus & Lonicera”
K. Iver for “Jesus the Rural Queer”
Natalie Dunn for “My Project”
Stephanie Chang for “Spring Rituals”
Longlist
Abby Bland
Adrienne Oliver
Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie
Allison Macy-Steines
Anastasiia Denysenko
Andie Francis
Benjamin Williams
Bernardo Wade
Brenda Gunn
Brent Ameneyro
Carolann Madden
Christiane Jacox
Diana Beck
Emeka Nome
Emily Franklin
Genine Lentine
isaiah a. hines
Jan Johnson Drantell
Jed Myers
Jerico Lenk
Joshua Burton
Julie Borsa
Kailey Giordano
Kelly Weber
Lauren Eggert-Crowe
Lolita Stewart-White
Mara Grayson
Meng Ruo Yang
Miguel Perez
Miriam Grossman
Nicole Eiden
Paddy Scott
Rebecca Levi
River Elizabeth Hall
Roseanna Alice Boswell
Samuel Wood
Tara Tulshyan
Tim Tim Cheng
Timmy Chong
Yasmin Musse
Yesol Kim