Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Cowles Poetry Book Prize

We’re thrilled to announce the winner and finalists for the 2021 Cowles Poetry Prize. Our dedicated readers and interns spent countless hours reading many (so many!) fantastic manuscripts. The competition was fierce, and we passed along twenty manuscripts to our final judge, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, who narrowed down the list to a top five, from which she selected this year’s winner. We are so incredibly grateful you all trust us with your vital, magnificent work. And of course, we’re already accepting submissions for the 2022 contest. Without further ado, then, our winner, shortlist, and longlist:

Winner: Gold Hill Family Audio by Corrie Lynn White

Corrie Lynn White’s poetry has appeared in Oxford American, New Ohio Review, Best New Poets, Mid American Review, and Mississippi Review, among other places. Originally from Gold Hill, North Carolina, she holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill and an MFA from UNC Greensboro. She currently lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she works as a journalist and was named the 2021 Tennessee Arts Commission Fellow in Poetry. Gold Hill Family Audio will be published in fall, 2022!

Shortlist:

bad prayer by Katie Berta
BLACK METAMORPHOSIS by Shanta Lee Gander
Dear Daughter, by Ellen Kombiyil
Eveningful by Jennifer Whalen

Longlist:

Out of Nowhere: Poems by Susan Comninos
star vehicle (the year i moved to st. louis) by Charlotte Covey
Happy Everything by Caitlin Cowan
A Suit of Paper Feathers by Nate Duke
Cry Perfume by Sadie Dupuis
Whipsaw by Suzanne Frischkorn
Swan Hammer: An Instructor’s Guide to Mirrors by Maggie Graber
No Spare People by Erin Hoover
This Smile is Starting to Hurt by Dylan Loring
History Lesson by Todd Osborne
Steady, Girl by Leona Sevick
Black Don’t Crack by Valerie Smith
On Main Street by Alex Turissini
Notes on Silence and Noise by Suzanne Wise
pH of Au by Vanessa Couto Johnson

Once again, thank you all for trusting us with your work! It’s truly an honor.