Ned Foskey Poetry Prize, 2021: Winners and Honorable Mentions

Thank you to all who submitted poems for this year’s Ned Foskey Poetry Prize contest.

This year’s contest judge, Margaret DeRitter, is the poetry editor and copy editor of Encore, a regional magazine based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is the author of Singing Back to the Sirens (Unsolicited Press, 2020) and was a winner of the 2018 Celery City Chapbook Contest, sponsored by Kalamazoo’s Friends of Poetry, for her chapbook Fly Me to Heaven By Way of New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies Surprised By Joy (Wising Up Press) and Queer Around the World (Qommunicate Publishing) and in a number of journals, including The 3288 Review, which nominated her poem “At the top of Sleeping Bear Dunes” for a Pushcart Prize. DeRitter has also written numerous magazine and newspaper articles. She worked for 22 years at the Kalamazoo Gazette and has taught journalism at Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College. She was born and raised in New Jersey and has lived in Michigan since college. When not writing or editing, she often paddles Michigan lakes and rivers.

First place: “Caught Up in You,” Dusti Morton
Second place: “Birth,” Diego Amaro
Third place: “Storm in the Sea,” Victoria Reinbold

Honorable Mentions:
“Children’s Tales,” Victoria Reinbold
“The dead keep their secrets,” Dusti Morton
“I Know It Sounds Crazy,” Jennifer Baker
“The Depths,” Sam Beeson
“A Year of Killing Snakes,” Andrew C. Prout

All winners and honorable mentions are invited to read their work in a virtual poetry reading celebrate their work and National Poetry Month. The virtual Ned Foskey Poetry Reading will be held on April 23 at 4 p.m. Here is the registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ulgc4l7jTT2JmJoNvTmRRA. Winners and honorable mentions will be contacted individually as well.

Sincerely,
Julie Stotz-Ghosh, Chair, English Department