Winners of the 2021 Sappho Prize
We are honored to share with everyone the winners, finalists, and longlist of the 2021 Sappho Prize for Women Poets! This year’s winners were selected by Maggie Smith. Endless gratitude to all who shared their remarkable poems with us—we are better poets for having spent time with your work.
Winners of the 2021 Sappho Prize for Women Poets
1st & $3000— Emily Zogbi for “Lost Things” (to be published on September 7, 2021)
Emily Zogbi is a writer from Long Island and earned her MFA in poetry from The New School. Her work has been published in Rumble Fish Quarterly, Chronogram, Tinderbox Poetry Journal and Empty House Press. She wishes she had been a dancer.
2nd & $300— Sophia Tonnessen for “Layaway“ (to be published on September 8, 2021)
Sophia Anfinn Tonnessen is the author of the upcoming poetry collection Ecologia from Unbound Editions Press.
3rd & $200— Yi Wei for “Look” (to be published on September 9, 2021)
Yi Wei is a first-generation Chinese writer with a BA in Asian American Studies and English from Swarthmore College. She currently serves as the Assistant Flash Fiction Editor at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Yi’s work has been awarded the Lois Morrell Poetry Prize and appeared in Lantern Review and Crosswinds. She’s heading to NYU’s MFA program in poetry this fall, as a Writer in the Public Schools fellow!
Finalists
Lisa Baird for “an alternate universe in which my trauma is made of birds”
T. De Los Reyes for “Balloon”
donia salem harhoor for “in media res”
Grace MacNair for “Abecedarian for the Man Who Claimed Birth Control Goes Against Nature”
Caroline New for “How I Became a Mother”
Arianne Payne for “Resurface”
Natalie Wee for “In My Next Life as a Fruit Tree”
Longlist
Michelle Peñaloza
Rose Solari
T. De Los Reyes
Janine Certo
Lindsay Adkins
Becca J. R. Lachman
Grace MacNair
Kay Lin
Sara Baker
Alice Templeton
Andy Winter
ann sim
Ellen Romano
Gemma Cooper-Novack
Allison Thorpe
Alyson Favilla
Carolyne Wright
Duncan Difazio
Heather Treseler
Laura Plummer
Soeun Seo
Susan Coronel
Beth Yahp
Judith Sornberger
Alise Versella
Carolyn Donnell
Dee Dee McNeil
Nora Hikari
Melanie Almeder
Rebecca Byrkit
Terry Johnson
Tori Sharpe