2025 Queer Poetry Prize: Winners & Finalists
We are delighted to share the winners, finalists, and longlist for the 2025 Queer Poetry Prize! Please join us in congratulating these brilliant poets. Deep gratitude to all who shared moving poems with us—we are so lucky to have been immersed in the worlds of your work. The winning poem and runner-ups were selected by guest judge CAConrad and are published on the Palette website.
Winners of the 2025 Queer Poetry Prize
1st place — Gordon Taylor for “The Poem Formerly Known as the Poem Formerly Known as Stupid”
Gordon Taylor is a queer, emerging poet who walks an ever-swaying wire of technology and poetry. A 2022 Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Narrative, Malahat Review, Poet Lore, Arc, and more. He writes to invite people into a world they may not have seen.
2nd place — Marina Avery Robinson for “A Short History of my Gag Reflex”
Marina Avery Robinson is a trans poet and punk from Orlando. She is a recent MFA graduate from the University of Pittsburgh. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, Lambda Literary, The Watering Hole, and Community of Writers. Previously, she was the recipient of two Pushcart nominations, the 2023 Porter House Review Editor’s Prize, and second place at the 2024 Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh contest. Her poems can be found in Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Seventh Wave, Hunger Mountain, and others. You can find her wherever the music is loudest.
3rd place — Mark Spero for “The American Eel”
Mark Spero (they/he) is a poet and essayist. They received the 2021 Madeline DeFrees Prize, selected by Phillip B. Williams, from the Academy of American Poets, and have received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Community of Writers, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference. Mark was a finalist for the 2023 Prufer Prize and won the 2024 Robert Watson Literary Prize. Their work can be found or is forthcoming in The Greensboro Review, Poetry Northwest, Pleiades, The Cortland Review, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere.
Finalists
Aether
Kit Dwyer
Ezra Fox
Lana Kouchnir
Iris Lee
Jerico Lenk
Poppy Rivers-Vincent
Jennifer Tubbs
Longlist
Jill Aalhus
Isabella Borgeson
Kayleb Rae Candrilli
Roberto Salvador Cenciarelli
Joanna Imogen Davidson
Joseph Goosey
Riahta Grace
Emma Grause
Isabel Grey
JH Grimes
Bridget Huh
K. A. Jagai
Mischa Kuczynski
Marty McConnell
Eoghan McDermott
Sophia Moss
Kalpita Pathak
Bleah Patterson
Robin Percyz
Jeffrey Perkins
MC Sorkin
Anna Szilagyi
Norman Tran
Fern Trujillo
Gerard Wozek