2025 Queer Poetry Prize: Winners & Finalists
Please join us in congratulating these remarkable poets. Winners were selected by CAConrad.
Contest Winner
Interview with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Judge of the 2025 Nature Poetry Prize
“Today here in March, a new study revealed we’ve lost 22% of the butterflies on this planet. I mean, we are not separate from nature so it’s crucial as human beings that we are always noticing, always observing while we have butterflies around, for example. We have everything to lose if we forget.”
My Father
“the wound across his back becomes / a mouth wide open, filled with blood, and me, / his child standing next to the body. / newly awakened”
Portrait of a Small Town Where the Flower Shop has Committed Suicide
By Eli Karren
“Our neighborhood drowns // in the violet hue of summer stolen, while evening arrives / like blueberries to concrete,”
anticipating flame
“who am I to bring the world / into our bed? If the nest comes under attack, let me / lose a feather or two in defense of what I know is true:”
2024-25 Previously Published Poem Prize: Winners & Finalists
Please join us in congratulating these remarkable poets. Winners were selected by Palette editors.
Lena
By Jessie Keary
“She was adept with the use of / liquid rouge, / a model of artistic beauty,”
Interview with Akhim Yuseff Cabey, Winner of the 2024 Rising Poet Prize
Winner of the 2024 Rising Poet Prize Akhim Yuseff Cabey for “Olentangy River, 2019” Akhim Yuseff Cabey was …
Olentangy River, 2019
“god bless, then, the poisonous / carp these fishermen toss // back into the river,”