The Penn Review 2024 Prizes
POETRY PRIZE
Winner: "Talking to my imaginary friend about feeling sad” by Sammi LaBue
FICTION PRIZE
Winner: “Little Reed, Bending” by Zoe Mize
ART PRIZE
Winner: “Lonely Houses” by Joseph Ray York
GUIDELINES:
Poetry
* Please submit up to 5 poems, along with a third-person bio, through Submittable.
* The winner will receive $500 and print publication in The Penn Review No. 73.
* All poems are considered for regular publication.
* Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, but please specify them in your cover letter.
* The entrance fee is $10.
* To view previous winners and finalists of our Poetry Prize, see below.
Prose
* Please submit up to 3 fiction or creative nonfiction stories along with a third-person bio through Submittable.
* Each story may be up to 5000 words in length.
* The winner will receive $500 and print publication in The Penn Review No. 73.
* All stories are considered for regular publication.
* Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, but please specify them in your cover letter.
* The entrance fee is $10.
* To view previous winners and finalists of our Prose Prize, see below.
Art
* Please submit up to 10 pieces, along with a third-person bio, through Submittable.
* The winner will receive $500 and print publication in The Penn Review No. 73.
* All art submissions are considered for regular publication.
* Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, but please specify them in your cover letter.
* The entrance fee is $10.
Reprints
We do not accept work reprinted from other magazines, but will consider submissions that have been published on a personal website or blog.
Rights
We require First North American Serial Rights. Following publication, all rights revert to the author, but we ask that The Penn Review is credited in subsequent reprints. In addition, we reserve the right to edit submissions in accordance with the rules of our style guide.
The Penn Review 2020 Prizes
POETRY PRIZE
Winner: "High. Coo.” by Nicolle Chantal Kim Moffat
FICTION PRIZE
Winner: “Ohio Pearl” by Katherine Tunning
THE Penn Review 2019 Prizes
POETRY PRIZE
Winner: "The pain is so resplendent it has babies” by Melissa Studdard
This poem is powerful and shocking in its ironic use of birth and maternal metaphors to express multiplying pain. The ecstatic imagery entices and adds to the deep disturbance. At the end, the poem flips to an unexpected self-indictment. It is the literary speaker who foments her own suffering. This is a superb poem.
Finalists:
“Parable” by Katherine Lamb
The graceful lyric voice here conveys compassion and grief. The subject of the poem mysteriously and provocatively seems to shift from a suffering animal to pollen to honey, but the poem is ambiguous and open to various interpretations.
"The Mandala of the Mountain Path” by Chloe Martinez
A beautiful reflection on spirituality, creativity, and domesticity, this poem explores its central metaphor through imagery at once fluid and crystalline.
"Independence Day” by Sarah Lao
Erupting like a particularly elegant firework, Sarah Lao’s “Independence Day" grapples with cultural and linguistic assimilation, exploring the boundaries of American nomenclature.
Our 2019 Poetry Prize was selected by our returning judge, Bucks County poet laureate Lynn Levin. Visit her bio to learn more.
FICTION PRIZE
Winner: “X” by Elizabeth Lemieux
At once subtle and brutal, lyrical and cold-blooded, this story demands the reader’s attention from its opening paragraph. Delving into issues of sexual harassment, violence, and the challenge of fostering human connection in a desensitized world, it unfolds its narrative in rich and implacable prose, lingering in the mind long after it has concluded.
Finalists:
“Spring Belle” by Nathan Dixon
With its clipped lines and rhythmic syntax, this story gracefully shifts between past and present, vividly deconstructing lineages of violence and misogyny. Disturbing and profoundly powerful in its execution, “Spring Belle” is a tapestry of haunted images.
“Rituals” by Isabella Jiang
Melding poetry and prose, Isabella Jiang’s “Rituals” tunnels into the linguistic roots of identity, sweeping the reader into an astonishing vortex of self-knowledge, tragedy, and silence.
“Spirit Hole” by Dan Warner
Simultaneously playful, funny, scary, and touching, “Spirit Hole” explores the fantasies and realities of a young boy, rendering them through pitch-perfect narration and dialogue.
The Penn Review 2019 Prizes were sponsored by Duotrope.
2018 Poetry Prize
Winner: “What We Did After We Stopped the Boats” by Yiwei Chai
Judges’ commentary: The language in "What We Did After We Stopped the Boats" is simple, compact, and never overwrought. While the text is oblique enough to admit numerous interpretations, the poem calls to mind the experience of refugees who risk everything to come to a place of promise and sustenance. Tones of stoicism, pathos, and compassion inform this remarkable piece.
Finalists:
“Necessity” by Matthew Spireng
Editors’ commentary: The beauty of this poem is the way it establishes its own curious, capacious world within a few lines. With wit, clarity, vividness, and understatement, Matthew Spireng guides us through questions concerning horse supplies, gas shortages, and grieving. This is a poem intended to be kept close by—perhaps in the center of a bookshelf or on top of a coffee table—in case of emergencies.
“Always a Game of You” by Eric Stiefel
Editors’ commentary: Elusive, allusive, and filled with rhythmic profusion, Eric Stiefel’s poetry focuses upon themes of desire and ontology. In its thoughtful engagement with the legacy of The Waste Land, this poem invites us into a house of sinister and astonishing beauty.
“Horse Girl” by Jimin Lee
Editors’ commentary: With its swift and graceful imagery, “Horse Girl” explores questions of cultural identity alongside the pressures of personhood. Exemplary in its execution, powerful in its drive, this poem leaves us eager to see more from Jimin Lee, an emerging poet whose career promises to be long and ferocious.
“The Young in New York” by Rebecca Pyle
Editors’ commentary: One of the marvels of Rebecca Pyle’s verse is the way it seems to curl in upon itself, gaining strength from the inward spiral of its syntax. In its examination of the aging process, this poem displays both complexity and humor. By the end, readers may find themselves questioning their own notions of theft, ownership, and experience.
Our 2018 Poetry Prize was selected by a distinguished panel of judges that included Jamie-Lee Josselyn, Lynn Levin, Jessica Lowenthal, Michelle Taransky, and Yolanda Wisher. Visit their bios to learn more.