Results will be announced by the end of September.
Thank you to our supporters, editors and poets
Your best, brightest and most beautiful poems deserve to shine brightly!
Judge: Charles Rafferty
Important: The Guidelines for Submission have changed. Be sure to read them carefully before submitting!
Click the Poetry Contest tab above, or go to https://comstockreview.submittable.com/submit and select Guidelines at the “Poetry Contest” tab there
Who was Muriel Craft Bailey?
The 2024 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest
Opened April 1st 2024. Deadline: July 15th 2024 (Submittable or postmark)
Judge: Charles Rafferty
Our Guidelines have changed as of January 1, 2024. Read the updated guidelines carefully!
First Prize: $1,000 (The Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award)
Second Prize: $250 Third Prize: $100
Honorable Mentions receive a one-year subscription.
submit online at comstockreview.submittable.com/submit
($25 plus $2.50 online fees for up to 5 poems):
OR
FOR MAIL SUBMISSIONS:
Send poems and a check for $5/poem to: The Comstock Review Summer Contest, 4956 St. John Drive, Syracuse, NY 13215.
New for 2024!
Updated GUIDELINES AND ENTRY FEES – Read Carefully!
1) *NEW* Submit poems as Word documents (as 1 whole file or several files at 1 poem per document). Editors’ eyes prefer classic fonts and size.
2) *NEW* Each poem may be up to 60 lines, beginning with the first line of text below the title. Count all stanza breaks, spaces, punctuation.
The maximum line length is 70, characters, punctuation and spaces.
3) *REVISED* Do not include identifying information in the poem submission so screening editors and the final judge can be impartial. Names, addresses, acknowledgements and bio in the cover letter only. (When submitting poems by mail, DO put your name on the BACK of each sheet of paper)
4) *REVISED* Poems must be original, unpublished in ANY medium, print or electronic. No AI-generated poems. Editors have the right to disqualify all poems submitted by a poet if there is previous publication.
5) *REVISED* Top ranked finalists become Special Merit poems. They are accepted work, to be published in the upcoming Fall/Winter issue. These poems go to the Judge, who chooses the First, Second and Third prizes. The editors may then choose Honorable Mentions.
6) *NEW* If you use simultaneous submission, tell us in your cover letter. Notify us immediately if you wish to withdraw the poem. This applies only before it is selected as a finalist. The Comstock Review reserves the right of first refusal for all accepted submissions.
7) Poets whose contest entries are published in the award (Fall/Winter) issue receive a free contributor’s copy of the issue. They may purchase additional copies at a discounted rate.
SUBMIT ONLINE: https://comstockreview.submittable.com Submit up to 5 poems online for $25 plus Submittable fees. You may submit more than once set of poems during the contest.
OR SUBMIT BY MAIL – Send your poems with a check or money order for $5 per poem to: The Comstock Review Poetry Contest, 4956 St. John Drive, Syracuse, NY 13215. You may send SASE for results only. No poems will be returned.
Results of the 2023 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest
Judge: Danusha Laméris
First Prize: $1,000 (The Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award) is awarded to Jodi Balas for the poem “Bone Density”
Second Prize: $250 is awarded to David Thoreen for the poem “Maybe”
Third Prize: $100 is awarded to David Thoreen for the poem “Even in Spring Our Thoughts Sometimes Lapse into Darkness”
Honorable Mentions:
Davi Gray “In Which She Embarked Upon a Voyage”
Connie Post “Aftermath”
Honorable Mentions receive a one-year subscription.
Special Merit Poems (alphabetical order by poet’s last name):
Suzanne Cleary “Lovespoon”
Nancy Dafoe “Because the Images”
Nancy Dafoe “The Narrative”
Susan Dines “The Guestbook”
Jane Ebihara “Late Winter From My Window”
Jane Ebihara “On Waking”
Doris Ferleger “Je Me Souviens”
Diana Fusting “In the Woods”
Diana Fusting “Squint”
Francis Klein “Cartwheel”
Francis Klein “Chibougamau”
Katharyn Howd Machan “Edges”
Jeri McCormick “From Above”
Emily Portillo “Ode to my Twenties”
Emily Portillo “The End of 31”
Kimberly Shaw “A Riderless Horse”
Yasotha Sriharan “The Believer”
David Thoreen “Nolo Contendre”
Kenneth D White “Mother’s Ghost Lamp”
Poems by Winners, Honorable Mentions and Finalists will appear in the Fall/Winter 2023 issue of The Comstock Review.
Read more about Muriel Craft Bailey here
Recent Winners
2022 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest Prize Winners
Final Judge: Ellen Bass
Prize-winning, Honorable Mention, and Special Merit poems appeared in print
in The Comstock Review vol. 36 no. 2, Fall/Winter 2022-2023.
First Prize
Rebecca Brock, “Sometime in the Late Age of a Long Marriage”
Second Prize
Ann Miller, “Vermont Bluejay”
Third Prize
Lana Hechtman Ayers, “I Never Thought to Lie Down with My Father,”
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Linda Neal Reising, “After Learning That a Woman and Her Baby Were Killed in the Bombing of a Ukranian Maternity Hospital
Frank Dixon Graham, “Tractor”
SPECIAL MERITS (Alphabetical)
Cory Brown, “Something Strange”
Kathleen Cain, “Hospice”
Stanley Crawford, Jr, “Encounter With a Pilgrim” and “Response to César Vallejo”
Joann Deiudicibus, “Notes for New Writers”
Deborah Doolittle, “Elizabeth Bishop’s Fish”
Diana Fusting, “Just in Case”
Bill Glose, “Making Love to the Terminally Ill”
Lila Goldstein, “Treating a Wound with Idle Water” and “Double Knot”
Katharyn Howd Machan, “A Crutch Leaning on an Empty Chair”
Maureen L. McCormick, “The Tonic of Wildness”
Kristina Moriconi, “Into the Breach”
Connie Post, “The School Bathroom”
Ellen Peckham, “Scissors
Martin Settle, “A Male Ruby-Crowned Kinglet” and “12 Bullets for 30 Years of Marriage”
Lisken Van Pelt Dus, “Between Damage and Lighthouse”
James K. Zimmerman, “In Memory of the Grandfather I Never Knew”
THE COMSTOCK REVIEW
WINNERS OF THE 2021 MURIEL CRAFT BAILEY MEMORIAL CONTEST
Final Judge: Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate, 2015-2017
FIRST PRIZE, $1,000: Tania DeRozario, from Vancouver, BC, Canada,
Note to the Queer Kid in the Pews: In Classical Mythology, Lucifer
is a Name for the Planet Venus
SECOND PRIZE l($250) Shaun T. Griffin, from Virginia City, NV,
Beneath the Laurel of Immigrant Ashes
THIRD PRIZE ($100) Marianne Peel,from Vernon Hills, IL
I Cannot Tell Whether You Come from the Shadows or the Edge of the Sun
POEMS OF HONORABLE MENTION *
Patricia Davis-Muffett, from Rockville, MD, On Looking Away
Melissa McKinstry, from San Diego, CA, What Kills You
POEMS OF SPECIAL MERIT **
William Barnes, from Santa Fe, NM, the lake, only water
George Burns, from Pacific Palisades, CA, Like One Bird Wing
Partridge Boswell, from Woodstock, VT, Strike Anywhere
John M. Davis, from Visulia, CA, the witch of Ekron
Steve Fay, from Cuba, IL, Prehistory,
Jonathan Greenhause, from Jersey City, NJ, Of Basket Cases & Melting Caps
Yael Hocohen, from Tel Aviv, Israel, Ironstone, a Sonnet
Kathryn Jordan, from Berkeley CA,
Two Poems: Catastrophic Molt & Washing the Body
Holly Messitt, from Brooklyn, NY, Purple Joy
Athar C. Pavis, from Paris, France,
Two Poems: He Asked & Re-Orphaned
Connie Post, from Livermore, CA, How to Dispose of a Memory
Susan Roney-O’Brien, from Princeton, MA, Last Stop
Jamie Ross, from Carson, NM, Hand-Drawn Diagram of Daniel’s Baler
Ed Ruzicka, from Baton Rouge, LA, Variations on the Theme by Juan Miró
Amy Small-McKinney, from Philadelphia, PA, Bench, Ducks, & Inn
Molly Sturdevant, from Forest Park, IL, Absolute Ghosts
Barbara Ungar, from Saratoga Springs, NY, My Head and I
Holly Voorsanger, from Santa Cruz, CA, How to Make Sense of Things
*All poems listed here were published in The Comstock Review Vol. 35, #2.
The Comstock Review:
Winners of the 2020 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Contest
Final Judge: Patricia Smith
FIRST PRIZE, $1,000: Sheila Smith McKoy, Their Children’s Children
SECOND PRIZE l($250) Frank Paino, Lot’s Wife
THIRD PRIZE ($100) karla k. morton, Ode to a Willow
POEMS OF HONORABLE MENTION *
Janine Certo, O Body of Bliss (First Honorable Mention) &
Ways to Heal a Country (Honorable Mention) (2 poems)
A.T. Hincapie, Song After Diagnosis (Honorable Mention)
Markham Johnson, Booker T. Washington High School Graduation,1972 –
Tulsa, Oklahoma (Honorable Mention)
Elizabeth Kerlikowske, Instructions I Came With, (Honorable Mention)
Mary B. Moore, Musk Thistle &
Saying the Glass Flower and the Sea (2 poems of Honorable Mention)
POEMS OF SPECIAL MERIT *
John Blair, Leverage & The Art of Poison, (2 poems)
Lili Flanders, Rock Creek Park
D.A. Gray, Our Own City
B. Fulton Jennes, Silver Demon
Markham Johnson, Florence Learns How to Fly
AKaiser, Dove Shells
Frederick-Douglass Knowles II, Conversion
Daniel Martin, Shiny
karla k. morton, Perigee
Linda Brandt Myers, Piece of White Paper
Khalisa Rae, Buzzwords and Banned Books
Sophia Rivkin, US Covid Deaths Near 100,000
Makayla Smith, Childhood (A List Poem)
*All poems listed here were published in The Comstock Review Vol. 34, #2.
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