Contests

Read the winning poems from OPA’s new poets category in the Fall 2021 contest.

Read the winning poems from OPA’s theme category in the Fall 2021 contest.

Fall 2021 Adult Contest Winners in the Poet’s Choice Category Judge – Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, has seven full-length books of poetry, most recently One Small Sun, from Salmon Poetry in Ireland. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Willow Springs, Calyx, and the Internet’s Poetry Daily. A Stegner

Congratulations to all of the poets with winning poems in our Fall contest!  A total of 386 poems were entered, so the competition was rigorous.  Thank you to each of our judges for their expertise and hard work making these decisions, which are never easy with so many wonderful pieces to consider.  I thoroughly enjoyed

Spring 2021 Adult Contest Winning Poems for the Spanish Language Category Judge: Efraín Díaz-Horna “Recuerdo haber escuchado que un buen poema tiene la gracia de invitarnos a bailar, a pensar o a luchar con la ambiguedad de las palabras. El poema nos invita a destilar la esencia, el mensaje, de la ofrenda que nos hace

2021 Spring Contest Winning Poems in the Under 30 Category Judge: Tiel Aisha Ansari First Place: “etymology for rage” by Ashley Baker I am scrolling for the words, the poem to send you, shopping for the one that’s not too angry today, like America, one that is raging quietly like most women I know, like

2021 Spring Contest Winners for the Traditional Category (Dizain) Judge: John Sibley Williams First Place: “In the Key of Melancholy” by Barbara Blanks A sigh of shadows slips between the stars, creates a somber lyric when the sky and moon are strummed like out-of-tune guitars. The thrum of sounds, their smoky purrs awry as restless

2021 Spring Contest Winning Poems for the Theme Category: Emergence Judge – Rachel Barton First Place: “Because You Asked” by Michael Hanner Death is the return to the place we came from. Some say it looks a lot like McDonald, Goshen or East of Eden. I got here via my parents’ assault on the nothingness

2021 Spring Contest Winners in the New Poets Category Judge: Clements Starck First Place Tie: “Garden on Thanksgiving Morning” by Carol Boutard Pathways raked in July are covered with leaves, nothing thriving but billows of chickweed, sturdy rosettes of hawksbeard and mahonia which shakes fists of yellow buds at the sky. Brush dragged into piles