The Hollis Summers Poetry Prize
Named after the distinguished poet who taught for many years at Ohio University and made Athens, Ohio, the subject of many of his poems, this competition invites writers to submit unpublished collections of original poems.
The competition is open to both those who have not published a book-length collection and those who have.
Submission Period
Manuscripts must be postmarked by October 31. Those postmarked later will be returned unread.
Format
Manuscripts of 60 to 95 pages should be typed on standard sized paper or be a clean photocopy. Do not send your only copy. Name, address, and phone number should appear on the title page. Acknowledgments should appear on a separate page. Individual collections must be the work of a single author. Translations are not accepted. Manuscripts should be submitted in final form; revisions or emendations to acknowledgments will not be considered during the contest. Multiple submissions to other publishers are acceptable provided we are informed if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere. The manuscript should be submitted in a plain 9 × 11½" manila folder. Please do not submit manuscripts bound in ring binders or plastic holders.
Return of Manuscripts
Because we cannot guarantee the return of the manuscripts, all entries become the property of Ohio University Press and those not chosen will be recycled. Do not include a self-addressed stamped envelope. All contestants will be notified following the final selection. Include a self-addressed stamped postcard if you wish acknowledgment of receipt.
Entry Fee
Submissions should include a check for $20 made out to Ohio University Press to help defray administrative costs.
Judging
The final judge for the competition will be named when the winner is announced in April. Individual criticism of manuscripts cannot be given.
Prize
The winning manuscript will be published by Ohio University Press the following year and will be awarded a cash prize of $1000.
Send all materials to:
Hollis Summers Poetry PrizeOhio University Press
19 Circle Drive
The Ridges
Athens, OH 45701
Roger Sedarat
2007
Ann Hudson
2006
Jennifer Rose
2005
Joshua Mehigan
2004
Dan Lechay
2003
Robert B. Shaw
2002
Allison Eir Jenks
Kwame Dawes
2000
V. Penelope Pelizzon
Memye Curtis Tucker
Meredith Carson
1997
Hollis Summers Poetry Prize Winners 1997-2005
Poetry Prize Winners
Dear Regime
Letters to the Islamic Republic
In his provocative, brave, and sometimes brutal first book of poems, Roger Sedarat directly addresses the possibility of political change in a nation that some in America consider part of “the axis of evil.…
The Armillary Sphere
Poems
By Ann Hudson
Taking the warp of dream, sometimes nightmare, and weaving it with the ordinary world, the poems of The Armillary Sphere, Ann Hudson's award-winning debut collection, do not simplify the mystery but deepen it.…
Hometown for an Hour
Poems
In her second collection of poems, Jennifer Rose writes primarily of places and displacement. Using the postcard's conventions of brevity, immediacy, and, in some instances, humor, these poems are greetings from destinations as disparate as Cape Cod, Kentuckiana, and Croatia.…
The Optimist – On Sale
Poems
In Joshua Mehigan’s award-winning poetry, one encounters a lucid, resolute vision driven by an amazing facility with the metrical line. Most of the poems in The Optimist unapologetically employ traditional poetic technique, and, in each of these, Mehigan stretches the fabric of living language over a framework of regular meter to produce a compelling sonic counterpoint.…
The Quarry – On Sale
Poems
By Dan Lechay
Marvelous, disquieting, extraordinarily beautiful book that meditates on fundamental questions of time and change in and through a clear-eyed yet loving evocation of everyday existence. Once or twice in a generation a poet comes along who captures the essential spirit of the American Midwest and gives name to the peculiar nature that persists there.…
Solving For X – On Sale
Poems
In Solving for X, his award-winning collection of new poems, Robert B. Shaw probes the familiar and encounters the unexpected; in the apparently random he discerns a hidden order. Throughout, Shaw ponders the human frailties and strengths that continue to characterize us, with glances at the stresses of these millennial times that now test our mettle and jar our complacency.…
The Palace of Bones – On Sale
The Palace of Bones by Allison Eir Jenks is an often stark and startling vision of the way we live, the places we inhabit, and the relics we make to comfort ourselves. Haunted by a quiet, unquenchable longing, Jenks expertly and calmly guides the reader through a vivid dreamscape in this first full-length collection of poems.…
Midland
Poems
By Kwame Dawes
The winning manuscript of the fourth annual Hollis Summers Poetry Prize is also the exciting American debut by a poet who has already established himself as an important international poetic voice. Midland, the seventh collection by Kwame Dawes, draws deeply on the poet's travels and experiences in Africa, the Caribbean, England, and the American South.…
Nostos – On Sale
In choosing the winning manuscript for the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, judge Andrew Hudgins remarked: "With immense poetic verve, Pelizzon finds flamboyance in places where it has been forgotten and brings it back to vivid life--and she sees it for what it is.…
The Watchers
In the world of Memye Curtis Tucker's poetry, the observed are on display, on trial, on guard, or disappearing, and often changed by the eyes upon them; the gazers are benevolent, threatening, judgmental, separate, invisible.…
Infinite Morning – On Sale
Poems
About the author of this award-winning collection, final judge Miller Williams commented: "Meredith Carson writes poems so well-controlled in tone that the language of conversation takes on an elegance rarely found in contemporary poetry, but emphatically contemporary.…
