cow creek chapbook prize
announcing the winner of the 2024 cow creek chapbook prize:
dante di stefano, for standard time​​​
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judge traci brimhall on her final selection:
“Each of these poems speaks to the dead and the living as they move through different passages of time, whether the brief expanse of a day or of history. The titles often want to offer us a generous clarity while observing the bewildering world. There’s a gorgeous lyricism, but also a bare vulnerability, a deep listening to the heartbeat beneath the poem. Di Stefano utilizes so much skill in crafting these poems, but it’s the profound and moving humanity in them that moved me most. These poems reoriented the atoms in my heart.”
pre-orders available soon!
Dante Di Stefano is the author of four poetry collections including, most recently, the book-length poem, Midwhistle (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023). His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Best American Poetry 2018, Prairie Schooner, The Sewanee Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in English Literature from Binghamton University. His poetry has won numerous awards, including the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, the Manchester Poetry Prize (UK), the Red Hen Press Poetry Award, the Thayer Fellowship in the Arts, among others. He co-edited the anthology Misrepresented People (NYQ Books, 2018) and lives in Endwell, NY with his wife and two children.
next year's contest:
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The Cow Creek Chapbook Prize is a poetry chapbook contest brought to you by Pittsburg State University. We're open to all styles and subjects. As long as the poems challenge and capture the imagination, we want to see them. The winning poet will receive $1,000 and 25 author copies. The 2025 contest opens February 15 and closes May 15.
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guidelines:
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Submit 15-30 pages of poetry with a $15 entry fee by May 15, 2025.
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Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if the chapbook is accepted elsewhere.
Multiple submissions are fine, but each chapbook must be submitted separately.
It’s fine if individual poems have been previously published or if one is accepted over the course of the contest, but the arrangement of poems must be an original work.
Submissions are read blind, so please don’t include your name or other identifying information anywhere on the manuscript.
Past or present students of Pittsburg State University and individuals directly connected to the judge are not eligible to submit.
directors:
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Chase Dearinger
Peter Vertacnik
editorial staff:
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Chloe Hanson
Taylor Johnson
Spencer Young
Winniebell Xinyu Zong
questions? contact us:
We subscribe to the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics. Guidelines and issues of conflict of interest can be found above. Part of that code is making our process transparent to the public. All chapbooks are initially read by the editorial staff. Exceptional chapbooks then go to a second round of readers, who narrow potential winners down to a limited number of finalists, which are sent to the guest judge for selection.