The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize 2010

The Waywiser Press is now accepting submissions of poetry manuscripts for the fifth annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Entrants must be at least 18 years of age and may not have published more than one previous collection of poems. Manuscripts must be written in English. There is an entry fee of $25 for residents of the USA and £15 for entrants in the rest of the world. Read the full guidelines here.

Prizes:

The winner receives $ 3,000 or £ 1,750 and publication of the winning manuscript by Waywiser Press, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom.

Postmark deadline: December 1st, 2010.

about this poem

this poem has no first person singular
it is not about you either
and while it definitely has no nutrition value
it may contain genetically modified products

this poem was not written but produced
in a facility that also processes nuts, wheat and eggs
vacuum sealed for extended freshness
please see reverse for expiry date

this poem was enriched with sodium, iron and blood,
additives and preservatives approved by the FDA
no significant amount of metaphores or poetic license to be found
other rights may apply, such rights vary from state to state

this poem was not tested on humans
but it was indeed tested on rabbits, mice and a 16-year-old chimpanzee
they all seemed to enjoy it, except for the monkey
who scratched his head in sheer disbelief


[Poem parts made in India, Malaysia and Thailand. Assembled in China]


lex fairchild (Phoenix, AZ, 1982)

fuck you, i’m from kansas

Two inches of snow in Norwich and this city shuts down.
“There just isn’t enough grit!”
Fuck you, I’m from Kansas
Where grit comes from the inside
Where blizzards bury children in as little as eight minutes
And you just deal with it.
Socialized health care?
Fuck you, I’m from Kansas
If you get cut, you die. Simple as that.
Sure, we’ll pray for ya’ll, but that’s about it.
We buried pa in a field by the Kaw River after the rustlers came,
And ma died while trying to birth that calf, kicked in the head to death,
Little sister was bitten fifty-two times by a rattlesnake before she managed to bite off it’s head, and we couldn’t afford the antidote cause the cattle died of blight.
The poison still courses through her veins today. Makes her mean.
And when the well ran dry, fifteen kids tripped and fell into it
Cute little blonde-haired blue-eyed kids,
Like the kind you save in movies
Movies that are never set in Kansas
And as they fell to their tiny deaths
We just watched.
Health and safety?
Fuck you, I’m from Kansas
I went to school in a class of four hundred
Only eight of us are still alive
We couldn’t find Billy Ray after that twister got him.
He’s probably somewhere in Missouri
Or Ohio
Or maybe Iowa.
Or maybe bits of him in all three.
Did we miss him, yup,
But fuck you, I’m from Kansas
It’s just part of God’s plan
We just got color in ’94, before that, everything was black and white
Except the people, they were just white.
I’m not racist, fuck you, I’m from Kansas.
Nineteen of my friends died of dysentery,
Cholera got the other six
My Facebook page reads like the book of the dead
The dead of Kansas.
I cried once, when I was two, and pa punched me in the face
Fuck you, son. We don’t cry. Not in Kansas.
Nothing tastes better in Kansas than pain.
We like our women to have teeth
But it doesn’t always work out that way
You don’t always get what you want in Kansas.
If you don’t drink a case and a half of Pabst Blue Ribbon a day
Fuck you, get out of Kansas.
If you don’t stop at the titty bar along the highway
Fuck you, get out of Kansas.
Our capital, Topeka, is built of sticks and mud.
We added a brick once, and the whole thing fell over.
Forty thousand people died.
So we just started again.
Fuck you, I’m from Kansas.
I graduated at the top of my class in Kansas because I went to the library and read the book.//
Now I’m governor. Governor of fucking Kansas.
So when the snow comes next, and ya’ll English are trying to push your faggoty French cars out your ever-so-slightly frosted over roads, don’t come whining to me.//
I’ve seen it all. On the cold, cold prairie.
Fuck you, I’m from Kansas.


will averill (Lawrence, KS, 1974)

what i see

what I see is dead umbrellas
skeletons lying on the streets
no traces of the fabric that once stood
between rain and being

the sky is plumber gray
roads are empty
looted malls in a take-it-all spree
by spirits riding cinnamon buses

what I see is the outcome of a plague
a deadly virus, heavy weather
and Miley Cirus, half naked
a storm of epic proportions

the ultimate open-zipper policy
vague notions of a nation's
leftovers, cranks and cramps,
marauding bodies seeking prey


eleanor day (Tacoma, WA, 1979)

you say explode

the red wine was a pouring in a whirlwind binge
soy sprouts and foul mouthed outbursts,
icicle! popsicle! bicycle! rats!

the tension building upon the tension in a fringe
must be the poetry of lonesome short skirts,
tonsils! advil! Brazil! maps!

you say explode
the way you say things when you matter-of-factly mean it
google! goggles! giggles! fuck.

it all goes kaboom when the summer's in bloom
your ass no longer mine, now Zagat rated
you say explode

the way you say things when in your please-all mode
the mode you say things when it doesn't go your way
still, I rather go to a bring-your-own-beer kind of venue

you say explode, I say yeah!
it all goes down the drain; banal expectations of a normal life
anal perspiration when hostile cruelty is rife

not uncommon, by the way, building up to 7200 degrees
you say explode, sucker
and when that happens, sadly, it all goes stale


norbert norris (New Haven, CT, 1977)

maturity

i recently
took up
fashioning
a beard

        for what
        duration
        do i let
        this thicket
        germinate?

        what is
        the jugular
        etiquette?
        barber every
        two days?

on second
thought

i am
not ready
for this.


lawrence gladeview (Longmont, CO, 1983)

snakes and ladders

hierarchy

prevalence

ambition

escalade

intercourse

solitude

vacuum

descent

hunger

anger

fear

aggression

bad credit loans

submission

hell breaks loose


game instructions:
snake bites pull you down
and you tremble in cold sweat
ladder accidents pull you down
breaking your legs and your morale

go up and down at will
if you can


talbot dillinger (Rome, GA, 1973)