2021 Poetry Broadside Contest Winner Announced

Sundress Publications is thrilled to announce the results of the 2021 Poetry Broadside Contest, judged by Donna Vorreyer. This year’s winner is Britton Shurley with the poem “When I Think I Am Through with Beauty.” Shurley’s poem will be letterpress-printed as an 8.5” x 11” broadside and will be made available for sale in our online store. Orders for our broadsides will be open this summer.

A light-skinned man from the shoulders up, reclining against a brick wall. He is smiling, has dark hair and a beard, and is wearing a blue t-shirt with a fish on it and the word "Kentucky."

Britton Shurley is the author of the chapbook Spinning the Vast Fantastic (Bull City Press, 2021), and his poetry has appeared in such journals as Southern Humanities Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and Southern Indiana Review. He is the recipient of Emerging Artist Awards from the Kentucky Arts Council in both 2011 and 2016. He is an Associate Professor of English at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, where he edits Exit 7: A Journal of Literature & Art with his wife, the poet Amelia Martens. They live in Paducah, Kentucky with their daughters and curate the Rivertown Reading Series.

A light-skinned woman from the shoulders up with short blonde hair and glasses. She is wearing a black tank top and a necklace, and is looking off to the side.

The judge of the 2021 Poetry Broadside Contest is Donna Vorreyer, the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016), and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications, as well as eight chapbooks. Her work has appeared in Baltimore Review, Tinderbox Poetry, Poet Lore, Sugar House Review, Waxwing, and other journals, and she serves as an associate editor for Rhino Poetry. Recently retired from 36 years in public education, she looks forward to new adventures.

Thank you to everyone who sent us their work.

Finalists:
Yasmine Ameli, “I Resurrect Myself with an Eight-Quart Pot”
Gion Davis, “There’s Water You Can Die In”
Sneha Subramanian Kanta, “Fifteen Ways of Saying Hunger”
Jasmin Lankford, “Dr. Christine Blasey Ford Testified on My GRE Test Day”
Anne Livingston, “Concussion Season”
Michele Parker Randall, “Our Bodies Forget”
Anna Sandy-Elrod, “Molt”
Sreshtha Sen, “This is Not a Poem About My Mother”