announcing NaPoMo winner & finalists!

We are thrilled to announce the winner, finalists, and semi-finalists of our annual National Poetry Month competition. Each year, we dedicate an entire issue to poetry, with all finalists being published and the winner receiving an additional $1,000.

Geffrey Davis, author of Night Angler and Revising the Storm, and winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize as well as fellowships from the NEA and the Whiting Foundation, has selected Lily Greenberg's poem "The Moment I Discovered I Could Tell My Doctor to Write in ‘Refused’ Next to My Weight" as the 2023 IHLR NaPoMo winner!

Lily Greenberg is a poet from Nashville, Tennessee and the author of In the Shape of a Woman, published with Broadstone Books in 2022. Her work has appeared in On the Seawall, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, About Place Journal, LEON Literary Review, Hobart, and Relief Journal, among others, and she is the 2021 recipient of the Dick Shea Memorial Prize for Poetry. Her work has been funded by Bread Loaf Writers, University of New Hampshire, and Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. Lily holds an MFA from the University of New Hampshire and lives in the Hudson Valley where she serves as Grants Coordinator for Columbia University. Learn more at lily-greenberg.com.

Congratulations to Lily Greenberg and all our finalists and semi-finalists!

Finalists:

M. Soledad Caballero, "Ghosts Don’t Live by Our Rules"

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, "Because I cannot give you a child-caring robot"

Shelly Holder, "The Shirley Temple Kind"

Melissa Holm Shoemake, "Recoil"

Melissa Holm Shoemake, "Self-Portrait in Haint Blue"

John A. Nieves, "Anti-Pastoral b/w Interlocking Tercets"

Erin Elkins Radcliffe, "Jesus in Roswell"

Frederick Speers, "The Nihilist in the Neighborhood"

Coleman Taylor, "Dead Bull Waltz"

Semi-Finalists:

M. Soledad Caballero, "Inheritance"

Shelly Holder, "Reflected Star"

Melissa Holm Shoemake, "Trauma Bonds"

Michael Martin, "The Birthday Party"

John A. Nieves, "Drills"

Bryce O’Tierney, "Heirloom"

Erin Elkins Radcliffe, "In Indiana, the Sky is Also Blue"

Shin Watanabe, "An Everyday Dementia"

Shin Watanabe, "Moon Landing"