The Poetry Center sponsors a number of annual contests benefiting poets of many ages and levels of experience.
Since 1994, the Poetry Center’s Fieries and Snuffies Residency Program has offered emerging poets, fiction writers, and non-fiction writers an invaluable opportunity to focus on their work. The residency is a month-long stay in the Poetry Center’s guest house plus a $500 stipend. Past residents have gone on to receive the Lambda Literary Award, the Kenyon Review Book Prize and the Barnard New Woman Poet’s Prize for first books they worked on while in residence at the Poetry Center. The residency is awarded through a national juried competition and is offered between June 1 and August 31.
The Mary Ann Campau Fellowship for Southern Arizona Poets recognizes talented writers who strengthen and inspire the literary community in our region. The Fellowship provides a $1000 stipend and an opportunity to read in the Poetry Center Reading Series. The fellowship is named in memory of Mary Ann Campau, a resident of Tucson for forty years, a poet, and a devoted supporter of poetry and poets in our community.
The Bilingual High School Corrido Contest, open to all Arizona students in grades 9 through 12, both provides students with an avenue of self-expression, and encourages historical and cultural awareness. The corrido is a ballad form developed in Mexico in the 1800s and originally sung throughout the country. Although still popular in Mexico, over time it has became known as musica de la frontera (border music) because of its popularity along both sides of the U.S.–Mexico border. Prizes in the amounts of $300, $200, and $100 are awarded.
The Poetry Center also offers contests for University of Arizona students. The Hattie Lockett, Margaret Sterling Memorial, and Academy of American Poets awards give both graduate and undergraduate students the opportunity to be recognized for outstanding work.
And last but definitely not least, the Will Inman Scholarship is awarded to local community members who wish to benefit from the Poetry Center’s dynamic Classes and Workshops program. Two $75 scholarships are awarded each semester to offset the cost of tuition for one of our classes or workshops.
Administering these contests is an important way in which the Poetry Center fulfills its mission: to promote poetic literary and the literary arts.
