Ethnographic Poetry Competition

Since 1986, the Society for Humanistic Anthropology has hosted a prize for ethnographic poetry. The Poetry Prize Competition seeks to support poets writing with ethnographic material and encourage anthropologists to use poetic methods in their work.

We seek pieces that are equally well crafted as poems and as ethnography. We feel that good ethnographic poems are eloquent and vital in their engagement with the world, using the tools of poetry to elaborate on the human experience; and also hold their own as works of scholarship, opening up spaces for different forms of critical thought. We invite poets to refer to the Summer issues of Anthropology and Humanism for examples of past winners.

Eligible poets are practitioners of the crafts of poetry and ethnography, and may be affiliated with a university, independent scholars, authors, journalists, or other professionals in the field(s) of anthropology and ethnography.

Poets may submit up to three poems. There is no entry fee. The first-place winner will receive a monetary award. All winning poets will be recognized at the Society’s Awards Ceremony, receive a year of SHA membership, and have their poems considered for publication in the Society’s journal, Anthropology and Humanism.

The deadline for the Poetry Prize Competition is in June.

Please return for our Call for Submissions.

The prize includes a free SHA membership.

Past Winners

 
  • 1st Prize, J Brent Crosson, Coral Gardens, Jamaica, 2010

  • 1st Prize, Debra Vidali, Two Row Repair II & III

    2nd Prize, Yixuan Wang, A Cootie Catcher to Recruit 'English Native Teachers' to Teach in China

    3rd Prize, Febi R Ramadhan, Two Lovers, God, and Everything-in Between

    Honorable Mention, Susan Haris, Anti-trauma

  • 1st Prize, Khando Langri, I sing the body ethnographic

    2nd Prize, Kali Rubaii, Homelanding (Hello Tigris; Sweet Air; Fabric)

    3rd Prize, Kristina van Dexter, Magic Cattle (Magic Cattle; Rastrojo; The selva)

    Honorable Mention, Nomaan Hasan, to fellow merchants of experience

    Honorable Mention, Rodrigo Arthuso, four ways to die among the singing people (in less than two weeks)

  • 1st Prize, Wesley Brunson, Dragonfly

    2nd Prize, Whitney Duncan, Verification Settings

    3rd Prize, Tasneem Mandviwala, Hyphenwoman

    Honorable Mention, Samia Mehraj, War and time waits for nobody's mothers in Kashmir

    Honorable Mention, Yixuan Wang, A new year in America

  • 1st Prize, Susan Wardell, Fingeryeyes; Social scripts; Flow

    2nd Prize, J. Brent Crosson, The Traffic in Birds (The Traffic, The Port, The Birds)

    3rd Prize, Jamie Davidson, Alternative Texts

  • 1st Prize, Casey Golomski, Police / Matsapha, Swaziland, 28 July 2008; Phenomena / Matsapha, Swaziland, 19 August 2008; Personification / Ludwala, Swaziland, 23 December 2009

  • 1st Prize (tie), Darcy Alexandra, Extrajudicial Killing, San Salvador, 1991; Ruta de la Malintzin; Is it More Ordinary to Forget or to Remember?

    1st Prize (tie), Iza Kavedžija, worlds apart, or two fieldsites [by Iza Kavedžija and Harry Walker]; (no longer mine) view of Utsubo park

    2nd Prize, William M. Cotter, 56 Seconds

    Honorable Mention, Wesley Brunson, Cultivating Boredom

    Honorable Mention, Cassie Smith-Christmas, Virginia Place

  • 1st Prize, Jenanne Ferguson, Blessing for the Permafrost and City of Dust

    2nd Prize (tie), Jeremy Jacob Peretz, Calabash Microcosm

    2nd Prize (tie), M. J. Gette, Birthday Party: San Jorge, Guatemala 8/12 and Dos Cuentos: two stories told to us when we stopped in the aldeas during the trek through the altiplano of Guatemala, and then the highlands

    3rd Prize, Sarah Green, Walking Home from India

    Honorable Mention, Erin Jin Mei O'Malley, sister and I have nothing to hold anymore

    Honorable Mention, Uzma Falak, Point of Departure

    Honorable Mention, Derwin Sisnett, Adansonia Digitata

    Honorable Mention, Levi Romero, La Waitress, and he puts his hand to his chest

    Honorable Mention, Marcia Rego, Unadvisable

    Honorable Mention, LaShaune P. Johnson, Devil on my shoulder: An ode to Adriamycin

    Honorable Mention, Myntha Anthym, On the Ownership of Air

  • 1st Prize, Eleanor Stanford, Afterbirth; Dona França; Dona Bela, Midwife of Lençóis

    2nd Prize, Abigail Carl-Klassen, Mennonite border crossing

    3rd Prize, Francesca Mezzenzana, Sacha Muskuy (Forest Dream)

  • 1st Prize, Bonnie Auslander, Dwellings of the World and Origins of the Mediterranean

    2nd Prize (tie), Joey Chin, Token Gap ; The Heart Stops at the Door; Rhetoric

    2nd Prize (tie), Paul Schissel, Petals in Gutters: Tai sowing needle's hum

    3rd Prize, Jake Young, Commensality

    Honorable Mention, Leah Zani, The Fruit-eaters and The Blast Radius

    Honorable Mention, Devi K. Lockwood, Cabinet of Curiosities: River Bones

  • 1st Prize, Heather Altfeld, Apperson Ranch, 1908

    2nd Prize, Adrie Kusserow, American Bardo

    3rd Prize, John S. O'Connor, Sun Poisoning

  • 1st Prize, Janis Rodgers, Malalel

    2nd Prize, Ather Zia, The Ex Fighter Returns

    3rd Prize, Terese V. Gagnon, Normaltown

    Honorable Mention, Steven Alvarez, 2000/5th Sun/Our Present

    Honorable Mention, Heidi Kelley, The Anthropologist Returns

    Honorable Mention, Xueting Liu, Waiting for John Nash Outside a Beijing conference Room

  • 1st Prize, Irina Carlota Silber, Nanita

    2nd Prize, Kuo Zhang, One Child Policy

    3rd Prize, Jonathan Glasser, Enemy Territory

    Honorable Mention, Elena Harap, Sanctuary/Home

  • 1st Prize, Carolyn Moore, Translator's Notes on the Island of Unst's Norn Fragment, Forkortning Saga

    2nd Prize, Susan Settlemyre Williams, KV55: Its Voices

    3rd Prize, W.F. Lantry, Yungas Valley

    Honorable Mention, Worth Summers, Coyote, Clacier Point Winter

    Honorable Mention, Christine Eber, Do You Want Me To Cut More Vegetables, Boss?

  • 1st Prize, Christina Lovin, Myth Information

    2nd Prize, Brynn Champney, Infinite Genocide

    3rd Prize, Angela Just, Ardor

    Honorable Mention, Felice Wyndham, In the Chaco

    Honorable Mention, Ira Joe Fisher, Under the Roof Lines of Annville

  • 1st Prize, Marilyn Wilkey Merritt, Waiting for A Young Poet in Niamey and Dakar Rhythms of Ramadan

    2nd Prize, Peter Nelson, A Tuscan Necropolis

    3rd Prize, Marie Gervais, On this day nobody die

  • Winner, Liz Beasley, Vestigial

    2nd Prize, Roberta Feins, The Great Market

    3rd Prize, Liza Bakewell, The Cacique

    Honorable Mention, Jennifer Wooten, ¿De Dónde es Usted?

    Honorable Mention, Brooke Bocast, A Good Woman

  • 1st Prize, Roy Jacobstein, HIV Needs Assessment

    2nd Prize, Alison Pelegrin, The Bois Sec Suite

    3rd Prize, Anoopa Sharma, Living Bangladesh

    Honorable Mention, Benjamin Vogt, How We Came to be Here

    Honorable Mention, Lucille Lang Day, I Always Knew It

    Honorable Mention, Karen Rodriguez, Yellow Underwear

  • 1st Prize, Kristina Lyons, Then Silence; Thanks to G. E. Patterson

    2nd Prize, Lorraine Healy, The General's Hands

    3rd Prize, Renato Rosaldo, Among Tribesmen

  • Winner, Michael Glaser, My Daughter, Dancing, Silence, Discovering God (in Barnes and Noble), and St Vitus Cathedral.

    Honorable Mention, Nandini Gunewardena, Silenced

    Honorable Mention, Carolyn Hill-Bjerke, Preservation, The New York Armory–Friday, September 14th, 2001, and Remains

    Honorable Mention, Louise Tokarsky-Unda, Tortillas and La Guadalupana

    Honorable Mention, Margaret Litvin, Haitian Scene and Mango

  • Co-Winner, Melisa Cahnmann, American Defense

    Co-Winner, Heidi Kelley, In the Waiting Room; Que Sinvergüenza; Green is the Color of Galician Death

  • 1st Prize, Tracy Lewis, Meditacin in and about Mbohapy e; Pax Nobiscum; Muse; Pride?; Ignoramus

    2nd Prize, Brian and Roberta Swann, Slugs; Soft Boiled Eggs

    3rd Prize, Debra Nystrom, Hushang Philsooph

  • Winner, Adrie Kusserow, Twenty-first Century Religiotropic

    Honorable Mention, Tope Omoniyi, Gbomo Gbomo

    Honorable Mention, Kent Maynard, Rain, Again

  • Winner, Jeanne Simonelli, Conflict Zone: Expressions of Fieldwork in Chiapas

  • Winner, Helen Frost, The Corner of Clay and Berry

  • Winner, Adrie Kusserow, American Nomads; Hunting Down the Monk; Picking the Streets, Kathmandu; Bulimia Religiosa; Learning Gods: Buddha- Confession 31; No Gods Left

  • Winner, Jim Funaro, The Dancing Stones of Callanish

  • Co-Winner, Tara Waters Lumpkin, The Mountaineer

    Co-Winner, Keith Smith, Palm Sunday; Good Friday

  • Co-Winner, John McCall, Motopark Beggars

    Co-Winner, Charles Underwood, Ethnography of the Unspoken

  • Winner, Charles Underwood, Oral History

  • Winner, Don Mitchell, Shifting Agriculture and Sightlines

  • Winner, Kate Altork, Ocote

    Honorable Mention, Bill Holm, Vietnamese Cooking in Reykjavik

    Honorable Mention, Edith Laurencin, and wah dey give we?

    Honorable Mention, Miles Richardson, Sequin to Guadalajara on Various Levels and in More Times Than I Can Count: The Continuation of Lives Already Dead

    Honorable Mention, Raman Srinivasan, Museum

  • 1st Prize, John F. Sherry, Jr., Restoration Triptych; Too Far Afield; Local Custom [Field Journal/Amsterdam Station]

    2nd Prize (tie), Martin F. Manalansan IV, New York City 1991: On the Margins of an Ethnography; (Dis)Other

    2nd Prize (tie), Kent Maynard, Burying the Dead; Bamenda in Dry Season; Night Lights

    Honorable Mention, Caroline G. Banks, Lessons in Bipedalism

  • 1st Prize, Charles F. Underwood, Third World Night; Los Muertos

    2nd Prize, Jeanne Simonelli, Road Song I (Field Course 1989); Road Songs II (Last Hike); Guatemala 1990

    Honorable Mention, Catherine J. Allen, Old Griefs; Loss and the Academic Lizard

    Honorable Mention, Caroline G. Banks, Ode to Three Pillows

    Honorable Mention, Ward H. Goodenough, Morning star

    Honorable Mention, Clive Kileff, A White African Goes Home

    Honorable Mention, Vicki Levine, Duality

    Honorable Mention, Gabriel Seabrook, The Fount of Elysium

    Honorable Mention, John F. Sherry, Gaea Descending

    Honorable Mention, Dwayne C. Turner, La Chica (Little Girl)

  • 1st Prize, Stephanos Stephanides, Yet I Still Celebrate You Lotus of the Mud Flats; Sky of the Hearts (Chidambaram); The Sacrifice as in a Vision

    2nd Prize, Michael V Angrosino, Miss Anna Walks; At the Hotel Royal

    3rd Prize, Mary Courtis, A Spiritual Kaleidoscope; Letting the Caged Bird Sing

    Honorable Mention, Clive Kileff, Paul, the blind driver

  • 1st Prize, Susan Landgraf, Kung Woman Lament; From an Interview with Winnie Mandela; To an Astronaut from an Ancient on the Use of Search Lights

    2nd Prize, Catherine Tihanyi, Once upon a time, on the sparkling shores of the Mediterranean; At Myth End

    3rd Prize, Patricia Marshal, Ode to the Water Spirit; This is the Year

    Honorable Mention, William Y. Adams, The Vision Quest

  • Winner, Gordon Lester-Massman, Mistakes in Paradise

    Runner-up, Barbara J Michael, Desert Scrub; Where

  • Winner, Anthony Leeds, We Shall Dry Our Eyes

    1st Runner-up, Dan Rose, We Discovered the Dancing Surfaces of Fire

    1st Runner-up, Ivan Brady, cannibal-ism

    Honorable Mention, Dennis Tedlock, Five Days from a Dream Almanac

*should you have an addition or correction, please contact societyforhumanisticanthro@gmail.com