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
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1st Prize, J Brent Crosson, Coral Gardens, Jamaica, 2010
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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1st Prize, Casey Golomski, Police / Matsapha, Swaziland, 28 July 2008; Phenomena / Matsapha, Swaziland, 19 August 2008; Personification / Ludwala, Swaziland, 23 December 2009
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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
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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
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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)
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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
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1st Prize, Heather Altfeld, Apperson Ranch, 1908
2nd Prize, Adrie Kusserow, American Bardo
3rd Prize, John S. O'Connor, Sun Poisoning
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Co-Winner, Melisa Cahnmann, American Defense
Co-Winner, Heidi Kelley, In the Waiting Room; Que Sinvergüenza; Green is the Color of Galician Death
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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
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Winner, Adrie Kusserow, Twenty-first Century Religiotropic
Honorable Mention, Tope Omoniyi, Gbomo Gbomo
Honorable Mention, Kent Maynard, Rain, Again
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Winner, Jeanne Simonelli, Conflict Zone: Expressions of Fieldwork in Chiapas
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Winner, Helen Frost, The Corner of Clay and Berry
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Winner, Adrie Kusserow, American Nomads; Hunting Down the Monk; Picking the Streets, Kathmandu; Bulimia Religiosa; Learning Gods: Buddha- Confession 31; No Gods Left
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Winner, Jim Funaro, The Dancing Stones of Callanish
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Co-Winner, Tara Waters Lumpkin, The Mountaineer
Co-Winner, Keith Smith, Palm Sunday; Good Friday
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Co-Winner, John McCall, Motopark Beggars
Co-Winner, Charles Underwood, Ethnography of the Unspoken
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Winner, Charles Underwood, Oral History
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Winner, Don Mitchell, Shifting Agriculture and Sightlines
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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
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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
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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)
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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
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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
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Winner, Gordon Lester-Massman, Mistakes in Paradise
Runner-up, Barbara J Michael, Desert Scrub; Where
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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