International Poetry Contest

$1,000 First Prize

2021 Contest Judge: Adrian Matejka

Submissions are open April 1 – May 31, 2021.

• Send up to three poems per entry, no more than 14 pages. (Additional poems will be accepted with additional entry fees.)
• Choose your entry fee: $15 or $20.
  • $20 entry fee includes a one-year subscription.
  • $15 entry fee includes a copy of the issue in which the winning poems appear.
• Include name and address on the cover letter only.
• First, second, and third place winners will be published in Issue 106.
• All poems will be considered for publication.
• Previously published poems, including those that have appeared on websites, blogs, and personal home pages, are not eligible.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that you please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
• Judge will remove from consideration any entries she recognizes as having been written by writers with whom she has worked.
• Contest results will be announced in October.

River Styx accepts online submissions via Submittable. No email submissions will be considered. You may also mail your entry, along with entry fee and self-addressed stamped envelope, to the following:

River Styx International Poetry Contest
3301 Washington Ave, Suite 2C, St. Louis, MO 63103

Mailed entries must be postmarked by May 31, 2021.

---

2020 International Poetry Contest Winners

We would like to send our sincerest thank you to our contest judge, Lee Ann Roripaugh. The poems listed below will be featured in the upcoming River Styx Issue #105.

Winner

First Place: “A Spell for Becoming Lace” by Robin Davidson

 “’A Spell for Becoming Lace’ is a poem that sings a song of acquiescence and resistance, of dissolution and perdurability in the face of natural disaster. It is a poem of transformation, in which home, family, and place are rendered into mesh by the violence of a hurricane, then reclaimed through the associational lacework of making and unmaking. What endures in the powerful lines of this poem is the glorious and lovely architecture of bones, of survival, of love. ”
—Lee Ann Roripaugh

Runners Up

Second Prize: “On the Medicine River” by Justin Hunt

Third Prize: “Howl” by Kathryn Merwin

Honorable Mention: “The Ferris Wheel” by Cal Freeman

---

2019 International Poetry Contest Winners

We would like to send our sincerest thank you to this years contest judge, Oliver de la Paz. The poems listed below will be featured in the upcoming River Styx Issue #103.

Winner

First Place: “Elegy with Halitosis and Underemployment as Megachurch Janitor” by Cody Smith 

 “I love the audacity of the title and the winding, twisting narrative of this poem as it unfurls from smoking on breaks with a co-worker to an understanding of hunger—both physical and spiritual. It’s a riveting poem.”
—Oliver de la Paz

Runners Up

First Runner-Up: “Speciesism” by W. J. Herbert

Second Runner-Up: “The Abandoned Reservoir” by Marcia L. Hurlow

Third Runner-Up: “Captiva Island” by Jackie Craven

---

2018 International Poetry Contest Winners

We would like to thank our contest judge, Maggie Smith.  These poems are featured in the upcoming River Styx Issue #101. 

Winners

First Place: “Broken Season” by Andrew Hemmert

“The pleasures of this poem are many: apt metaphors, masterful enjambments and turns within and between lines (‘Next year we’re drilling/ in the Arctic. I’m still shaking/ Fall’s stink bugs out of my sleeves…’), surprising yet deft transitions, and a speaker who feels familiar, and at ease, in a way I’m tempted to call Midwestern. The poem is accessible but not ‘easy’; it’s descriptive but does not use figurative language and imagery as mere ornamentation.”
—Maggie Smith

Second Place: “Self-Portrait on the Beloved’s Body” by Michael Dhyne
Third Place: “Parting with Saddles” by Skyler LaLone

Honorable Mentions

“Oranges in Michigan” by Andrew Hemmert
“Street Vendor” by Mariano Zaro

---

2017 International Poetry Contest Winners

Our most sincere thank you to contest judge, Carl Phillips. The poems below are featured in River Styx Issue #99.

Winners

First Place: “The Gallery of Inanimate Objects” by Bruce Bond
Second Place: “Turkana Boy” by Charles Tisdale
Third Place: “Some Other Blaze in Us” by Leslie Williams

Honorable Mentions

“Gulls” by Grace Baran
“After a Busy Day, We Sit” by Lynne Burnett
“Christmas Eve” by Alan Elyshevitz
“About Paradise” by Marcia L. Hurlow
“Beside the River” by Stephanie Maniaci
“Give Me One Reason” by William Nolan
“New Math” by Gabriel Spera

---

2016 International Poetry Contest Winners

Special thanks to our judge, Heather McHugh. Read the poems shown here in River Styx Issue #97.

Winners

First Place: “The Cartographer’s Proposal” by John Richard Reed
Second Place: “Eat the Weed, the Stinking Rose” by Rebecca Pelky
Third Place: “Results May Vary” by Elton Glaser