We are pleased to announce that our 2024 Contest Judge, Diane Seuss, has selected a winner and two runners-up from a slate of finalists and semi-finalists for North American Review's 2024 James Hearst Poetry Prize. Thank you to everyone who submitted poetry for the prize. We had 503 entries this year, our second largest Hearst Contest, and we enjoyed reading such an abundance of excellent poetry. The winner, runners-up, honorable mentions, and finalists will appear in the Spring 2024 issue of North American Review, and all entrants will receive a copy.
Winner
“Anticipatory Grief as Phases of Moons” — Tara Mesalik MacMahon
Runners-Up
“Let’s End This Now” — Jessica Barksdale
“Dear Audre [We were on the bed]” — Molly Sutton Kiefer
Honorable Mention
“How We Do Silence” — D. Rhodes
Finalists
“Dear Audre [Instead of buying dresses]” — Molly Sutton Kiefer
“Hotel Room in Sfakia” — C. Francis Fisher
“100 Husbands” — Chelsea Kerwin
“Single Helix” — Jan Freeman
“Self-Portrait as Gender Neutral Bathroom” — Timothy Liu
“Winter” — B.D. Olivier
“Anthimeria” — Erin Murphy
“Azul” — Erin Murphy
“Prayer for Charles Simic” — Gregory Emilio
“Gulls at Santa Monica Beach” — Xiaoqiu Qiu
“Obit for Newsprint” — David Tucker
“Drowning in the Sky, July 26, 1959” — Zebulon Huset
“Poppies and Swallows” — Justine Defever
“X” — Raphael Dagold
"Divorce Flat: A Nocturne" — H.K. Hummel
“Invisible” — Kurt Luchs
About the Judge
DIANE SEUSS is the author of six books of poetry, including Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press 2024) and frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press 2021), the winner of the PEN/Voelcker Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Seuss was a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. She was raised by a single mother in rural Michigan, which she continues to call home.