My apologies! The first version of this post did not link to the full video. This one does!
Last Saturday held one of the year’s highlights for me: the celebration of sonnets that was the culmination of hundreds of people’s love of the power and delight of poetry. Tim and I traveled to Winona, Minnesota to participate. Altogether, 18 poets of the 28 winning poets gathered via Zoom to share their work in their own voices; one was expertly read by the poet’s daughter; and three of the four judges–Emilio DeGrazia, Ken McCullough, and I–each read three sonnets for winning poets who could not attend. The administrative aplomb of Heidi Bryant and Johanna Rupprecht made everything flow smoothly. Rob Thomas served as an able and enthusiastic emcee. Ted Haaland, contest benefactor and poet-husband of the late Maria W. Faust, was present, too, making the event even more meaningful. Many thanks to Sonnet Contest partners, the Great River Shakespeare Festival and the River Arts Alliance, for supporting this annual project.
Below, is the press release in its entirety, with links to the video and to the flipbook of winning sonnets!
Winners of the 2023 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest Announced
WINONA, MN — The winners of the 2023 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest were announced at a hybrid in person / Zoom event held at the Winona County History Center on July 15, 2023. Eighteen of the twenty-eight winners read their sonnets live over Zoom with the remaining sonnets being read by contest judges Ken McCullough, Emilio DeGrazia, and Leslie Schultz. This year’s winners were as young as thirteen and read from as far away as Turkey. The video of the celebration can be viewed at sonnetcontest.org/events.
The 2023 contest received entries from 16 countries and 43 states. Almost 700 sonnets were submitted by 262 individuals, including 73 in the youth category. Prizes totaling $3,200 were awarded in the following categories: Top Four, Regional (4), Youth (4), and Laureates’ Choice (16). The winning sonnets are published on the website at sonnetcontest.org/2023-winners.
Top Four: Fire and Ice — Cynthia Erlandson (Royal Oak, MI); Smash Room — Erica Reid (Fort Collins, CO); Palo Colorado Fire, Big Sur 2022 — Laura Schulkind (Carmel, CA); and Getting Clean — Jason Sommer (St. Louis, MO).
Regional [Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa]: Capricorn — Scott Lowery (Milwaukee, WI); Skiing Sonnet — Barbara McAfee (St. Croix Falls, WI); On the Death of a Journalist at 44 — David Southward (Milwaukee, WI); and A Toast from the Musical Nobodies to the Also-Rans — Marilyn Taylor (Madison, WI).
Youth [high school and under]: The Upward Growth — Susannah Abel-Zucker (Northampton, MA); Honorable Mention: Climate Change — Yunzhe Hong (Fontana, CA); Ocean Sonnet— Sachi Tyagi (Fremont, CA); and People Love Sad Songs — Allison Xu (Rockville, MD).
Laureates’ Choice: Tandem — Jeff Balch (Evanston, IL); Tapetum Lucidum — John Beaton (Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, Canada); To This Day They Won’t Admit It — Charlotte Blair (Utterson, Ontario, Canada); Ejusdem generis — James Brooks (Signal Mountain, TN); Longer than timeless waters — Almila Dükel (Muğla, Turkey); A Bleak Spring Day — Maya Fritz (Chevy Chase, MD); Russian Nesting Dolls — Jonathan Greenhause (Jersey City, NJ); Never Again — Mia Grogan (Philadelphia, PA); In the County Jail at Natchez — Deborah L. Halliday (Warwick, RI); Twenty-one — Michael Harty (Prairie Village, KS); The Math Teacher — Jean Kreiling (Plymouth, MA); For a squirrel that did not die in the street — Libby Maxey (Conway, MA); The Talk — Rosemarie Moore Morell (Brooklyn, NY); I can’t go out today, please understand — Romy Negrin (New York, NY); How to Love the Moon — Laura Plummer (Gloucester, MA); and Big Game — Michael Waterson (Napa, CA).
About the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest:
The Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest is an annual event that welcomes entries from around the world to Winona. The contest honors the memory of Maria W. Faust: a Winona State University graduate in Communications; a twenty-year resident of Winona; an avid supporter of varied local arts; and a lover of poetry. Maria’s husband, Ted Haaland, is the contest’s benefactor, with the goal of keeping Maria’s love of poetry alive in our community and beyond.
The contest judges are Winona’s Poets Laureate James Armstrong, Ken McCullough, and Emilio DeGrazia, and Leslie Schultz of Northfield, MN. Heidi Bryant is the managing director of the contest. Johanna Rupprecht, Rob Thomas, and Ned Bryant assisted with the closing event. Great River Shakespeare Festival is a partner and River Arts Alliance acts as the fiscal sponsor.
To learn more about the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, please visit sonnetcontest.org or email entries@sonnetcontest.org.
