We are pleased to announce that Cori A. Winrock is the 2016 winner of Boston Reviews Annual Poetry Contest, selected by judge Shane McCrae.

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Winrock, pictured at right, won for her poems “Landscape in which I Am Obliterated by Light,” “What Would Happen to Your Body in Space Without a Spacesuit,” “Elegy as Yichud Room,” “Microchimera as Lullaby,” and “Polaroid Ode.” You can read her winning poems here. Winrock receives a $1,500 prize.

Winrock is the author of the book of poems This Coalition of Bones, which received the Freund Prize for a first collection. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Best New Poets anthology, West BranchCrazyhorseThe JournalMid-American Review, and elsewhere. Winrock received her MFA from Cornell University. She is currently a PhD candidate and Vice Presidential fellow in the Creative Writing program at the University of Utah. 

About her poems, McCrae writes:

Cori Winrock’s poems seem endless; or perhaps a better word would be boundaryless. Even her shorter poems expand not only beyond their conclusions, but expand as they are read—each word is a way in and a way out. In this way—and it is a bit of a paradox, because what I am saying is that her poems seem to take up an unusual amount of space—Cori Winrock’s poems make the world bigger. The poems are filters, but things coming out are bigger than they were going in.

Read the winning poems here.

Boston Review also offers its congratulations to the runners-up, Marcus Wicker and Desirée Alvarez. Read Wickers In My 31st Year and AlvarezTrading Post.


Recent past winners:

Safiya Sinclair (2015)
francine j. harris (2014)
Scott Coffel (2013)
Sarah Crossland (2012)
Heather Tone (2011)
Anthony Caleshu (2010)

A full list of past winners can be found here.