Boston Review, in partnership with the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center, proudly presents the winners of the Discovery / Boston Review 2018 Poetry Contest awarding the Joan Leiman Jacobson Poetry Prizes. Now in its seventh decade, the contest recognizes and celebrates exceptional work by poets who have not yet published a first book. Many of the contest’s past winners—including John Ashbery, Mary Jo Bang, Lucille Clifton, Nick Flynn, Sherod Santos, Solmaz Sharif, and Mark Strand—have gone on to distinguished writing careers. This year’s competition received over 1,100 submissions, all of which were read anonymously by preliminary judges Jerriod Avant and Boston Review poetry co-editor Timothy Donnelly. After much deliberating, final judges Craig Santos Perez, Srikanth Reddy, and Dara Wier awarded this year’s prizes to Heidi Poon, Jake Skeets, Monica Sok, and Paul Tran. The three runners-up are Alfredo Aguilar, Jameson Fitzpatrick and Joe Gutierrez. Winners read from their work at the Unterberg Poetry Center in New York on Thursday, May 10.


For Andreas at Fifteen in Late March
Heidi Johannesen Poon

Love Letter to a Dead Body
Jake Skeets

Americans Dancing in the Heart of Darkness
Monica Sok

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Paul Tran