Now in its sixth decade, the "Discovery" Poetry Contest is designed to attract large audiences to poets who have not yet published a book. For this sixth year, the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center is proud to partner with Boston Review.
Many winners of this contest have gone on to distinguished careers as poets, among them John Ashbery, Lucille Clifton, Nick Flynn, David St. John and Rosanna Warren.
The four winners of the 2013 contest are Catherine Blauvelt, of Iowa City, IA; Raena Shirali, of Columbus, OH; Julia Guez, of New York, NY; and Erika L. Sánchez, of Chicago, IL.
The three runners-up are Natalie Scenters-Zapico, of Albuquerque, NM; and Armand Pierrot and Danniel Schoonebeek, both of New York, NY.
Preliminary judges were Greg Pardlo and Timothy Donnelly, poetry editor at Boston Review. Final judges were Eileen Myles, Bruce Smith and Juan Felipe Herrera.
Eileen Myles is the author of eighteen collections of poetry, fiction and nonfiction including Sorry, Tree; Chelsea Girls; Inferno (A Poet’s Novel); and Snowflakes/Different Streets. She’s the recipient of a Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, a Warhol/Creative Capital art writing grant and a Guggenheim fellowship.
Juan Felipe Herrera is the author of Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry and the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. He is currently the California Poet Laureate and a Chancellor at the Academy of American Poets.
Bruce Smith is the author of The Other Lover, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and Devotions, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. He was selected as a winner of the 1982 “Discovery” Prize. The judges were Galway Kinnell, Paul Zweig and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge.
This contest is endowed by Joan L. and Dr. Julius H. Jacobson, II.