The Collins Prize

Publication in Birmingham Poetry Review grants each author eligibility for the Collins Prize. This prize awards $500 annually to the best poem or group of poems published in BPR as judged by a poet of national reputation. Robert Collins, one of the journal’s founding editors, offers this prize in memory of his parents Veronica C. and John J. Collins.

Past Winners

2023 (for poems appearing in issue 50)

Mary B. Moore
Judge: Seth Brady Tucker
Read online:

• Dear Here
• Why the Word Ripple Obsesses Me
• The Teachings of Naranja

2022 (for poems appearing in issue 49)

Cecilia Woloch
Judge: Joy Priest
Read online: Boy in the Coalfields, circa 1929

2021 (for poems appearing in issue 48)

John Hodgen
Judge: Chad Abushanab
Read online:

• Leap
• Plague

2020 (for poems appearing in issue 47)

Christopher Bakken
Judge: Jane Satterfield
Read online: Theology at Black Earth Creek

2019 (for poems appearing in issue 46)

Sandy Longhorn
Judge: Stephen Kampa
Read online: Sisters Grown Distant

2018 (for poems appearing in issue 45)

Shara Lessley
Judge: Hastings Hensel
Read online:

• Late Epithalamium with Perennials
• The Ugly American

2017 (for poems appearing in issue 44)

Stephen Kampa
Judge: Richie Hofmann
Read online:

• Dodo
• The Quiet Boy

2016 (for poems appearing in issue 43)

Brandon Courtney
Judge: Dora Malech
Read online:

• Fuzzy Logic
• Theodicy
• The Lotus-Eater

2015 (for poems appearing in issue 42)

Michelle Chan Brown
Judge: Caki Wilkinson
Read online: The Drinker's Almanac

2014 (for poems appearing in issue 41)

Melissa Range
Judge: Chad Davidson
Read online: A Skiff of Snow

2013 (for poems appearing in issue 40) 

James Davis May
Judge: Juliana Gray
Read online: Two Angels

2012 (for his poem appearing in issue 39)

J. D. Schraffenberger
Judge: Gregory Fraser
Read online: The First Person

2011 (for poems appearing in issue 38)

Medbh McGuckian
Judge: C. Dale Young
Read online: Noir Poem