Bryn Mawr Club of New York City Evelyn Barish ’56 Poetry Contest (Deadline: April 30th by 4:00 PM)

Bryn Mawr Club of New York City
2023 Evelyn Barish ’56 Poetry Contest
Deadline: April 30th by 4:00 PM EST
Topic: Since the Pandemic

Dear Bryn Mawr alums,

For a second year, New York alum Evelyn Barish ’56 has provided for a poetry prize to be awarded by the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City to one of our graduates. This year’s topic is “Since the Pandemic.” The poem can be in any form but not longer than twenty lines. Any type of poem is eligible (such as sonnet, terza rima, or villanelle—see contest rules for a list of suggestions) other than haiku and limerick.

The contest is open to all Mawrters, including graduate school alums, and requires no entry fee.

WHAT: The Bryn Mawr Club of New York City 2023 Evelyn Barish ’56 Poetry Contest

WHEN: Email or postmark entries by 4:00 p.m. EDT April 30, 2023

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT: brynmawrclubnyc@gmail.com

Bryn Mawr Club of New York City
2023 Evelyn Barish ’56 Poetry Contest Rules

  1. The deadline for all submissions is 4:00 PM EDT on April 30, 2023. No late submissions will be accepted. Submissions may be made by email or US mail.
    1. Email: Please email your poem to brynmawrclubnyc@gmail.com no later than 4:00 p.m. EDT on April 30, 2023, with the subject line “Poetry Contest.”
    2. US mail: Please mail your poem to Bryn Mawr Club of NYC, Old Chelsea Station, P.O. Box 437, New York, NY 10113, postmarked no later than 4:00 p.m. EDT on April 30, 2023.
  2. The poem’s form, punctuation, and capitalization are at the poet’s discretion.
  3. Each participant may only submit one poem.
  4. Each poem may not be longer than twenty lines.
  5. The poem must be original work and not previously published.
  6. All poems must be written in English and have a title.
  7. All submissions must be accompanied by the following:
    1. author’s name;
    2. class year;
    3. contact information, including mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address; and
    4. chosen form, if any.

Potential Form Suggestions (Not Required)   

Abecedarian Acrostic Aubade Ballad
Blank verse Elegy Epistle Free verse
Lament Lullaby Nocturne Pantoum
Prose poem Rondeau Sonnet Terza rima
Triolet Villanelle

Prize Selection and Announcement

The judges will select the winning poem, and the winner will be announced during Spring 2023. The winner will receive a check for $250 and will be recognized in the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City e-newsletter. The judges’ decision is final. If the judges do not find a poem worthy of the prize, no prize will be awarded

Contest Judges

The following panel of judges (listed in order of class year) will review the submissions.

 Evelyn Barish ’56: A native of New York, Evelyn graduated from Bryn Mawr College magna cum laude. She studied at Oxford as a Fulbright scholar and earned a PhD from NYU. Her books include Emerson: The Roots of Prophecy (recipient of the 1989 Gauss Prize, awarded by Phi Beta Kappa as “the year’s best work of criticism and scholarship”); Arthur Hugh Clough: Growth of a Poet’s MindEmerson in Italy; and The Double Life of Paul De Man, for which the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City hosted a launch party in 2014. She has received numerous fellowships, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and others. Evelyn serves as the ’50s representative to the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City.

 Helen Thurston ’74: After graduating with a degree in English, Helen worked in Boston city government, on Wall Street, and in not-for-profit education and arts institutions. She now is a consultant in the areas of historic preservation, the arts, sustainable natural development, and nonprofit programing. While at Bryn Mawr, she served on the Haverford College student council. A lover of poetry, thanks to high school teachers who went to Bryn Mawr, she believes in the transformative power of the arts to influence ideas and hearts and to support efforts for the public good. She holds degrees from Université Aix Marseille II and Columbia Business School. Helen serves as president of the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City.

Barbara Clark ’79: Barbara was an English major at Bryn Mawr, where she won the Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize for best single poem. Shortly after graduation, she started a literary magazine with Barry Schwabsky (Haverford ’79) called Some Other Magazine, which published four issues between 1979 and 1981, and began her career in book publishing, where she’s been ever since—except for three years in the mid-1990s, during which she earned her MFA in acting. She is currently a freelance book editor. In 2022, her haiku “Goodhart Hall” won the inaugural Evelyn Barish ’56 Poetry Contest. She is honored to be among this year’s judges.

Trilby V John ’98: Trilby is a program manager for the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality at the New York City Department of Education. After decades as a English teacher, she is elated to now be leading the team that hires and trains new teachers. Trilby serves as the ’90s representative to the Bryn Mawr Club of New York City.

If you have questions, please contact brynmawrclubnyc@gmail.com .

We look forward to receiving and reviewing your poem.