Experimental Feminist Poetics Since 1974
2025 QTBIPOC Prize Winners & Finalists
- Our judge, Andrea Abi-Karam selected The Refusal to Land by Yanis Iqbal as the winner of the 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize.
- The editors have also chosen to publish Counterpoint by Jasmine An as the Editors’ Choice Award this year.
We want to give a special spotlight to the following manuscripts below:
FINALISTS
Language We Fall Through by Jai Dulani
Poemuit by Shantell Powell
Gulf of Treason by Sophia Terazawa
SEMIFINALISTS
the present is a small child by Nefertiti Asanti
GIDDY HEAVEN by Michael Chang
God Forgot to Name This Place by Michael Emerald
Allah Forgive Us by Maryam Ghafoor
Grief Is Shaped Like A Binder by Gabriel Jayroe
Green Card by Jeddie Sophronius
To Salazar & Back by Oswaldo Vargas
A Capricious God by Waverly Vernon
Trans-Electronic Music by Sydney Westley
Thank you for the opportunity to consider your poetry manuscript for the Book Prize.
2023 QTBIPOC Prize Winners and Finalists
- Judge Ching-In Chen selected Jennifer Perrine's Beautiful Outlaw as the winner of 2023 QTBIPOC Book Prize.
- The editors have also chosen to publish LM Brimmer's Imagined Child as the Editor's choice award.
We also wanted to congratulate the following finalists:
Counterpoint by Jasmine An
water:way by ayana harsoet
Surviving Fire by ena ganguly
Poemuit by Shantell Powell
Hard Crush by Sarah Yanni
Thank you to everyone who sent us their work to the 2023 QTBIPOC Prize! We were so excited to read so much urgent and beautiful writing.
QTBIPOC CONTEST 2021
Mihee Kim's Nomenclature was selected as the winner of Kelsey Street Press's inaugural QTBIPOC Book Contest, a free contest open to QTBIPOC-identified poets. Mihee's winning manuscript was chosen by juror Metta Sáma, author of Swing at your own risk (Kelsey Street Press, 2019), out of a submission pool of 120 manuscripts.
Sáma says of Nomenclature: "the line holds power in these poems; the impulse is the story; the stylistic experiment is about the shape of story, the complicity of language in building story through shape, through prose."
Thank you to all who submitted to the prize, and congratulations to the finalists: jayy dodd, Jai Dulani, Vuyelwa Malulek, Ansley Moon, Maggie Rhee, and Ximena Keogh Serrano.
Due to a mutual agreement between author and press, Kelsey Street Press will not be publishing the book. We thank Metta Sama for judging and Ching-In Chen for editing the manuscript. Thank you to all who submitted such impressive and amazing work – and we encourage you all to re-submit.