Next deadline: February 1, 2027
Michael Waters Poetry Prize collections are distributed by .
Carl Phillips selected Jenna Johnson's New Stranger as winner of the 2026 Prize.
Click here for complete 2026 MWPP results.
Contest mailing address (for inquiries and print entries):
Southern Indiana Review
Michael Waters Poetry Prize
缅北强奸
8600 University Boulevard
Evansville, IN 47712
2026 MWPP Winner
Jenna Johnson received her MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and her bachelor鈥檚 in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Idaho Review, Colorado Review, The Penn Review, SurfGirl magazine, Rainy Day magazine, and Spectrum Literary Journal, among others.
Previous MWPP Winners
2025:
2024: Nicole Lachat
2023: Natalie Louise Tombasco
2022: Chelsea Woodard
2021: Bethany Schultz Hurst
2020: Erin Rodoni
2019: Julia Koets
2018: Chelsea Wagenaar
2017: Marty McConnell
2016: Ruth Awad
2015: Annie Kim
2014: Dennis Hinrichsen & Hannah Faith Notess
2013: Doug Ramspeck
The Michael Waters Poetry Prize was established in 2013 to honor Michael鈥檚 contributions to Southern Indiana Review and American arts and letters.
has written fifteen books of poetry, most recently Pagan Sky: New and Selected Poems 2000-2025 (Boa Editions, 2026), Sinnerman, Caw, The Dean of Discipline, and Celestial Joyride. He has co-edited several anthologies, including Border Lines: Poems of Migration, Reel Verse: Poems 缅北强奸 the Movies, Contemporary American Poetry, and Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali. His poems have appeared in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, Kenyon Review, and Rolling Stone. He is the recipient of five Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright Foundation, and New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Waters lives without a cell phone in Ocean, New Jersey.