Announcing the Quarter Finalists for the Mary Ballard Poetry Chapbook Prize

This has been a truly amazing year for submissions to our poetry prize. We had 350 submissions from all over the world, an incredible field that included many poetry professors, published writers, and Pushcart Prize nominees.

We loved both reading new works by long-time published poets and seeing fresh verses from writers whose work has never before seen print. We were terribly impressed by the submissions this year and totally blown away by quite a number of them. If you didn't get a chance to follow our live tweeting of the judging process, you can still go see our Twitter history.

In the next phase, we will narrow this field of 100 quarterfinalists to about 25 semifinalists to be announced on August 31. Absolutely keep your simultaneous submissions active during this time, but do let us know if you are accepted elsewhere and need to withdraw (three poets got their chapbooks accepted by other publishing companies during the process--YAY for you all! We were thrilled to hear that so many poets are still finding success.)

We will also be talking to our celebrity poet about the timing of judging the finalists, so we can have a rough idea of when we will have a winner this year (last year was late, but Jay Parini was worth it!) We can't wait to tell you about our final judge for the 2013 prize!

Congratulations poets, and please, if we made an error in your title or name, or you would like us to go ahead and switch to your pseudonym, reply to the email you received when we confirmed your original submission to let us know.

And here they are!

A Brief Natural History of an American Girl -- Sarah Freligh
A Little Piece of Mourning -- Jane Ebihara
A Pleading Sound -- Renee Emerson
Admit Two -- Ivy Alvarez
Ain't I a Woman -- Ellaraine Lockie
Alarm Clock Blues -- Helen Ruggieri
Alphabeticon -- Corey Mesler
An Ink Like Early Twilight -- Andrea Potos
At the Beginning or End of the Universe -- Ellen Kombiyil
At the Boundary -- Janet Sunderland
Autumn in My Heart -- Saptarshi Basu
Between a River and the Sea -- Jonathan Veach
Blade Work -- Mary Turzillo
Bodily Knowledge -- Brenda Yates
Breadcrumbs -- Staci R Schoenfeld
Brie Season -- Jen Karetnick
Busting the Beautiful Cage -- Paul David Adkins
Coordinates -- Suzanne Allen
Corrections -- Paul Shepherd
Cricket Song, Autumn Lawns -- Cathy Larson Sky
Day Laborers -- Janet Cannon
Dip in the Road -- Gail Eisenhart
Disabled Monsters -- John C. Mannone
Don't Forget Me -- S.K. Rhee
East Main Aviary -- Leigh Anne Hornfeldt
East, West, North and Sullen -- Lois Marie Harrod
Family Sonata -- Lynne Francis
Firestarters -- Peggy Ann Tartt
Freelance Zealot -- Matthue Roth
Greedier Than Most -- Teneice Durrant Delgado
Heart-Shaped Bed in Hiroshima -- Heather Kirn Lanier
Hong Kong Man -- Kirby Wright
I Am Not Beautiful -- Kate LaDew
I Told My Daughter about the Sharks -- Nan Rush
Independent City -- Jennifer Tappenden
Inside the Drawer of M.M. Socks -- M.M. Socks
Just Born -- Sarah Endo
Keepin' It Real: Slices of Life -- Arvilla Fee
Learning to Love Louisiana -- Elizabeth Burk
Legend's Breathe -- Mariah Boone
Life in the Rain -- Allen Frost
Life under Snow -- Lynne Knight
Listening Through the Bone -- Willy Conley
Long Gone Lonesome Multiverse Blues -- Richard Newman
Looking for Salvation -- Maril Crabtree
Making Our Day -- Lynn Veach Sadler
Mal de Mere -- Salita S. Bryant
Meander Line -- Jeff Streeby
My Body, Broken for You -- Ace Baker
New Mornings -- Christine DeSimone
Nightshirt -- by Jacob Oet
November Father -- Rick Marlatt
November Wasps -- Ann Keniston
Orphans in the Lighthouse -- Tania Pryputniewicz
Out of Silence -- Margaret Rozga
Overtipping the Ferryman -- R.G. Evans
Path of Concern -- Corey Ginsberg
Peculiar Motion -- Robin Kirk
Permanent Ink -- Judith Bader Jones
Phases of a She Moon -- Corinna Underwood
Phoenix -- Jessica Goody
Poem of the Month Club -- Alex Stolis
Prayer for the Thorn -- Victoria Bosch Murray
Pulchritude in All Directions -- Don Shook
Read by Friends -- Judith Offer
Red State Epistles -- Alison Pelegrin
Rembrandt's Bible -- Atar Hadari
Responsible, Reckless: Poems -- Melissa H. Ginsburg
Rockets and Blue Lights -- Rhett Watts
Seaside Graffiti -- Cutter Streeby
Second Skin -- Diana Anhalt
Seven Times to Leave -- Jeannette Angell
She Leaves Us, a Little at a Time -- Sally Clark
She Talks in Our Sleep -- Jackleen Holton
Still Life with Coffee Pot and Kryptonite -- Hilary King
Stories in the Snow -- Steve Klepetar
Survival and Other Poems -- Savannah Thorne
Swans and Other Violence -- Sandra Warwick Soli
The Cloudy Horizon -- Heather Elliott
The Dark Adaptation -- David Hawkins
The Extinction Instinct -- Louise Fabiani
The Fifteenth Station -- Erik K Mortenson
The First Arts -- Tom Holmes
The Girl Singer -- Marianne Worthington
The Girl Who Came Back -- Meg Eden
The Light Box -- Lauren Reynolds
The Men Who Gave Up Drink -- Elizabeth Dougherty Dolan
The Narrow Road -- Nils Peterson
The Queen of Flight -- K.D. Grier
The Saint Factory -- Terry Dugan
The Senses of Place -- Monty Joynes
The Sickly Tree -- Andrew Najberg
The Soundness of Broken Pieces -- Lucie Winborne
These Terrible Dreams -- Conrad Geller
To That Mythic Country Called Closure -- -M-
Travelers--All -- Cheryl Lawton Malone
Upheaval -- Janet Butler
Vacationland -- Karen Skolfield
Voices and Visions -- Gary Glauber
Wanderlust -- Dawn Schout
Waving Back -- Gail Thomas
Ways Music Means -- Mark J. Mitchell
We're Smaller Than We Think We Are -- Allyson Whipple
What Plagues the Goddess -- Katherine Hoerth
Where the Body Lives -- George Such
With This Ring -- Allie Marini Batts