Bill Holm Poetry Contest Winners

Bill HolmBill Holm was born in 1943 on a farm north of Minneota. He spent his summers at his little house on a northern Iceland fjord where he writes, practiced the piano, and waited for the first dark after three months of daylight. He is the author of nine books, both poetry and essays. His most recent prose book is Eccentric Islands (Milkweed Editions, 2000).

2018 Bill Holm Winner, Jayne Marek

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The titles of Jayne’s pieces are “Snow Day,” “Hungry,” “The Balance,” “Winter Pond as Window,” “Worry,” and “Woodcock Walk.” Since I lived for over 30 years in the upper Midwest, I have written a number of poems about that distinct ecology and climate, especially about the cold months. This set reflects the chilly joys of walking and watching birds in winter, for instance in Indiana, a flyway for cranes and a place where one can encounter woodcocks making their invisible, eerie-sounding displays.

Bio Note: Jayne Marek’s poetry and art photos appear recently in One, Stirring, Ascent, Slipstream, Bangor Literary Journal, The Cortland Review, Gulf Stream, Raven Chronicles, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Grub Street, and Amsterdam Quarterly. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she also was a finalist for the David Martinson–Meadowhawk Prize, the Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest, the Ex Ophidia Poetry Book Prize, and the Ryan R. Gibbs Photography Contest. Her most recent books are In and Out of Rough Water (Aldrich Press, 2017) and The Tree Surgeon Dreams of Bowling (Finishing Line, 2018).

Bio Note: Jayne Marek’s poetry and art photos appear recently in One, Stirring, Ascent, Slipstream, Bangor Literary Journal, The Cortland Review, Gulf Stream, Raven Chronicles, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Grub Street, and Amsterdam Quarterly. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she also was a finalist for the David Martinson–Meadowhawk Prize, the Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest, the Ex Ophidia Poetry Book Prize, and the Ryan R. Gibbs Photography Contest. Her most recent books are In and Out of Rough Water (Aldrich Press, 2017) and The Tree Surgeon Dreams of Bowling (Finishing Line, 2018).

Jayne’s Bill Holm Witness poetry collection to be published in WRUP Blog.

2014 Bill Holm Co-Winner, Katharyn Howd Machin

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Katharyn Howd Machan, Professor of Writing at Ithaca College, holds degrees from the College of Saint Rose, the University of Iowa, and Northwestern University. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines; in anthologies and textbooks such as The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013, Poetry: An Introduction, Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now, Sound and Sense, Writing Poems, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience; and in 32 collections, most recently Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox (Finishing Line Press, 2014), H (Gribble Press, 2014—national winner) and When She’s Asked to Think of Colors (Palettes & Quills Press, 2009—national winner). Former director of the national Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops, Inc., in 2012 she edited Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press).

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2014 Winter in Variations: Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest Co-Winner, Jeanine Stevens

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Jeanine Stevens studied poetry in the Creative Writing Program at U.C. Davis and has an MA in Anthropology. She is the recipient of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt, and a finalist for the William Stafford Award. She has other first place awards from Ekphrasis, The Bay Area Poet’s Coalition and Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference. Her work has appeared in Evansville Review, Poet Lore, North Dakota Review, Pearl, Sentinel Quarterly, Bardsong, and Cider Press Review. She is the author of Sailing on Milkweed, Cherry Grove Collections. Her latest chapbook, Needle in the Sea, was published by Tiger’s Eye Press. Besides writing, Jeanine enjoys collage, Tai Chi, Romanian folk dance, and hiking in the Sierras. She was raised in Indiana and now lives in Sacramento and Lake Tahoe with her husband, photographer Greg Czalpinski.

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