Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per

The 2026 Perugia Press Prize

is open now through November 15

Check out the contest tab on our website to learn

more about the prize, including the support

we offer to our poets, eligibility, and guidelines.

 

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per

Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight

August 2025 Poet: A. Anupama

 

 

by her eyes

Just when I try to begin, 

the page seems unfriendly.

I only wanted to say that 

I miss how she was, and 

what if she had had her mind 

all these years. What life 

would this have been for 

all of us? What if I had 

stayed inside the shell?

Fluttering free of the mud 

now, there's hardly 

anything to regret.

She has been well-cared for.

And so have I.

One day, we will rejoin 

our sisterhood,

like stitches on a holder 

waiting for the collar to begin, 

with a knit-stitch that will 

lie flat against the skin 

instead of curling away.

 

 

from Saffron Threaded (dancing girl press, 2021)

 

To read about this poet and her work, check out our blog.

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize

Get Holli Carrell's APOSTASIES,

 winner of the 2025 Perugia Press Prize,

at a special rate until September 15.

 

Praise for this powerful collection from poet Catherine Barnett:

 

 

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Apostasies has been featured in the MER Bookshelf:

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize

Supporting Immigrants' Rights

& Celebrating Immigration Stories

 

We're working with Perugia poet and Los Angeles resident

Jackie Balderrama to raise funds for CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights) in L.A. Through August, proceeds from purchasing Jackie's Perugia book Now in Color from our website will be sent to CHIRLA. Learn more about their work

and donate directly here. Take a listen on Instagram to poems

Jackie recorded from her Perugia book as part of this effort.

 

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize

* Poet News *

 

Carolina Hotchandani has a new poem "Shelter"

in the latest print issue of the Alaska Quarterly Review.

She also has the poem “Interim” in Issue 54 of The Adroit Journal.

Here's an excerpt, and you can read the whole here.

 

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Abby E. Murray has a new poem, “Some Baleen Whales Have Learned to Sing at Frequencies Too Low for Predators to Hear”in Volume 15 of Pinch Journal. Here's an excerpt,

and you can read the whole here.

 

 

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Megan Peak has a new poem, "Losing the Cat"

in the latest issue of Rust & Moth. Here's an excerpt,

and you can read the whole here.

 

 

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Joan Kwon Glass has a reading coming up at the Bryant Park

Reading Room in NYC this coming Tuesday, September 2 at 6pm

 with Nicole Cooley, erica lewis & April Ossmann: