CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNER OF THE FREDERICK SMOCK POETRY PRIZE
The inaugural Frederick Smock Poetry Prize is awarded to Ellen Elder for We Left a Window Open to the Sea, selected by Kentucky Poet Laureate Emeritus Richard Taylor.
Available this fall from Fleur-de-Lis Press!
Ellen Elder was born in New York City, raised in Kentucky and Cincinnati, and earned degrees from The University of Chicago, Miami University of Ohio and The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She spent childhood summers in Ireland where her family ran an inn. Her poems and reviews have appeared in About Place Journal, Banshee Lit, Poetry, Tampa Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is former co-poetry editor at Literary Mama. She writes about motherhood, grief, and how exile, loss, and nostalgia inform transnational experience and expression. She taught at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and lived for nine years in Germany before relocating to Charleston, South Carolina where she lives with her daughter and teaches British and American literature to high school students.
Ellen Elder, photo by Rénee Schuler
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FINALISTS
A poem from each finalist will appear in The Louisville Review Number 98 this spring.
Virginia Alcott, The Architecture of Memory
Linda Bryant-Davis, My Life as a Cricket
William Brymer, The Man of a Thousand Faces
Kristin Davis, Willowbrook: A Reclamation
Therese Gleason, The Way to Go
Melissa Jørgenrud Helton, Luckstone
Holly Hunt, Among the Broken Souvenirs of Earth
Rachel Matheis, Place is Never Dumb
Victor McConnell, Too Close to the Sun
Brandon North, The Body is an Ongoing Event
Kendra Ralston, Every Five AM
Austen Reilley, Reconstruction
Linda Bryant-Davis, My Life as a Cricket
William Brymer, The Man of a Thousand Faces
Kristin Davis, Willowbrook: A Reclamation
Therese Gleason, The Way to Go
Melissa Jørgenrud Helton, Luckstone
Holly Hunt, Among the Broken Souvenirs of Earth
Rachel Matheis, Place is Never Dumb
Victor McConnell, Too Close to the Sun
Brandon North, The Body is an Ongoing Event
Kendra Ralston, Every Five AM
Austen Reilley, Reconstruction
THE LOUISVILLE REVIEW'S FREDERICK SMOCK POETRY PRIZE
is a triennial contest that celebrates the life and legacy of Frederick Smock, a Kentucky Poet Laureate. Born in Kentucky and a lifelong resident of the Commonwealth, Frederick Smock published several volumes of poetry with Larkspur Press, Broadstone Books, and others, as well as volumes of literary essays, poetry in translation, and a memoir. A steadfast supporter of the literary arts and of The Louisville Review, he was published in the first issue of the journal in 1978 and continued to contribute to and support the journal, serving as both as an editor and an advisor. Frederick Smock was Founding Editor of The American Voice and was a long-time professor of English at Bellarmine University, Louisville, and will be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, March 30, at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, Kentucky. The Frederick Smock Poetry Prize is open to all writers affiliated with the Commonwealth of Kentucky by current or past residency, ancestry, education, or employment. Winner receives $1,000 and book publication through Fleur-de-Lis Press. Submissions for the next Frederick Smock Poetry Prize will be accepted in 2028.
is a triennial contest that celebrates the life and legacy of Frederick Smock, a Kentucky Poet Laureate. Born in Kentucky and a lifelong resident of the Commonwealth, Frederick Smock published several volumes of poetry with Larkspur Press, Broadstone Books, and others, as well as volumes of literary essays, poetry in translation, and a memoir. A steadfast supporter of the literary arts and of The Louisville Review, he was published in the first issue of the journal in 1978 and continued to contribute to and support the journal, serving as both as an editor and an advisor. Frederick Smock was Founding Editor of The American Voice and was a long-time professor of English at Bellarmine University, Louisville, and will be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, March 30, at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, Kentucky. The Frederick Smock Poetry Prize is open to all writers affiliated with the Commonwealth of Kentucky by current or past residency, ancestry, education, or employment. Winner receives $1,000 and book publication through Fleur-de-Lis Press. Submissions for the next Frederick Smock Poetry Prize will be accepted in 2028.
The Frederick Smock Poetry Prize is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Snowy Owl Foundation.
FREDERICK SMOCK POETRY PRIZE JUDGE RICHARD TAYLOR
is the author of numerous collections of poetry, two historical novels, and several books relating to Kentucky history, including Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landmark, which received awards from the Kentucky Historical Society and the Thomas C. Clark Medallion. He served as Kentucky Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2001, and has received two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as an Al Smith Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. Educated at the University of Kentucky (with bachelor's and Ph.D. in English), he also holds a master's degree (English) and a J.D. from the University of Louisville.
During graduate school he taught in high schools across Kentucky with the Poetry-in-the-Schools Program through the Kentucky Arts Council, editing an anthology of student writing called Cloud Bumping. A career educator, he taught Kentucky State University in Frankfort until retiring in 2008. Talyor taught in the Governor's School for the Arts as well as serving as Director of the Governor’s Scholars Program on two campuses, and he spent a year in Denmark as a scholar-teacher in the Fulbright Program and has taught university courses in Korea as well abroad in England and Ireland as part of a studies-abroad program.
Recently retired after fourteen years from Transylvania University as Keenan Visiting Writer, he was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, he is co-owner of Poor Richard’s Books and lives on a small farm outside Frankfort, Kentucky.
is the author of numerous collections of poetry, two historical novels, and several books relating to Kentucky history, including Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landmark, which received awards from the Kentucky Historical Society and the Thomas C. Clark Medallion. He served as Kentucky Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2001, and has received two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as an Al Smith Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. Educated at the University of Kentucky (with bachelor's and Ph.D. in English), he also holds a master's degree (English) and a J.D. from the University of Louisville.
During graduate school he taught in high schools across Kentucky with the Poetry-in-the-Schools Program through the Kentucky Arts Council, editing an anthology of student writing called Cloud Bumping. A career educator, he taught Kentucky State University in Frankfort until retiring in 2008. Talyor taught in the Governor's School for the Arts as well as serving as Director of the Governor’s Scholars Program on two campuses, and he spent a year in Denmark as a scholar-teacher in the Fulbright Program and has taught university courses in Korea as well abroad in England and Ireland as part of a studies-abroad program.
Recently retired after fourteen years from Transylvania University as Keenan Visiting Writer, he was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, he is co-owner of Poor Richard’s Books and lives on a small farm outside Frankfort, Kentucky.
