Brick Road Poetry Press

poetry made to entertain, amuse, and edify

The mission of Brick Road Poetry Press is to publish and promote poetry that entertains, amuses, edifies, and surprises a wide audience of appreciative readers.  We are not qualified to judge who deserves to be published, so we concentrate on publishing what we enjoy. Our preference is for poetry geared toward dramatizing the human experience in language rich with sensory image and metaphor, recognizing that poetry can be, at one and the same time, both familiar as the perspiration of daily labor and as outrageous as a carnival sideshow.

Contest Results

2024

Contest is currently open from August 1, 2024 to December 1, 2024

2023

No contest held

2022

PRIZE WINNER:

A Brief Campaign of Sting and Sweet by Laura Amsel

2021

Prize Winner:

Reading Szymborska in a Time of Plague by Joan Baranow

FINALISTs:

First Time, Every Time by Lisa Caloro

Wildlife by Miranda Beeson

2020

Contest suspended during the pandemic

2019

Prize Winner:

The Return of the Naked Man by Robert Tremmel

FINALISTs:

All These Hungers by Rick Mulkey
Night Blue by Margaret Young

SEMI-FINALISTs:

Shellback by Jeanne-Marie Osterman
Mostly Human by Sheila Squillante
Perigee by Diane Kerr
The Art of Falling by Julia Wendell
Judas Salt by John Blair
Passiflora by Kathy Davis
Omnidawn by Soledad Caballero
Transit of Mercury by Helen Wickes
Suburbia: Poems by Jacob M. Appel
In the Zero of Sky by Tamra Plotnick

2018

Prize Winner:

Speaking Parts by Beth Ruscio

FINALISTs:

Waxing the Dents by Daniel Edward Moore

After Running Off a Cliff (But Before Looking Down) by R. Wood Lynn

2017

Prize Winner:

Touring the Shadow Factory by Gary Stein

FINALIST:

American Mythology by Raphael Kosek

2016

Prize Winner:

Assisted Living by Erin Murphy

Finalists:

Credo by Steve McDonald

Secret Formulas & Techniques of the Masters by Jackie Craven

Runners-Up:

Thresholds by Matt Hohner

A Cage To Welcome by Shana Youngdahl

Mud Song by Terry Ann Thaxton

Cathedral of Dust by Judson Simmons

Based on a True Story by Elizabeth Gold

Trashcan Diagnosis by Cory McClell

2015

Prize Winner:

Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine by Susan J. Erickson

Finalists:

Having and Keeping by David Watts

Ambushing Water by Danielle Hanson

2014

Prize Winner:

Battle Sleep by Shannon Tate Jonas

Finalists:


Mudlick by Amy Wright (published as Cracker Sonnets)

Things Seen by Joseph Stanton

2013

Prize Winner:

Household Inventory by Connie Jordan Green

Finalists:

A Meal Like That by Albert Garcia

Practice by Richard M. Berlin

Honorable Mentions:

Out of the Flinty Rock by John Warner Smith

Running Counterclockwise by Alarie Tennille

The Tendency of Bodies to Remain at Rest by Bob Watts

2012

Prize Winner:

The Alp at the End of My Street by Gary Leising

Finalists:

The Word in Edgewise by Sean M. Conrey

Just Drive by Robert Cooperman

2011

Prize Winner:

Bad Behavior  by Michael Steffen

Finalists:

Rising to the Rim by Carol Tyx

Tracing the Lines by Susanna Lang

2010

Prize Winner:

Damnatio Memoriae by Michael Meyerhofer

Finalists:

Lotus Buffet by Rupert Fike
Two-Star General  by Grey Held
Etch and Blur by Jamie Thomas
Chosen by Toni Thomas
Mud Cakes by Jason Schossler(scheduled for publication elsewhere)