San Diego Poetry Annual

Both volumes of the 2016-17 San Diego Poetry Annual were published February 6, 2017.

A FREE copy of each volume is available for downloading in PDF.  Please visit our Free PDF page to view and/or download.

For a limited time (February through May), contributing poets can buy unlimited copies of both volumes at a special discount price — the actual cost of each volume.  Please visit our How to Order page for details.

Copies can also be ordered through Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and Powells.com, and through bookstores.

Limited copies will be available for sale at our scheduled readings. All copies will be sold at the full retail price.  Sorry, no exceptions.  Please visit our Readings 2017 page for a schedule of locations, dates and times.

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Congratulations to Molly Larson Cook, winner of the 2016 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and a cash award of $1,000 for her poem, Love Song with Flip Chart and Pointer.

Joseph Milosch’s  If Nothing Else was selected as the runner-up, with a cash prize of $250.

David Denny’s Summer School earned the second runner-up and a cash prize of $100.

In addition, 21 poems were selected for Honorable Mention.  All honorees are listed on The Kowit page of this website.

The award is sponsored by the San Diego Entertainment + Arts Guild (SDEAG), a 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit which also sponsors the San Diego Poetry Annual.

Judges for the inaugural prize were Al Zolynas and Jon Wesick.

The awards ceremony will take place on Saturday, April 8, 2017 at the Art Gallery on the campus of Southwestern College.  The event starts at 2 p.m.  It is open to the public. Admission is free.  Art Gallery curator Vallo Riberto will host.

A jazz trio with a special guest star will be featured in the courtyard adjoining the Art Gallery. Poets reading at the event will receive a small honorarium, thanks to a generous grant from the Chula Vista Performing and Visual Arts Fund.

The poems of all 24 finalists will be published in a special section of the 2016-17 San Diego Poetry Annual.

Congratulations to all.

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Open for submissions on June 15 through October 15 annually.
Visit www.sdeag.org for complete entry details.

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The San Diego County Employees’ Charitable Organization (CECO) has awarded a grant to the San Diego Entertainment & Arts Guild (SDEAG) for poetry books used in workshops for Poets in Juvenile Hall and Veterans in Vista Jail — both led by contributing poets to the San Diego Poetry Annual (Regional Editor Jim Moreno and Joan Gerstein).

These under-served communities are part of the outreach programs of SDEAG.  Copies of the San Diego Poetry Annual 2015-16 will be offered at cost to both programs.  Copies of Steve Kowit’s In the Palm of Your Hand and Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s Writing Poetry to Save Your Life will also be purchased with the grant money.  Both Kowit and Gillan have been Featured Poets in the annual.

SDPA Publisher Bill Harding will accept the CECO grant on behalf of SDEAG at a March 22nd award breakfast downtown.

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 For the last four years, the bilingual volume of the San Diego Poetry Annual, edited by Olga Garcia, has been used as a text book at Southwestern Community College.

The college bookstore stocks the bilingual volume for purchase by students in the English composition class taught by Dr. Francisco J. Bustos, a regular contributor to the annual.

In keeping with its policy of creating permanent status for the annual in public and university libraries throughout the region, Garden Oak Press makes copies of the bilingual volume available at cost to the college and earns no profit from the sales.

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