Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize

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 Full details 

History

Joy Bale BooneJoy Bale Boone (1912-2002) was an American poet best known for her devotion to the arts. Born in Chicago, where she received inspiration from poet Harriet Monroe, Boone spent most of her life in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She was active in the women's liberation movement, having formed the League of Women Voters in Hardin County, KY in 1944. Throughout her life, she served on numerous committees and boards in hopes that more people would have the opportunity to experience the arts in the way that she had. Her most significant work was The Storm's Eye: A Narrative in Verse Celebrating Cassius Marcellus Clay, Man of Freedom 1810–1903. She served as Kentucky's Poet Laureate from 1997-1998.

Thank you for supporting The Heartland Review and remembering Joy!

Contest Guidelines

By submitting to the Contest, the entrant agrees to abide by all Contest rules.

All entries must be original works by the entrant, in English.

Plagiarism, which includes the use of third-party poetry, song lyrics, characters, or another person’s universe, without written permission, will result in disqualification. We expect that all writers understand plagiarism and provide said written permission upon submission.

We can not publish concrete or shape poems. This includes calligrams, poems like Easter Wings, and poem with justified margins.

Submission Deadline for Publication in Spring 2026: July 1-October 1, 2025

There will be a $400 first place gift card, $240 second place gift card, and $100 third place gift card.

Submit Now!

Meet This Year's Judge: Clay Matthews

Clay MatthewsClay Matthews currently lives in Elizabethtown, KY with his family and teaches at Elizabethtown Community & Technical College. He studied creative writing and poetry at Southeast Missouri State University (M.A.) and Oklahoma State University (Ph.d.). A former poetry editor for The Tusculum Review, he now happily edits for The Heartland Review.

He was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission in 2015 and was included in Best of the Net (2006 and 2008) and Best New Poets (2005). He has published poetry in journals such as American Poetry Review, Image, Kenyon Review, Appalachian Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. 

He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Superfecta; Runoff; Pretty, Rooster; Shore; and Four-Way Lug Wrench, and a handful of chapbooks: Muffler, Western Reruns, and The Pony Express. His next collection, Birds Sing, Anyway, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press.

On what he's looking for in a poem: "I love a wide range of poetic forms—from sonnets and sestinas to long lyrical works. Whether short or long, formal or free, I hang on to this value of an authentic connection with the subject/speaker through the page, which necessarily looks different from writer to writer. Like many readers/viewers, I often don't know what I'm looking for until I see it, and then it's like: 'Yes. That's what I needed today.' Somebody's going to win this prize—it might as well be you."

Past Judges

Previous Winners

 

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