Poem of the Year
POEM OF THE YEAR
The Missouri Review is happy to be in the position to award a cash prize of $1000 to one winner and $250 each to two runners-up for the best poem of the year, chosen by the poetry editor from the past year’s Poems of the Week, announced in April of the present year. The prize is given anonymously in memory of John and Antoinette Somers, lifetime readers and longtime contributors to the magazine.
2026
Huzzahs to the winner and runners-up for the fifth annual Poem of the Year prize. The 2026 winner is Matthew Lippman, for his poem “YOUR POEMS SUCK THEY SUCK THEY KEEP ON SUCKING,” which ran for the week of June 9, 2025. This runners-up are Traci Brimhall, for her poem “Video Ergo Sum” (November 17, 2025), and Jia-Rui Cook for her poem “To the Chimeras of South Jersey” (March 31, 2025).
2025
Congratulations to the winner of the 2025 Poem of the Year: Georgio Russell, for his poem “Circadian,” which ran on our website for the week of September 16, 2024. Congratulations also go out to runners-up Jon Davis, for “Against Deliverance” (July 15, 2024) and Martha Silano, who tragically passed away in May of 2025, for her poem “Catastrophically” (August 19, 2024).
2024
Our congratulations to the winner of the third annual Poem of the Year Prize: Christine Robbins, for her poem “A Partial Account of the Trees,” which ran for the week of March 13, 2023. Congratulation also go out to our two runners-up: Alexandra Teague, for “The Horse That Threw Me” (February 6, 2023), and Zack Lesmeister, for “Childlike a Child Is, I Howled” (November 23, 2023).
2023
The second annual Poem of the Year prize was awarded to Kieron Walquist, for “Love Locks,” which appeared the week of April 4, 2022. The runners-up were Gustave Parker Hibbet, for “In Which I Dream that I Sing like Lianne La Havas” (August 15, 2022) and Luisa A. Igloria, for “San Maló” (April 11, 2022).
2022
The inaugural Poem of the Year prize went to Gisselle Yepes, for their poem “Not an Ode to April 22nd, 2019,” which first appeared as a Poem of the Week the week of April 19th, 2021. The runners-up were Paul Guest, for “Theories of Revenge,” and Perry Janes, for “Ode to the Community Garden, Which Is Really Just a Vacant Lot Between Apartment Buildings; or, On Spending My Last Unemployment Check.”