We are pleased to announce the winners of the Rumpus Prize. Over the next two weeks, we will publish the first-prize and honorable mention winners in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. The winners were chosen by judges Kaveh Akbar, Megan Stielstra, and Rachel Khong from more than 2,000 submissions. The first-prize winner in each category is awarded $1,000 and the honorable mentions have been awarded $200.
Poetry
First place: Georgio Russell, “Ode to the Black Man Nod”
“It’s not just the formal agility here that soars, its language dazzles in the micro and the macro. This poem is elegant but durable, heady but also deeply felt. I love so much the ingenuity in affording each surging river and lush tributary and gentle rivulet of language its own integrity, its own tectonic firmness.”
—Kaveh Akbar, Rumpus Prize judge for poetry
Honorable mention: Christopher Nelson, “Skyfall”
“This poem feels ancient though it’s full of contemporary referents—Megaman, Mercedes, She-Ra. The poet’s ear, their sense of how to use the sonic topography of language to build emotional, psychospiritual meaning, is remarkable. When Theodore Roethke said, ‘The serious problems of life are never fully solved, but some states can be resolved rhythmically,’ he was talking about poems like ‘Skyfall.’”
—Kaveh Akbar, Rumpus Prize judge for poetry
Creative Nonfiction
First place: Daniel Summerhill, “”Tell Me When to Go” Had Just Dropped and I Was from Oakland”
“I oversee a regional list at a university press and spend the majority of my time thinking about what it means to write a place. Scenic craft, sure; but moreso, the complexity of how our places made us, how they’re inside of us. We’re all from somewhere, for better or worse, and we’re shaped by these places and their people. “‘Tell Me When to Go’ Had Just Dropped and I Was from Oakland” nailed this complexity perfectly, asking the reader to see so much deeper than their own assumptions, and isn’t that what we need right now in this beautiful mess of a world? I loved it.”
—Megan Stielstra, Rumpus Prize judge for creative nonfiction
Honorable mention: Nikita Schoen, “Stereo Argento at The Stud”
“”Stereo Argento at The Stud” happens in a single moment, like *snap your fingers*, but it covers decades of learning and longing. I deeply admire the emphasis on the body: the tears on the dance floor, the back pain, how the teller knew it was time to leave. I was also struck by the universality of the essay: within the hyper-specific experience of dancing at a gutter punk drag show, the larger complexities of where we’re from and how we fit are crystal clear. Where is home? it asks, and the answer: where we make it.“
—Megan Stielstra, Rumpus Prize judge for creative nonfiction
Fiction
First place: Aimee LaBrie, “The Fortunate Ones”
“’The Fortunate Ones’ surprised me at every turn. It’s funny, horrifying, and striking—a story after my own heart. It takes a weird, lightly creepy fact about being female that we’re born with all the eggs we’ll ever have—and imagines something even weirder and creepier, all the while telling a story of a mother and daughter. The writing is precise and vivid and charming. I just enjoyed the hell out of reading it.”
—Rachel Khong, Rumpus Prize judge for fiction
Honorable mention: Josie Tolin, “Fucking Illinois People”
“In ‘Fucking Illinois People,’ the task of caregiving is brought to life in perfectly perceptive lines like this one: ‘Trent’s head does not touch Jackie’s but they are so close together he can hear the pluck of floss between her teeth.’ I admire this story for its deftness and compassion. It covers so much of the stuff of life: marriage, aging, love, desire—but never reductively, and always with deep understanding.”
—Rachel Khong, Rumpus Prize judge for fiction
Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who submitted!
