06 Oct Talking Gourds: Claire Blotter Wins 2025 Fischer Prize!
The Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Program proudly announces the winner of the 29th Annual Fischer Prize for Poetry: Claire Blotter for her poem, “Water.”
For more information on the Talking Gourds Poetry Program and its national Fischer and Cantor poetry contests, visit tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds
Final judge for this year’s contest was Talking Gourds director Art Goodtimes.
Go here for more about Talking Gourds.
Claire Blotter, courtesy Talking Gourds.
“A powerful performance piece, the poem moves like water in telling us about its narrator,” noted Judge Art Goodtimes. “Committing to one idea, and then sliding out of that eddy into another ripple in Blotter’s narrative flow of singing, dancing, talking.”
Born in New Jersey, Claire holds a B.A. in English Literature from U.C. Berkeley and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing, Women’s Studies and Speech Communication from San Francisco State University. She has published three chapbooks and a full length collection, EXPANDING.WATER.WAYS, which she has been reading and performing along threatened wetlands and waterways near her home in Northern California.
Claire has received two Marin Arts Council Artist Grants in Poetry, as well as grants from the Marin Community Foundation, the Flow Fund and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
Claire represented San Francisco in National Performance Slams in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Her award-winning video documentary – Wake Up Call: Saving the Songbirds – has been screened in 11 film festivals from Mill Valley to Chicago. She teaches performance poetry in Bay Area universities and to elementary, middle and high-school students as part of the California Poets in the Schools Program. In 2018 Claire Blotter was a finalist in the Fischer Prize contest.
Claire receives $1000 cash award.
Five Outstanding finalists will get $250 each, starting with Carlos Andrés Gómez of Atlanta (Georgia) for “Pantoum after Today’s Mass Shooting,” first published in the Nation. Andrés-Gómez was a finalist last year with his poem “Aperture” and in 2019 he won first place in the Fischer contest.
Dean Gessie of Ontario (Canada) scored with “Deer (sic) Poetry Contest Judges” and Kate Adams of Mountain View (California) with “Triple Conjunction.”
Ja’net Danielo of Long Beach (California”) won with “Migration.” In 2021 Danielo took first place for her poem, “We Thank the Veteran for His Service.”
The final prize winner was Eliana Lambros of Missoula (Montana) with “Lightning Rod.”
Honorable Mentions this year go to Isabel Shen of Oakland (California) with “Copydaughter,” Jonathan X. Liu of Alberta (Canada) with “Palimpsest with Missing Name,” Julie Cummings of Conifer (Colorado) with “While You Try to Float (Sestina),” Leander P. E. Isler of Rueschlikon (Switzerland) with “An Incantation of New Beginnings”(under consideration for the Oxford Poetry Prize), Devreaux Baker of Mendocino (California) with “Blue Requiem,” Michelle Bitting of Marina del Rey (California) with “The Clearing,” Jill Manning of Playa del Rey (California) with “Crossing Through Denali,” Jacob Sheetz-Willard of Leadville (Colorado) with “Curriculum Vitae” (first published in American Literary Review), Mara Adamitz Scrupe of New Canton (Virginia), Elaine Zimmerman of Hamden (Connecticut) with “No Longer Missing,” Allison Kujiraoka of Fukushima (Japan) with “Natal One,” Susan Carew of Colorado Springs for “Bride of Dream Man,” Donald Levering of Santa Fe NM 87507 with “A Fortune” and Eric Paul Shaffer of Kailua (Hawaii) with “Illumination.”
This, the award’s 29th year, saw 465 entries from 235 poets mostly from the U.S. (New York to Hawaii), but including work from English-speaking poets from around the world: Uruguay, Japan, France, Italy, England, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, New Zealand and Canada. Preliminary judge this year was Ellen Metrick of Colorado; final judge was Talking Gourds Director Art Goodtimes of Colorado.
The Fischer Prize is awarded annually to poets from around the country (or around the world) writing in English.
Past Fischer winners include Anna Scotti, Michelle Bitting, Devreaux Baker and Ja’net Danielo of California, Rebecca Foust of Minnesota, Mary Anne Crowe of New Mexico, Wendy Videlock, Kyle Harvey, Jill Burkey and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer of Colorado, Jonathan Greenhouse of New Jersey and Carlos Andrés Gómez then of New York.
“Our national poetry contests are the primary way poets can help us support the many poetry projects we do on Colorado’s Western Slope,” noted Goodtimes. “Plus, there’s the bonus that one might also win a prize. We offer feedback on submissions, if desired.”
Talking Gourds is especially indebted to the late Elaine Fischer, Sheldon Cantor and the Cantor Family for their support of these awards for the past 29 years.
No Comments