The Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award was established in 1994 by The Formalist. The award, honoring the poet Howard Nemerov (1920–1991), was an open competition for sonnets in English that drew about 3000 entries annually. [1] [2] The award was $1000, and from 1995–2004, the winning sonnet and the eleven finalists were published inFollowing the discontinuation of The Formalist in 2004, the winning sonnet and eleven finalist poems were published in the literary magazine Measure.[3] The creation of this award is associated with the "New Formalism" movement.
In the announcement of the 2017 winner and finalists, the 2017 competition was described as the "24th & final" contest. [4]
The winners, judges, and winning sonnets from 1994–2011 are posted on a webpage of The Formalist;[5] the subsequent winners are also listed in the table below:
Year | Poet | Sonnet | Judge |
---|---|---|---|
Carol Frith[6] | Dying Firethorn | Dana Gioia[7] | |
Midge Goldberg[8] | Tennis Practice Against the Garage Door | Rachel Hadas | |
D. R. Goodman[9] | All the Dropped Things | Gail White | |
Marty Steyer[10] | Caliban Is Not | R.S. Gwynn | |
Gail White[11] | Tourist in India | Dick Davis | |
Gail White[12] | Old Photographs | Rhina Espaillat | |
Robert W. Crawford[13] | Odds Are | A. M. Juster | |
Catherine Chandler[14] | Coming to Terms | A. E. Stallings | |
Richard Wakefield[15] | Petrarch | David Middleton | |
Sightseers | Timothy Steele | ||
No | Frederick Turner | ||
The Empty Chair | Andrew Hudgins | ||
Petrarch on West 115th Street | Charles Martin | ||
Hank Williams Blues | Rachel Hadas | ||
Discovery | Dana Gioia | ||
Embarking | Wyatt Prunty | ||
Baggage | X. J. Kennedy | ||
Note from Echo | W. D. Snodgrass | ||
Chain Poem | Wendy Cope | ||
Contingencies | John Frederick Nims | ||
Incipient Fireworks | Donald Justice | ||
The Track of the Storm | Anthony Hecht | ||
Moscow Zoo | Mona Van Duyn | ||
Jo Painted | Richard Wilbur | ||