Contests & Calls for Submissions
Calls for Submissions
Previous Contest Winners
2022: Sing the Body
SWWIM Every Day is in search of body-loving, positive-self-image poems. We're tired of photo-edited, filtered-to-perfection images of women. We're tired of society’s historic body-shaming and the subtle negative body images that women inherit from the culture at large. We're tired of the lengths we go to in order to alter or erase our bodies.
Because of this, many of us experience deep vulnerability, self-loathing, and self-judgment, which leads to mental and physical illness, especially during times of vulnerability–such as during the last two years of isolation; during or after puberty, pregnancy, or menopause; in the harsh lighting of restaurants or dressing rooms, etc.
SWWIM Every Day wants to help change the way we look at ourselves. For April, we’re calling for poems that celebrate our bodies and faces the way they were made, that embrace body and face positivity, and that feed a healthy self-image. Please send us 1-3 poems that speak to this subject of "singing the body" any way that you see fit. Tell us why you love your butt, what makes your hips swing, what makes your body sing. Give us your body-beautiful poems. We cannot wait to read your work!
Click here to submit.
2021: poetry in bloom
Please see Poetry In Bloom for the portfolio of poems, which appeared in SWWIM Every Day and in bouquets distributed throughout Miami, FL in April 2021. This project was a collaborative effort by SWWIM, O, Miami, Dolly’s Florist, and poets Sandra Beasley and Neil de la Flor.
2020: SWWIM-For-the-fun-of-it contest
First Place
M Soledad Caballero, “Before an MRI, a questionnaire”
Second Place
Lannie Stabile, “Victim #4, or That's an Inventive Way to Store an Axe”
Third Place
Patrycja Humienik, “anchor baby”
Finalists
Richelle Buccilli, “Self-Portrait with Acorns”
Alexis Rhone Fancher, “Grab Shot”
Robbie Nester, “Scrabble in the Time of Social Distancing”
Janice Northerns, “Hunger”
Dion O’Reilly, “Hidden”
Heidi Seaborn, “O Breasts”
Sarah Stockton, “4 A.M. nocturne”
Semi-Finalists
Michelle Bitting, “Bootlegger”
Sneha Subramanian Kanta, “Some women in my country are taking the fate of rivers”
Rita Maria Martinez, “Essay on Hands”
Kyle Potvin, “Brave is a Verb”
Millie Tullis, “Etta Place”
Judge: Ashley M. Jones
2019: Purses for Poetry Contest in honor of Kate Spade
First Place
Hilary King, “Cross Body”
Second Place
Iris Dunkle, “Two Coach Purses, Stolen”
Third Place
Kim King, “The Cable Car Purse”
First Honorable Mention
Sarah K. Carey, “My Purse Is a Mother Is My Birthright”
Second Honorable Mention
Gail Goepfert, “Eyeing the Kate Spade Heart It Sam Crossbody”
Judge: Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello