For the 2021 Rattle Chapbook Prize, we received 2,119 entries, and many excellent manuscripts, but the series only allows for three winners, and we’ve chosen the following trio. Each of the winning poets will receive $5,000, and their chapbooks will be distributed to all 8,000 of our subscribers, beginning with the Fall 2021 issue of Rattle. Per the guidelines, at least one of the winners had to be a poet who had not yet published a full-length book of poetry, and two of this year’s winners qualified.

~ Fall 2021 ~

The Death of a Migrant Worker
Gil Arzola
Valparaiso, Indiana

Gil Arzola’s first book of poetry, Prayers of Little Consequence, was published in 2019 by Passager, who named him their Poet of the Year. His story “Losers Walk” was nominated for a Pushcart Award in 2018 and work has appeared in Dash, Palabra, Whetstone, The Tipton Review, The Elysian Review, Crosslimb and Slab among others.

~ Winter 2021 ~

I Will Pass Even to Acheron
Amanda Newell
Leesburg, Virginia

Amanda Newell’s first full-length poetry collection, Postmortem Say, is forthcoming from Cervena Barva in 2023, and her chapbook, Fractured Light, won the 2010 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. Her recent work appears or will be forthcoming in the Cimarron Review, Gargoyle, Plume, Rattle, and elsewhere. (web)

~ Spring 2022 ~

Imago, Dei
Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose
Rochester, New York

Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose’s poetry and prose have been nominated for three Pushcart prizes and a Best of the Net award and appear in many magazines and collections, including The Atlantic, The Sun, McSweeneys, The Satirist, The Belladonna, Women Studies Quarterly, and Emrys. She teaches writing, literature, and women studies in Rochester, NY, and is a founding member of Straw Mat Writers.