
Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize
History
Joy Bale Boone (1912-2002) was an American poet best known for her devotion to the
arts. Born in Chicago, where she received inspiration from poet Harriet Monroe, Boone
spent most of her life in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She was active in the women's liberation
movement, having formed the League of Women Voters in Hardin County, KY in 1944. Throughout
her life, she served on numerous committees and boards in hopes that more people would
have the opportunity to experience the arts in the way that she had. Her most significant
work was The Storm's Eye: A Narrative in Verse Celebrating Cassius Marcellus Clay, Man of Freedom
1810–1903. She served as Kentucky's Poet Laureate from 1997-1998.
ZEN
Happiness is yet the essence of a moment--
be still for this!
Resist kaleidoscopes,
the mad twirling of colors,
and the hunter's horn.
Fleet is the moment
its essence shy
can wait forever . . .
only we die.
Thank you for supporting The Heartland Review and remembering Joy!
Contest Guidelines
By submitting to the Contest, the entrant agrees to abide by all Contest rules.
All entries must be original works by the entrant, in English.
Plagiarism, which includes the use of third-party poetry, song lyrics, characters, or another person’s universe, without written permission, will result in disqualification. We expect that all writers understand plagiarism and provide said written permission upon submission.
We can not publish concrete or shape poems. This includes calligrams, poems like Easter Wings, and poem with justified margins.
Submission Deadline for Publication in Spring 2026: July 1-October 1, 2025
There will be a $400 first place gift card, $240 second place gift card, and $100 third place gift card.
To submit to this contest, writers:
- Must be over the age of 18.
- Have a United States Postal Address (USPS). This can be a family or friend's address. If you live abroad but have a relative's USPS address, that's fine too. Some poets use their U.S. Consulate but please include someone's name as part of the address.
- Have the ability to accept and use the reward, which is a gift card, usually a Visa gift card purchased from Kroger. This will be mailed to the USPS address that you provide. It can be used on Amazon and many websites and will come with the printed purchase receipt from Kroger.
- Use the Submittable link below to submit to this contest. We can not accept submissions by email or by snail mail. If writers do not have an account with Submittable, it is free to set up but an account is required.
- Electronically submit no more than three (3) original, unpublished poems in any style, length or genre but in English. These poems must be typed and submitted as a Word file. PDFS will be disqualified.
- Pay $10 U.S. dollars by using the Submittable button at the bottom of the page by the deadline of October 1, 2025. Paypal can be used. There are no exceptions to the fee. We have other contests that are free.
- Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but poems printed elsewhere in the U.S. will not be included in contest. We want first North American Serial Rights. Writers will need to withdraw their entire submission packet on Submittable if one is accepted and printed elsewhere. Money will not be refunded.
- Submittable will ask for a 40 word biography.
The most common edit that THRP makes for poets is shortening the bio.
We can not accept changes to the poem once it is submitted. If you would like to make changes, please withdraw your first submission and submit a new one but be advised that we may have reached our cap and that another fee will be required. All resubmissions must follow the same guidelines.
- We will announce the 3 winners and around 2 honorable mentions before Christmas.
- It takes up to 90 days to process the prizes, which are gift cards. These will arrive by USPS to the address provided. These are usually mailed by certified mail between Jan-March. We will contact you before mailing.
- Each winner and honorable mention (and any other finalists we print) will receive a free copy of the Spring issue of The Heartland Review wherein they are published. This is mailed via USPS to the address provided in Submittable. Writers are responsible for updating their address in Submittable.
- Writers can purchase more copies through Amazon. We'll send you that link when it's available and it's often in our Spring correspondence.
- THRP retains first North American serial rights and may use the submitted material to promote The Heartland Review and website in perpetuity. Upon publication, rights return to the owner. We asked to be credited in the future.
- THRP is not an independent press. We are subject to the governance of our college, Elizabethtown Community & Technical College, which in turn is part of a larger entity, the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. As such, we are not able to enter into a legally binding agreement with our writers, but we've been doing this contest for over 20 years. Although we have hiccups from time to time, our volunteer staff is dedicated and tries to make your experience publishing with us a pleasant one.
- We certainly welcome you to our campus literary readings. Right now we have tentatively scheduled this for April 8 or 9, 2026. Most information will be available closer to Christmas 2025.
Meet This Year's Judge: Clay Matthews
Clay Matthews currently lives in Elizabethtown, KY with his family and teaches at
Elizabethtown Community & Technical College. He studied creative writing and poetry
at Southeast Missouri State University (M.A.) and Oklahoma State University (Ph.d.).
A former poetry editor for The Tusculum Review, he now happily edits for The Heartland
Review.
He was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission in 2015 and was included in Best of the Net (2006 and 2008) and Best New Poets (2005). He has published poetry in journals such as American Poetry Review, Image, Kenyon Review, Appalachian Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.
He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Superfecta; Runoff; Pretty, Rooster; Shore; and Four-Way Lug Wrench, and a handful of chapbooks: Muffler, Western Reruns, and The Pony Express. His next collection, Birds Sing, Anyway, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press.
On what he's looking for in a poem: "I love a wide range of poetic forms—from sonnets and sestinas to long lyrical works. Whether short or long, formal or free, I hang on to this value of an authentic connection with the subject/speaker through the page, which necessarily looks different from writer to writer. Like many readers/viewers, I often don't know what I'm looking for until I see it, and then it's like: 'Yes. That's what I needed today.' Somebody's going to win this prize—it might as well be you."
Past Judges
- 2025: Libby Falk Jones
- 2024: Nina Murray
Previous Winners
Sometimes in Fall by Matthew Spireng
Maybe a sleeve, maybe the back
of my coat, maybe my jeans
as I swung a leg between strands
of wire, barbed and waiting. Long ago
I followed my father in fall, through
woods, across boundaries strung
with wire, and I was caught, stuck—
or worse if I panicked and pulled, tore
skin or clothing I wore. Father
would come to free me with hands
and advice. But I never escaped
what I remember, caught
as we are in those moments
when something snags and holds.
ODE TO MY INNER NUN by Kaecey McCormick
after Ross Gay
somewhere inside me my inner nun tugs
at her dark tunic secured tight by a woolen belt
so thick you could genuflect on it if you weren’t
looking for bruises—she has not removed her veil
since she was consecrated because she doesn’t want evil
inclinations to be revealed or tangled with temptation
(hers or mine)—she listens to music with a rosary
tucked inside her folded hands, and if the nun in me
sees two teenagers tilting together in the back pew
I think, not because they scare off the widows
or tie up the priest’s tongue, but more precisely
because she thinks it sacrilege, those restless lips
opening and closing for that earthy pleasure
in her sacred space, she will strike their smiles
with her scourge—I should tell you the nun in me
always carries a crucifix and a dove because she wants
to forgive the world since she needs forgiving
for who knows how many unforgivable things—
like the times as a girl she’d peel off her dress
and slip between fence posts to slide into the neighbor’s
pool or how she’d finger stolen rolls of her father’s quarters
instead of prayer beads or the spring day she snuck out
the back door to the cemetery and spent time with the boy
next door, naked skin steaming against the cold stones,
while miles away her sister lay chained by tubes to a hospital bed
sucking in a final breath, and above them Carolina wrens
chattered and my inner nun’s eyes drifted deep as the canyon
on the edge of which there she is right now, the nun in me—
tossing her crucifix into the chasm, flinging the dove
up to the sky, taking off her scapular and bathing her skin
in the sun
Slow Ornithology by Jay McCoy
I thought Dad would visit as a crow. We
discussed the idea before he passed, but
I’m not sure he knew what he even was
saying. Maybe it was dementia &
the Lewy bodies – before we knew it
was, before we even knew about Lewy
Body, confined in all the grooves of grey
matter – talking out his mouth’s left side, not
him, not his mind, but his body. Before,
I bet Dad would manifest
as an iridescent corvid, so when
I saw the lady cardinal today, faded
brown, but decisive & chip chipping to
two brilliant carmine companions, I knew
she was Mother, by her grace, her attentive
disregard for me. First assuming
one of her escorts to be Dad, I could not
determine which one, seeming more kin
than husband – brother, not mate. When
I noticed the grackle, gregarious,
industrious, aside, & askew, I saw
my father. I think Dad chose the grackle
for the better. Maybe he didn’t know
the difference, or didn’t
have the words.
Not Yet, My Grandchildren Aren’t Ready by Victoria Melekian
No matter the number of fingers crossed, or the love
and bright shining hope waiting for me in the lobby,
the scooch from gurney to surgical table is a lonely journey.
Listen up, tumor (the word feels like gristle you pull
from your mouth and set discreetly on the edge
of your dinner plate), you can take chunks of the breast
or the whole thing if you want. Heck, you can have both.
But please, leave me my liver, stay away from the brain—
your favorite haunts. I have yet to show Gracie how to
thread the old Singer, teach Jack to drive a stick shift,
take them on a grunion run. I’m not done embedding
myself in the marrow of their sweet growing bones.