Poetry Open - April 1999

1st-place winner: George Manner for “The Gravestone Carver Speaks”

2nd-place winner: Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis for “Vanishing Armenia”

3rd-place winner: Simone Muench for “Eating Olives in the House of Heartbroken Women”

And the finalists, listed in alphabetical order:

Monica Berlin for “What Williams Forgot”
Michael Blumenthal for “Habitations”
Anne Caston for “The Burden”
Tishani Doshi for “Undertow”
Pamela Gemin for “Woman, Cat, Fire”
Robert Griffin for “Charm”
Meghan Hickey for “Standing Shelter”
Susan Hutton for “Hum”
Michael Ingram for “Joseph’s Dream”
Felix Jung for “Social Studies”
Clark Karoses for “Lezette”
Thomas E. Kennedy for “Renga”
Simone Muench for “Maps”
Greg Rappleye for “Homer, Faulkner, Noir”
David Roderick for “The Dream of Filthy River”
Brent Royster for “The Fifth Station”
Ruth L. Schwartz for “Millennium Love Poem”
Vivian Shipley for “The Dodo”
Francine Sterle for “Second Sight”
Susan Terris for “States of Mind: A Meditation on Places I’ve Never Been”
Thomas West for “Wishing for Winter”
Eliot Kahlil Wilson for “Blank Verse for How to Get to the Asylum Cemetery”

We thank all entrants for sending their poetry. We’ve selected a handful of our favorites for our Poetry Presentation page.

Every story we publish is unsolicited, and 86% of the stories we accepted last year came to us directly from the writer.
That's exactly how we like it.

One of the most respected short-story journals in print, Glimmer Train Stories is represented in recent editions of the Pushcart Prize, New Stories from the Midwest, O.Henry, New Stories from the South, Best of the West, and Best American Short Stories anthologies.