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Pushcart Prize Nominations

Annually, Split This Rock nominates 6 poems in The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database that have been published through the Poem of the Week Series for the Pushcart Prize. Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the annual The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Every volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses. The Pushcart Prize has been a labor of love and independent spirits since its founding. It is one of the last surviving literary co-ops from the 60's and 70's.

Explore Split This Rock's recent Pushcart Prize Nominations below, and please join us in celebrating these incredible and necessary poems by reading, listening, and sharing. All poems are free and available as text and audio in The Quarry.

2025 Pushcart Prize Nominees

These six poems conjure, confront, and commemorate. Aiya Sakr declares, “In Gaza, a kilo of flour costs approximately a life.” Cynthia Manick observes, “It must be nice to have no load bearing walls—nothing to hold / you down or box in all you want to be.”  Jada Renée Allen recollects, “I drew women then /     because I could not be / one.” Miller Oberman honors “All these dead I am not dead because of.” Rena Priest reminds, “The Christians came in the day / to take the children away.” S.J. Ghaus affirms, “Sometimes I want us to horse / through the world like it’s on fire, / yelling and singing…” 

2024 Pushcart Prize Nominees 

These exceptional poems engage in mourning, envisaging, and honoring. Ariana Benson observes “what happens when a species clings // so desperately to life that it makes for itself / a skin of bodies no predator will touch.” jason b. crawford writes, “i have only learned how to speak about joy / as an offering to a god i will never understand.” Karla Cordero notes, “i guess i’m writing this poem / to understand         where our bones sink to      after the last spill of breath.” Khadijah Queen remarks, “I’m often the only masked one / left in any room, carting purifiers & Clorox / everywhere.” Noor Hindi declares, “If I have to live, I choose / you. You: Everyone I’ve ever mourned.” In Saúl Hernández’ poem, “I ask my therapist, if trauma is a way of cheating death? / Trauma is a way of reminding the body you’re a survivor.” 

2023 Pushcart Prize Nominees

2022 Pushcart Prize Nominees

2021 Pushcart Prize Nominees

2020 Pushcart Prize Nominees