UW Press: Wisconsin Poetry Series

This series includes:
The Brittingham Prize in Poetry
The Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry
The Four Lakes Prize in Poetry

Currently, the University of Wisconsin Press seeks to publish a minimum of five poetry titles each year as part of the Wisconsin Poetry Series. Works are chosen for publication following an open reading period (submissions are accepted between July 15 and September 15) for the poetry prizes awarded by the Press.

The Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry are awarded annually. They are selected by a guest judge following an initial screening process conducted by coeditors Ron Wallace and Sean Bishop in conjunction with the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The winner of each prize receives $1,000 and the publication of their work by the University of Wisconsin Press.

The Brittingham Prize in Poetry was founded in 1985 with the help of grants from the Brittingham Trust. Administered by the UW Foundation, the trust was established in 1924 by the wills of lumber baron Thomas Evans Brittingham Sr. and his wife, activist Mary Clark Brittingham, to benefit the University.

The Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry was founded in 1994 with the help of a bequest from Sara Pollak. The prize honors her husband, Felix, a major Wisconsin poet and former curator of the Rare Book Room and Little Magazine Collection in the UW–Madison Libraries.

The Four Lakes Prize in Poetry may be awarded annually to a collection of poetry submitted by a previous winner of either the Brittingham or Felix Pollak prizes. Recipients are selected by the coeditors of the Wisconsin Poetry Series with input from screeners and faculty in the Creative Writing Program at UW–Madison.

Priority for publication apart from the prizes is given to titles selected as honorable mention by that year’s judge or otherwise deemed to be exceptional by the series coeditors and screening committee.

Book cover showing the silhoutte of person in a forest. Above them is a bird with a string around its beak

Paper $14.95 t
ISBN 9780299321444

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Dear Terror, Dear Splendor
Melissa Crowe

“In this restless and disarming debut, as deftly crafted as the star and as lush and unpredictable as looming motherhood, Melissa Crowe displays lyrical mastery. This is skill meant to savor. And this is a poet who arrives as teacher. We’d be fools not to listen and learn.”
——Patricia Smith

Paper $18.95 t
ISBN 9780299323042

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House of Sparrows
Betsy Sholl

“This magnificent collection proves yet again why Sholl is one of our truly indispensable writers, whose poems engage what must be addressed if we are to fully encounter, as she writes in her triumphant title poem, ‘the wailing, the how, the when.’ I remain awestruck by her artistry.”
—Sascha Feinstein