The 2026 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Longlist
Thank you to all of our 2025 Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest entrants. After thorough consideration, we are excited to announce this year’s longlisted writers and their outstanding poetry. The longlisted poets and their poems are as follows:
Dagne Forrest “Again, with the Waiting”
Maria Giesbrecht “Sestina for Escape”
Bernadette Hendrickx “Early August Days”
Alexander Hollenberg “Golden Shovel, on the Occasion of the Marion Island Extermination Project”
Y S Lee “Year of the Horse”
Nadja Lubiw-Hazard “Earthing”
Sneha Madhavan-Reese “Initial Conditions”
Sneha Madhavan-Reese “Kizhakkumkara House, Karamvely”
Leland Nicholas “Sea Brain”
Jade Palmer “Car Crash in Front of the Roadside Strawberry Stand”
Jonathan Powers “Climbing In”
Betsy Struthers “The Ice Age”
Ken Victor “At Playa Carillo”
Stay tuned…
We will announce the contest winner on July 27, 2026.