Striving for the Spirit: Academy Press Poetry Chapbook Prize 2021

ABOUT THE BOOK

This poetry chapbook covers a wide diversity of themes. From the creative writing issues and struggling for artistic values, over growing up, understanding the world to death and the afterlife. Both lyrical tone and narrative style are traversing into new forms of expression. Some poetic lines take the form of practical advice. Few poems explore the human mind. Some poems reflect on the western influence on modern culture by technology. Music and film, as art forms, rely strongly on electronic components. Internet is a theme of one composition. The deepness of the content overcomes the usual shortness of the chapbook. The main goal of this collection is to awaken the spirit. It means spreading the natural view to a whole new level. The poem Worlds Within is a showcase for this. Its content is the liberation of the soul. Christian spirituality is put side by side to widespread materialism, which these verses are trying to overcome. This poetry collection won the Academy Press poetry chapbook contest in the emerging category in 2021. (https://academypress.org/contest/)

ABOUT ACADEMY PRESS

Academy Press was a non-profit literary entity from California. They published the Atherton Review. A few of the last issues are available on Amazon. Their official website went offline in April 2022, with no response to email even earlier. What happened to Academy Press remains unknown. Since they never used social media, a possible statement could not be issued. Going out of business is usual for small independent presses.

About the contest

This was their only poetry chapbook competition. No entry fee was required. There were four winners, in four different categories, of which only two published winning titles. The prize included chapbook interior formatting with Eric Michael Moberg, and the Academy Press logo on the title page, followed by self-publication on Amazon KDP.

Duotrope keeps a listing about this contest. Winners and a judge do not appear there, since they do not add time-sensitive information. (https://duotrope.com/listing/32803/academy-press-poetry-chap-book-contest)

Divisions were as follows:

Youth-up to 18 years old.

Collegiate-any undergraduate student.

Emerging-MFA students or poets with no prior book published.

Expert-any poet with one or more published books.

Winners:

Georgina Odunsi (UK) Youth

Maz Gilkes (UK) Collegiate

Ivan Marovic (Croatia) Emerging

Onyekachi Onuoha (Nigeria) Expert

Georgina Odunsi published Now That I'm Dead, This Is What I Should've Said under pen name The Colour Grey.