One of my favorite things to do each year is choosing the winner of the Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards. In 2023, there were more than 900 entries covering a range of forms, subjects, issues, and themes. In the end, I selected Calloway Song’s “Songs of Gideon” for the First Place Prize of $1,000, publication in Writer’s Digest, and a 20–minute consultation with yours truly.
Calloway Song is a writer and poet from the Bay Area who is pursuing a BA in linguistics from Duke University. For me, his poem “Songs of Gideon” feels like
