Previous Winners
Congratulations to Farah Kavarana, whose poem "The Way of Things" was chosen by final judge Thomas Lynch as the 2026 Annie Balocating Undergraduate Prize for Poetry winner.
About the winning poem, Thomas Lynch writes:
While there is something to admire in each of the pieces that was sent to me, “The Way of Things” strikes me as most admirable for its presentation of an especially existential moment of insight around our finiteness, our mortality, which knowledge punctuates so much of our lived experience. The poem accomplishes this with an economy of words – a bang for the buck aspect common to good writing – that informs real poetry. Likewise the structural nod to line breaks and stanzaic forms makes most of the white space that poets control along with word choices and other language arts. “The Way of Things” does, however, more than the other finalists, deliver on the promise of its title, depicting the moment when innocence is ineluctably and ever-after tampered with.
Farah was awarded $500 and read her winning poem at Wheelbarrow Books presents Thomas Lynch and Julia McConnell on April 1, 2026.
Finalists for the 2026 Balocating Prize for Undergraduate Poetry are Juno Bursch, Kasey Conklin, Newsha Firouzkouhi, Charisma Holly, Frank Jefferies, Lee Stiekes, Jenna Waggoner, Gabrielle Yeary, and Jeremiah Young-Walker.
THE WAY OF THINGS
I wish I could tell you
about Christmas morning.
I broke down sobbing at the hotel breakfast table
at the sight of a little boy
in a striped neon jersey
yelling chirpily across the room
and thought about all the
filthy things
he was going to do and have done
to him.
Father, yes, I know
the way of things:
It comes for us all in the end,
It's just,
the world looks a tad bit
blacker, through my eyes now.
I guess I've never been able to
stand the unstoppable
shrapnel tide of corruption it brings,
even to fat-cheeked children who have done
no wrong.
none at all.
Farah Karavana
Winner, 2026 Balocating Prize for Undergraduate Poetry
***