Previous Winners
Congratulations to Nura Al-Shumari, whose poem "turritopsis dohrnii," was chosen by final judge Airea D. Matthews as the 2025 Annie Balocating Undergraduate Prize for Poetry winner.
About the winning poem, Airea D. Matthews writes:
In “turritopsis dohrnii,” the poet employs a recursive structure with shifting imagery and an overarching biological metaphor to chart a speaker’s evolution through childhood disruption over seven years. The poem, named after the “immortal jellyfish,” adopts a layered, cyclical form—four of its five stanzas, each marked by age, return to a specific domestic setting, subtly echoing the reversive process of its titular creature. The use of second-person address haunts the poem; it not only creates a distinction between the speaker and the subject but also allows the speaker to observe themselves with distance, enhancing the theme of emotional fragmentation.
The author’s attention to stark domestic details (“chairs that cradle cardboard boxes,” “splintered tea kettle flung amid a frenzied battle”) ground the surreal tone in physical space, while the repeated image of “the heating vent you curl your body around” becomes a poignant symbol of retreat, safety, and loss. Within the poem’s tight five-stanza structure, the speaker is four times described as a “translucent” being—both fragile and undefined—mirroring the physicality of the jellyfish while also invoking a ghost-like presence. This spectral quality suggests a young adult fading in and out of their own life, shaped by environments they can no longer contain nor fully desire to. Ultimately, the poet’s admirable formal and imagistic choices mirror the struggle to heal without erasure—to transform without needing to escape or deny what came before.
Nura was awarded $500 and her winning poem was read by Airea D. Matthews at An Evening with Airea D. Matthews and Balocating Prize Announcement on April 2, 2025.
Finalists for the 2025 Balocating Prize for Undergraduate Poetry are Sloane Barlow, Abigail Brooks, Paige Comito, Olivia Delgado, Newsha Firhouzkouhi, Vivian Hall, Brooke Holt, Chase Jerome-Davis, and Jeremiah Young-Walker.
turritopsis dohrnii
in the corner of a dimly lit living room
underneath a flaxen tapestry with all of God’s 100 names
supported by crooked, precarious nails
there is a heating vent you curl your body around
against the bristled, moss colored carpet
you are ten years old
and you are absorbing all the warmth
translucent fickle thing
this is your first life
past the kitchen with the never-occupied dining table
and chairs that cradle cardboard boxes
loose pieces of laundry
groceries yet to be put away
instead of pliant pumping flesh
there is a heating vent you curl your body around
beside a splintered tea kettle flung amid a frenzied battle
you’ve chosen not to understand
you are fourteen years old
and you are attempting to quell the commotion
translucent shrinking thing
you still have a ways to go
across the front door that leads to a porch
encircled by a neglected garden
there is a heating vent now concealed by a sleek cabinet
this is a place you once called home
you are seventeen years old
and you’re weary from enduring
heavy from carrying
translucent mutating thing
all these skins you shed
limbs you retract
cells that regress
so you can return to that carpet.
but it’s not the same one
and the walls are a bare pale ivory
there is no heating vent
to press your skin against
and the yous you tried to peel
They never left.
translucent naive thing
all this shifting
and the hurting stays the same
Nura Al-Shumari
Winner, 2025 Balocating Prize for Undergraduate Poetry
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