01/16/2026
Below is a list of the winner, runner-up, and four finalists for the Maxine Cassin Poetry Contest. Honor them. They deserve praise.
Winner: Joanne Durham for “You Can’t Put the Red Sea in a Poem”
Runner-up: Al DeGenova for “A Good Hammer”
Finalists:
Gloria Hefferman for “At the World War II Museum in New Orleans”
John Linstrum for “Thunder and Lillies”
Rikki Santer for “Bluebells”
Lola Willis for “Birds Eye View of East Colfax Before Flying | May 17, 2024”
Joanne Durham’s “You Can’t Put the Red Sea in a Poem” was an ambitious tour-de-force work which made out heads swirl.
Joanne Durham is the author of To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize (Evening Street Press 2022) and the chapbook, On Shifting Shoals. Her poetry appears widely in journals and anthologies, including Poetry South, NC Literary Review, CALYX, Vox Populi, and The Nature of Our Times anthology. She lives on the North Carolina coast, where she teaches poetry workshops and co-hosts the Island Arts Council's Poetry Thursday readings. Visit her at https://www.joannedurham.com.
Al DeGenova’s “A Good Hammer” is a lucent, vibrant poem in which a father uses a tool to connect to his son.
Albert DeGenova is a poet, editor, teacher, and blues saxophonist. He is the author of five books of poetry and two chapbooks. In June 2000, he launched the literary/arts journal After Hours; he continues as publisher and co-editor. DeGenova holds an MFA from Spalding University in Louisville and is the Executive Director of Write On, Door County, a literary arts center based in Door County. Wisconsin.
Please watch our website. (poetrysocietyoflouisiana.org) Soon we will publish the winning poem, the runner-up poem and the four finalists’ poems with its own page. That page will soon include a downloadable Broadside edition of the winning poems.
After we post the poems on the website, we will also print a Broadside. The Broadside will be placed in coffeehouses, bookstores, and such in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. We are even working on distributing these poems by “tossing-something-mister” in a Mardi Gras parade or two.
