Winners of the 12th Suspect Poetry Contest
We’re very pleased to announce the results of the 12th annual SUSPECT Poetry Contest. In conjunction with our launch of Mark Kyungsoo Bias’s Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize Winner, Minor Destructions, this year’s contest looked for poems that used both words “minor” and “destruction” or their grammatical variants in imaginative ways. Poems should also possess overall excellence, of course. Open to all, the contest was judged by Mark Kyungsoo Bias. Winners receive a cash prize and publication in SUSPECT.
We received a total of 718 poems, a strong increase in number from last year’s 427 poems. The challenge of using the words “minor” and “destructions” proved stimulating for poets across the world. This year’s entries came from 53 countries from around the world, also a significant increase from 37 countries last year. More states in the US participated too. The United States leads yet again with 200 entries (NY 26, CA 22, OH 17, TX 16, IL 14, VA 14, MA 9, FL 8, MN 8, NC 8, NE 8, MD 7, WI 6, PA 5, AZ 4, GA 4, WA 4, IN 3, OR 3, UT 3, CO 2, MI 2, NV 2, AR 1, LA 1, MS 1, NJ 1, TN 1), followed by India 92, Nigeria 92, Singapore 45, Australia 26, the UK 26, Canada 25, the Philippines 24, Pakistan 19, Indonesia 15, South Africa 12, Iran 10, Kenya 10, Malaysia 10, Bangladesh 8, Romania 8, Uganda 8, Ghana 4, Hong Kong 4, New Zealand 4, Sri Lanka 4, Japan 3, the Netherlands 3, Uzbekistan 3, Vietnam 3, Zambia 3, China 2, France 2, Georgia 2, Taiwan 2, Turkey 2, Ukraine 2, Afghanistan 1, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1, Brazil 1, Bulgaria 1, Ethiopia 1, Greece 1, Kuwait 1, Lebanon 1, North Macedonia 1, Nepal 1, Saudi Arabia 1, Serbia 1, South Korea 1, Spain 1, Tunisia 1, UAE 1, and Zimbabwe 1. 19 entries did not state the country of residence.
First Prize (USD300) goes to “Cartography of Minor Destructions,” by Rajendra Prasad Gupta (India).
Second Prize (USD200) goes to “Small Particles,” by Anna Leonard (USA).
Third Prize (USD100) goes to “A Woman Not Me,” by Xiadi Zhai (USA).
Congratulations to the winners! Enjoy their poems and the judge’s comments below. The SUSPECT Poetry Contest will return in 2027. Sign up here for notification.
Akshay Mahajan, Stranger, Friend and Faithful Partner, 2024.
Image description: Fragments: five color photographs poised at different angles against a white ground, showing the back of a shirtless man standing and looking out at the deep blue sea and sky, with distant mountains.
FIRST PRIZE
Cartography of Minor Destructions
By Rajendra Prasad Gupta
My mother keeps broken cups
the way some people keep prayers—
a chipped blue rim,
a handle detached like a sentence
that forgot its verb.
In the cupboard,
these minor destructions lean against one another
with the quiet intimacy of widows.
She says nothing leaves a house
simply because it broke.
Outside, cities rehearse larger ruins:
bridges swallowing rivers,
roads unlearning their names,
windows falling in love with dust.
But in our kitchen
the apocalypse is measured differently—
by the missing tooth of a teacup,
the hairline crack in a plate
where lentils once cooled,
by the soft refusal of a spoon
to meet its reflection.
I used to think loss arrived
with sirens.
Now I know it enters softly:
as steam escaping,
as the absent sound
of porcelain touching porcelain,
as my mother washing
what can no longer hold water.
Judge’s Comment: What quiet intimacies persist beyond loss? The mundane–nearly involuntary–pursuits of everyday survival are haunted by the smallest phantoms in the forms of micro fissures, all burdened by the pressing weight of larger societal wreckages. Gupta’s poem on grief pays close attention to the sound of personal structures cracking beneath the overwhelming sounds of the larger structures breaking. “Cartography of Minor Destructions" is heartwrenching, yet enduring in its refusal to completely exist in agony. I found myself reading this poem time and time again, and even thought about its implications far beyond the page. It is a masterclass in understatement and loud in its call to be returned to.
Rajendra Prasad Gupta is a writer from Bhojpur, Bihar, India. His poetry and flash fiction seek the extraordinary truth hidden within ordinary moments, reflecting his deep connection to the soil and people of his homeland. His work explores human emotions and the social fabric with sincerity and brevity.
Akshay Mahajan, Stranger, Friend and Faithful Partner, 2024.
Image description: Fragments: a color photograph of a goat with elaborately twisted horns standing atop a stone wall with two twisted trees behind him; superimposed and spilling out on either side is a B&W line drawing–a maritime map with ship routes and annotations in Greek. Superimposed again is a piece of a small B&W drawing or lithgraph showing a lone figure on the shore of a mountain lake.
SECOND PRIZE
Small Particles
By Anna Leonard
A friend’s boyfriend told me he spent his college years
studying things he couldn’t see. I told him
he was wrong: Neutrons are minor but seen—
we just don’t recognize them.
Or was it neurons? I can’t remember;
I’m not a scientist. Or is it poor sleep?
Something about the light. The jalapenos he sliced
burned his hands and I told him about the margarita
rash I’d get from cutting fruit behind the bar.
How my sister stuck my hands under cold water
then put two ibuprofen under my tongue.
I used to look so much younger.
I turn twenty-six and my body softens.
I look at her like a monster. I read a blog post in which
Ann Levin compares her body to Jabba the Hut
and I re-download MyFitnessPal. I flirt
with destruction. My partner tells me he loves me
and I say it back, all pronunciation, intonation—
which doesn’t mean I don’t mean it. Doesn’t mean
he can’t see it. I look in the mirror. The naked horror.
I use my hands like tongs to lift my flesh. To hold
my stomach away from my mouth. I think of my sister.
I take out my phone and text her, hey
i’ve been thinking of you
Judge’s comment: In “Small Particles” Anna Leonard examines the invisible architectures of a life on the brink of ruin. The poem is unapologetically raw as it transforms the ordinary into an intimate meditation on self-perception and the enduring solace of longing—how even the smallest gestures of intimacy can save us from the loneliness of the self. The poem lays bare the fragility of consciousness and the mortar that keeps it from collapsing. A brilliant and achingly honest poem.
Anna Leonard is a poet and musician pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is the Managing Editor of Blackbird. Her poems are published or forthcoming in The Florida Review, The Greensboro Review, Southeast Review, Southern Indiana Review, and elsewhere.
Akshay Mahajan, Stranger, Friend and Faithful Partner, 2024.
Image description: Fragments: a photograph of two ancient twisted olive trees that appear like ghostly figures atop a cliff overlooking a blue sea; a pottery shard depicting a winged man from an Attic Red-figure amphora falls, Icarus-like, from above.
THIRD PRIZE
A Woman Not Me
By Xiadi Zhai
stands dis-
severed into substance new there might
slip another si-
lence into sleeve of the still
near-morning blue hour with its
hoof on the lassoed sun’s throat that girl
with hand over minor mouth undressed
in slant mirror mere sister in
unsharp breasts placed like side-
facing eyes horse-like
prey-set shy or else that soiled
sound it starts it seeps that psshh-ah
psshh- ah trickling
into sight then slot i give it chin song gift a soft
blue jaw knock a glamour
into her misplace a world in summer whole—those
baby birches bend or plead i’ve seen the planet
same the plate upon
which sun defies setting—
legs li- quid slipped back down within
within my palm there smokes a knack
of night -mare thin haired sockless
song so what are good eyes for—
good girl!—who sees better turned inside
out set out to dry: surplus
—what for—
the sea sways no different in this flat land nor
in closed hand nor
in a blade of daylight swallowed in the workweek’s pink maw
another theory of hurt another fistful
of time another
breeze between shaved skins i summon:
come back come watch
a girl cut her teeth on stale affection
face down i too was
astonished by my
sweet infant cruelty
feet filthy elbows blood-dry
loans near- derelict but i am
taken back to before this wreckage o i am
taken am taken
back i am taken to am taken
by my defective indebted state
wet- knuckled wet-kneed on the shoulder
of a farmland road
baby blue shorts slung around ankles
body bitten whole body bit to bone
the destructive wetness within
soaked with wet wealth wet what—
what wealth— look at your own
face violaceous with want o small thing what
have you taught
yourself to settle for—
even a woman of her word forgets
what she swore when the splitting
of her pale chest is set to music
the snap of lust rupturing
like a violet nitrile dentist’s glove
certainly i owe
much: thanks spit time shame sleep coin fluid skin
i owe symmetry sound bone beauty another summer fast
-ened to a stranger’s word stranger questions
have been splayed
by the same dull -edged song:
psshh-ah psshh- ah
some defect i
harbor reveals itself in speech it- self in self
another girl who cannot
read her self- grown palms
lives here she will not move
until she is an ob -ject adored—
come! watch see come
sit unstitch this wicked
scene of another satisfaction another
season settled within without
whatever it is to be without
Judge’s comment: The music of Xiadi Zhai’s “A Woman Not Me” comes second only to the mystery of its syntax. A poem that beckons multiple readings, it reminds us that poetry is an all-encompassing artform—sound, visual, and content all work in conjunction to call forward the most primal reactions towards alienation, desire, memory, and constructed womanhood. Haunting in its politics and chaotic in its rhythm, the poem is simply breathtaking.
Xiadi Zhai is from Boston, Massachusetts. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she has recent or forthcoming work in Bennington Review, F(r)iction, MudRoom, Passages North, and Quarterly West, among others.
Akshay Mahajan (b. 1985, India; http://www.akshaymahajan.in) is an artist deeply invested in utilizing photography as a mirror to culture and collective memory. His practice thoughtfully examines post-colonial cities, landscapes, folklore, and mythologies, meticulously scrutinized to reveal myriad “failed futures.” His work observes how our postcolonial reality is often anchored in a pre-colonial memory, using the camera as a tool to lay bare these connections. With a discerning eye, Mahajan explores how the physical structures and spaces in the non-western world can become emblematic of unfulfilled aspirations and unrealized potentials due to unresolved historiography. Simultaneously, Mahajan contemplates the intricate ways in which individual lives intersect with, and are shaped by, these landscapes. Included here are three images from the work Stranger, Friend and Faithful Partner, 2024 (https://akshaymahajan.in/stranger,-friend-and-faithful-partner).
The winning poems of the 12th SUSPECT Poetry Contest offer quiet intimacies, brilliant honesty, and alluring music.