Patricia Dobler Poetry Award Winners
The Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, sponsored by Madwomen in the Attic, is an annual contest open to women writers over the age of 40 who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents, currently living in the U.S., who have not published a full-length book of poetry, fiction, or non-fiction.
2022 Award Winner
Jana-Lee Germaine
Title: First Night
As winner of the 2022 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award, Germaine will receive $1,000; a public reading in Pittsburgh, PA, with judge CM Burroughs in Spring 2023; round-trip travel and lodging for her public reading; and publication of her winning poem in Voices from the Attic, Volume XXVIII.
About the winner: JANA-LEE GERMAINE’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, EcoTheo Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, Presence, december, Rock & Sling, New South, The Windhover, Literary Mama, The Baltimore Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Poet Lore, Southern Poetry Review, The Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from Emerson College and is a senior poetry reader for Ploughshares. A survivor of domestic violence in her first marriage, she lives with her very nice second husband, four children, and four rescue cats in semi-rural Massachusetts.
Past award winners
To view or download the poem and additional information about our winners [pdf], click on the title of the poem below.
- 2021: “Your Sister Brings Me and Orchard“, Elizabeth Wilson
- 2020: “Juxtaposing the Black Girl & the Abuse“, Shirley Jones Luke
- 2019: “Fox Collar“, Kathleen Kirk from Normal, Il
- 2018: “The Grocery Store“, Donna M. Glass
- 2017: “Sorrow I Will Lead You Out Somewhere“, Deborah Allbritain
- 2016: “After the Accident“, Dana Salvador
- 2015: “A Woman from the Infant Mortality Review Board Calls“, Amanda Newell
- 2014: “Float“, Wendy Miles
- 2013: “Furious Bread“, Chryss Yost
- 2012: “At the Brera, Milan“, Michelle Maher
- 2011: “The Stone of Me“, Gail Langstroth
- 2010: “Toehold“, Margot Wizansky
- 2009: “Goliath“, Heidi Johannesen Poon
- 2008: “Mud Season (2nd grade)“, Jane McKinley
- 2007 (inaugural year): “Incoming Wounded“, Maureen O’Brien