Poetry in Translation Contest Winners Announced

The Academy of American Poets and Words Without Borders have announced the four winners of the 2020 Poems in Translation Contest. More than 900 poems translated from 58 languages were submitted to the contest, which offers $150 to each winner and publication on Poem-a-Day, the daily poetry series produced by the Academy of American Poets, and on Words Without Borders over the next four Saturdays. A virtual celebration of the winners, “World in Verse: A Multilingual Poetry Reading,” will be held on Wednesday, October 7, 2020. 

The four winners of the contest are:

• “Learning Late Letters" by Nguyễn Hoàng Quyên, translated from Vietnamese by the author (to be published in Poem-a-Day on September 12)
• "Pegasus Autopsy" by Julio Pazos Barrera, translated from Spanish by Bryan Mendoza  (to be published in Poem-a-Day on September 19)
• "Trial Run" by Yau Ching, translated from Chinese by Chenxin Jiang (to be published in Poem-a-Day on September 26)
• "Birds in Flight, 1965" Enrique Villasis, translated from Filipino by Bernard Capinpin  (to be published in Poem-a-Day on October 3)

The winners were selected by the editors of Words Without Borders and contest judge David Tomas Martinez.