The Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Program proudly offers statewide recognition and cash prizes for Colorado poets or poets writing about Colorado for the eighth year in a row.
“Whether promoting young poets or rewarding veteran word-slingers, our poetry contests have helped support a strong literary arts program and community on Colorado’s Western Slope,” explained Talking Gourds director Art Goodtimes. “Participants not only buy into the contest lottery but support all our work with readings, zooms, live shows, local and regional laureates. Think of it as a gofundme tariff for non-urban arts.”
This Colorado poetry prize began in 2018 in memory of the late Elaine Cantor Fischer. Elaine was a revered local political leader, supporter of the arts and painter. She helped start the Fischer Poetry Prize 29 years ago to honor her husband, attorney and poet Mark Fischer, who died tragically in his Forties while skiing the slopes of Telluride.
The Cantor Prize contest is open to English language poets of all ages living in Colorado or poets outside of the state writing about events or places in Colorado. First place prize has been increased this year to $1,000 — with five $250 finalist prizes.
Contest organizers are sensitive to providing participants with more than just a spin at the poetry roulette wheel. Feedback on poems, explaining how far the poem progressed in the contest’s eight-step review process and offering a brief critical scan, is available for an $8 fee per poem.
Deadline for reception of submissions is August 31, 2025.
Final judge for this year’s contest is the award-winning Colorado poet José “Tony” Alcántara. He is the author of a debut poetry collection The Bitten World: Poems (Tebot Bach, 2022). His poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including American Life in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience.
His poem “Divorce” won the 2021 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle magazine. And he has been a finalist in several Fischer and Cantor contests run by the Telluride Institute
You can enjoy Tony performing his poem “Deep Ecology” for Bardic Trails Online:
The Cantor Poetry Prize contest is a project of the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds Poetry Program. For more information, visit the website: tellurideinstitute.org/talking-gourds
Other Talking Gourds projects include the Stories & Poems Norwood live reading series in collaboration with the Lone Cone Library on the third Wednesday of every month, the West End Stories & Poems series in collaboration with the Naturita Community Library the second Thursday of each month at 6 pm), a new live series in Telluride for the summer on the first Thursday of the month’s Art Walk at the Telluride Arts office across from the Wilkinson Library, the national Fischer Poetry Prize contest (open for submissions), the Western Slope Poet Laureate award in collaboration with Grand Junction’s Center of the Arts (given every two years), the San Miguel County Poet Laureate collaboration (given every two years), the annual Karen Chamberlain lifetime achievement award given in collaboration with the Mountain Words Festival of Crested Butte (just awarded to George Sibley of Gunnison), and the MycoLicious MycoLuscious MycoLogical Poetry Show in conjunction with the annual Telluride Mushroom Festival.
