Winners of 2020 Poetry Translation Competition Announced

Thank you to everyone who participated! The quality of submitted translations continues to rise.

First Place ($100 Prize): Margaret Coats, California
Three Translations of the Poetry of Jean Froissart

Second Place: Terry L. Norton, South Carolina
Five Translations of Aesop’s Fables, from Phaedrus

Third Place: Anna Leader, Washington, D.C.
“The Lorelei” by Heinrich Heine

Third Place: Michael Coy, Ireland
A Poem by Michelangelo, “The Woman Who Passed Me” by Charles Baudelaire

Fourth Place: Luigi Pagano, England”
“Ode scritta in occasione delle rivoluzioni di Modena e Bologna” by Giovanni Berchet

Fourth Place: Tanya Fernandez Escudero, Spain
“Black Shadow” by Rosalía de Castro

Fourth Place: Vicki Schnadig, Texas
“Tamara” by M. Lermontov

Honorable Mention: Scott Dalgarno, Utah
Sonnet After Catullus #4

Honorable Mention: Stevie Preater
“The Pirate’s Song” by José de Espronceda

Judge

JARED CARTER on ‘After Putting a Poetry Anthology in a Blender’: A Poem by Tony PeyserOctober 13, 2025
An entertainng and rewarding poem. Thank you, Tony! I suspect more poems should be put in blenders.
Margaret Coats on ‘Profoundly Original’: A Poem on Saint Carlo Acutis by Margaret CoatsOctober 13, 2025
Many thanks! I'm glad you like it.
Margaret Coats on ‘The End of Fred the Thief’: A Poem by Terry NortonOctober 13, 2025
You recognized good material and made a good narrative of it. This is something uncommon in poetry at present, where…
Margaret Coats on ‘Profoundly Original’: A Poem on Saint Carlo Acutis by Margaret CoatsOctober 13, 2025
Thanks so much for your comment, Theresa. My lines are heroic couplets for a young hero, but I did split…
Theresa Werba on ‘The Mead of Poetry’: A Poem by Theresa WerbaOctober 13, 2025
Well I am primed now to at least try to make some kind of mead at home-- maybe I can…