The Shirley Bradley LeFlore Poetry Prize for Women honors and publishes emerging female poets in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Sponsored by SBLF, the winning chapbooks will be published by 2Leaf Press.
I HAVE KNOWN WOMEN / RIVERS OF WOMEN
blu / blck / tan / high / yella / blu-vein women / rivercrossing women / waters
deep as the nile / mississippi as mud / seaboard and island ocean
women / women who ride the waves and balance the tide / swimming
women / waterwalking women / treading waters / floating / going w /
the flow women / backstroking / jellyfishing / mud crawling
women / i know women who drown / sinking women who sleep
at the bottom of the waters
~excerpt of “Rivers of Women” from Rivers of Women, The Play (2013) by Shirley Bradley LeFlore
The creation of the Shirley Bradley LeFlore Poetry Prize for Women stemmed from our conversations with Shirley over the years. This inspired us to develop an initiative that embodied her poetic spirit and her role as a catalyst for change in both academia and the arts community. More importantly, Shirley was an intersectional feminist long before the term gained popularity, and she passionately fought for women’s rights, particularly for women of color. She believed that women’s voices and words were vital sources of hope, inspiration, and truth, especially within St. Louis through her community programs.
Similar to other feminist poets like Maya Angelou, Joy Harjo, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde, Shirley recognized that for women to truly thrive rather than merely survive, they must continually adapt to the shifting dynamics of society while maintaining their identities. With the natural musicality of her writing, Shirley never adhered to a fixed definition of womanhood; instead, she encouraged readers to reflect on what it means to be a woman throughout various historical contexts. Her poetry collection, Brassbones & Rainbows (2013), and the choreopoem Rivers of Women, The Play (2013), are not all-inclusive works, but they are representative of the spirit and power of Shirley’s unique voice and profound love for humanity.
Two winners will be selected for the Shirley Bradley LeFlore Poetry Prize for Women and each will receive a $500 prize. Their final manuscripts will be published by 2Leaf Press, a nonprofit press in New York led by Black and Brown women, and released during National Poetry Month. The winners will also receive 100 copies of their chapbook and participate in a public reading in St. Louis.
SBLF plans to release the submission guidelines and deadlines for the Shirley Bradley LeFlore Poetry Prize for Women by the end of the year for 2026.