Triin Paja Wins 2023 Wolfson Poetry Chapbook Prize

We're pleased to announce the winner of this year's chapbook prize, Triin Paja, whose collection, Sleeping in a Field, will be published by Wolfson Press in 2024. 

As contest judge Nancy Botkin writes in her citation, "These are gorgeous lyrics. The tone is somber, as the speaker is grieving. She finds in nature a similar foreboding and loneliness, but she also sees its continuity and the many ways it provides solace. The poems are richly imagistic, contain stunning metaphors, and the poet writes with an assured voice." 

Triin is the author of three collections of poetry in Estonian and a recipient of the Betti Alver Literary Award, the Juhan Liiv Poetry Prize, and the Värske Rõhk Poetry Award. Her English poetry has received two Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in Tri-Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Pleiades, and other journals and anthologies. Her poem "Shelter" (originally in Black Warrior Review) was selected by Verse Daily.

Photo by Colin Usher

Here are some of Triin Paja's magazine publications:

Two poems in The Adroit Journal
"In The Vineyard" in Bennington Review
"Clearcutting" in Rattle
"Ontology" in Queen Mob's Teahouse
Three poems in Collapsar
"Freeing Ghosts" in The Journal
"Entering" in Tri-Quarterly
"Hypostasis" in Frontier Poetry
Two poems in Rust and Moth
Four poems in Isacoustic
"Quasar" in Cleaver
Three poems in Mud Season Review