Winner/Finalists/Semifinalists

Photo of Katie Kemple

IHLR is pleased to announce the winner, finalists, and semifinalists of the 2025 IHLR Chapbook Prize.

This year, our decision was particularly difficult. We went back and forth, and all agreed that would have happily chosen any of these manuscripts to represent the IHLR Chapbook series.

Eventually, we selected Love in the Key of Cobra by Katie Kemple. We chose this manuscript because it speaks to the current financial moment in America. It is an intimate look at un/employment, wealth disparity, the exhaustion that comes with the search for work, and the detriment to one's well-being when that search leads to rejection after rejection. Kemple took the poetic forms in a lot of inventive and unexpected directions, and the voice, too, is superb: the mix of bitterness, anxiety, wit, despair, and resilience. In many ways, this chapbook reminds me of Brenda Peynado's short story, "Miraculous Cages," which has long been a favorite of mine.

Kemple is a poet based in Southern California. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Beloit Poetry Journal, Ploughshares, North American Review, SWIMM, Rattle, Rust + Moth, Citron Review, and The South Carolina Review. Her debut chapbook, Big Man, was published by Chestnut Review Chapbooks in 2025.

The other poets whose work rightfully rose up through our submissions pool include the following semifinalists, finalists, and first runner-up.

Semifinalists

Cracking Open the Bones, Louhi Pohjola

Dirty Bird, B. Fulton Jennes

Dulled Bodies, Donald Passmore

Historic Preservation, Steven Hollander

Khmelnytsky Station, Rimas Uzgirls

Tongues of Men and Angels, Janice Northerns

Finalists

Cover Songs, Dante Di Stefano

Deepcut/Incision, Malik Thompson

Birds Everywhere, Orlando Hernandez

Dear Charis, Dominika Wrozynski

Runner-Up

Hatch, Clara Bush Vadala

We want to thank everyone for submitting their chapbooks, trusting us with your words, and making our jobs easier by giving us such gifted work to read. Thank you, thank you--