It’s time! Here are the winners of the 2026 Poetry Contest, as chosen by our fantastic judge, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch. Congratulations to these writers on their big success for their works!
FIRST PLACE: For Doechii, by Isha Camara
Isha Camara is a Gambian-American poet and visual artist from South Minneapolis, Minnesota. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Masters at Randolph College in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in Poets.org, MUZZLE Magazine, The Mahalat Review, and Torch Literary. Isha’s about her myths, historical lore and the ancestral gossip that lives in poetry.
“The images in this poem are what really struck me. “I’ve never seen it referred to as purple,” is a great opening line, especially when followed with “It being cunt.” The poet is also really great at mimicking some of Doechii’s rap/lyricist mannerisms, which add such rhythm to the poem. I also enjoyed the poem for its aliveness, for its devotion to Blackness and the beauty of Blackness (and what I suspect is Black queerness), for its love. One of my favourite moments is “Mamas with fat hanging over their elbows” Chef’s kiss. Another beautiful images is “purple cunt gives navy blue waters.” More permission for people to use the word “cunt” in poetry, it’s so evocative and a great word.” — Judge Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
SECOND PLACE: Dirt, by Sandra Kasturi
Sandra Kasturi is a mixed-race poet, writer, and editor. Her work has been published in various venues, including The New Quarterly, Rattle, Prairie Fire, ARC Magazine, Taddle Creek, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin. Her poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom and Come Late to the Love of Birds. She has won the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and HWA Awards for editing/publishing, and Sunburst Award for fiction. Her poetry has won multiple awards and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series in 2024. She recently tied for first place in the First Page Cage Match at Pulp Literature for an excerpt from her novel, Medusa Gorgon, Lady Detective. Her newest poetry book, Snake Handling for Beginners will be out in October 2026, from Exile Editions. Sandra is fond of red lipstick, G&Ts, and Aliens (original theatrical release only).
I loved the dirt road in the middle of the poem “Dirt” which I thought worked so well as a bonus visual element of the poem that really reinforces the tensions in the poem. I loved the fatigue and the abject reality of disability of poverty and disability written so plainly in this poem, the ways it is all on the page (something I love in good prose poems) Mt other favourite thing? The way the poem ends so beautifully defeated. A fav line is: “You remember your grandmother talking about the dirty thirties and the dustbowl poverty she grew to stilted teenage hood in, and you think, that would still have been better than this life, because everyone would have been in the sane dismall lifeboat”. — Judge Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
THIRD PLACE: Time To Love, by Meryem Yildiz
Meryem Yildiz is a Turkish-Canadian poet from Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), and the author of Backbone (Guernica Editions, 2025). Her poems have appeared in literary journals across the country, including Arc Poetry Magazine, CV2, The Ex-Puritan, The Fiddlehead, and PRISM International, among others. Winner of The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry and the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s carte blanche Prize, her work explores identity, culture, and the psyche.
The language in this poem is so precise, so beautiful, and I’m brought into the world of the poem immediately. The show, what I’m calling a soap opera, is both the forefront and the background of this poem and the speaker’s life in the poem, also forefront and background, is spliced in in this really excellent way. The poem is very sophisticated in its handling of space, place, and emotion and coordinates these aspects well, especially at the end with the gunshot, the dead lovers, which somehow doesn’t make the poem bleak, but rather more dramatic in the way soaps can be (and that i love!). One of my favourite lines is: “It’s not that I love you, it’s the photograph, Halil insisted.” — Judge Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
You’ll be able to read Isha Camara’s first-place piece in an upcoming issue of Room. A final congratulations to all three winners!
As always, a big thank you to every writer who trusted our collective, and our judge with their writing. Whether it is 500 words or 2,000, submitting your writing anywhere at all takes courage, and we are so grateful for all those who chose Room to make that leap.
Last but not least, a thank you to our wonderful judge, Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, for their time and care in selecting a shortlist and three winners!
Room‘s annual Poetry Contest will open again in 2027.
