Winners of the 2026 Prime 53 Poem
Summer Challenge

The total line count of a Prime 53 Poem is a prime number (11), the syllable count in each line of the three, three-line stanzas are prime numbers (7 / 5 / 3) and each line of the last two-line stanza are prime number (5 / 3), making the poem’s total syllable count a prime number (53). The Prime 53 Poem also requires a rhyme pattern of a/b/a; c/d/c; e/f/e; g/g.

Press 53 Poetry Editor, Christopher Forrest, one of the creators of the Prime 53 Poem, served as the judge for the 2026 competition. This was a free contest, open to writers around the world, and from 436 Prime 53 Poems we received from writers around the world, Chris selected the following five for publication:

“Do Barn Cats Dream of Alternative Lives?” by Lilith Acadia

“Hibiscus in St. Thomas, Netherlands” by Olivia D’Zavala

“Introspeggsion” by Ken Jackson

“A Taste of Summer” and “Inside Passage” by Shirlee Jellum

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Lilith Acadia has writing in The Kenyon Review, New Orleans Review, Potomac Review, trampset, and elsewhere. An associate professor of literary studies at National Taiwan University, she lives with a human and hound in the ‘literature mountain’ district of Taipei. The dreaming barn cat lives with horses and other noble creatures in Northern California. Connect at acadiaink.com or IG / bluesy: @acadialogue

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Olivia D'Zavala is a college English professor and recipient of the 2026 Poets on the Coast Fellowship. She has publications in Rattlecast, Bright Flash Literary Review, Tough Poets Review, The Thieving Magpie, Lucky Jefferson, BloodClot!Horror Zine, Cape Cod Review, Harrow House Journal, and Amaranth Literary Journal, marking her growing presence in contemporary and international literary spaces. Mexican-American braided with a Scot-Irish helix of DNA, her work digs into the underbelly of memory and violence while exploring border-space identity and inherited mythologies.

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Ken Jackson is a retired lawyer whose travel stories, history articles (and one haiku) have been published in Asia and the U.S. He once won a case of beer in a London newspaper’s sportswriting contest. He is the author of The Smugglers of the Sulu Islands: A Travel Memoir. After living in Hong Kong for twenty years, he now calls Little Italy in San Diego home. He enjoys eating his way around his neighborhood and unsuccessfully submitting 53-word stories.

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Shirlee Jellum is a retired English teacher who lives in the Columbia River Gorge where hot summer winds fuel wildfires and icy winters close highways. She enjoys traveling, backpacking and gardening. Her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have recently been published in Gleam, Intervals, Wild Willow, Defiance and Dialogue and several anthologies.