Quiet Diamonds 2025 is the eighth edition of the Orchard Street Press’ annual poetry journal. This year, it includes 50 poems selected from the nearly 900 individual pieces submitted to the 2025 Orchard Street Press Poetry Contest. As in previous years, this collection has assembled some remarkable work by poets from across America.
The Orchard Street Press is delighted to announce the release of Quiet Diamonds 2021, the fourth edition of its annual poetry journal.
Containing poems chosen from the hundreds of entries to the 2021 Orchard Street Press Poetry Contest, Quiet Diamonds 2021 presents some of the very best poetry being written in America today.
The forty-two poems above (from thirty-four different poets) make up Quiet Diamonds 2020, this year’s edition of our annual poetry journal. This year’s edition, our third, prompted award-winning poet Will Greenway to write: “These poems are proof that good poetry begins in the real, but soon begins to hover above the quotidian and rise into a spiritual zone that leaves the ordinary behind and below. They may begin in nature in all its beauty, but soon reveal the beauty of the supernatural as well. Keep these by your bed with your other treasures, the quiet diamonds.”
In the spring of 2026, The Orchard Street Press conducted its ninth annual Poetry Contest. Nearly eight-hundred individual poems were submitted for consideration by poets from thirty-eight states. Of those, forty-two were selected for inclusion in Quiet Diamonds 2026. Three were chosen for the Contest’s cash awards. They are: “Foundry” by Jennifer Phillips of Barnstable, MA taking First Place, (winning the 2026 Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Prize); “How the Forest Changes My Mind” by Tobi Alfier of Torrance, CA earning Second Place; and “Ripples” by Bill Griffin of Elkin, NC winning Third.
Last year, we had another excellent response to our annual Poetry Contest, with over eight hundred poems submitted. Fifty of those poems were selected for inclusion in Quiet Diamonds 2025, creating a truly excellent annual journal (available for order both via the mail and online at this site).
This spring, Orchard Street conducted its seventh annual Poetry Contest. Approximately 800 poems were received from writers in 42 states.
From those submissions, 40 poems were selected for inclusion in Quiet Diamonds 2024; three for cash awards, including the 2024 winner of our Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Prize: Lew Forester’s captivating “Moonlight and Ashes.” With this, Mr. Forester becomes the first poet to receive a second Malovrh-Fenlon Prize.
In the spring of 2023, The Orchard Street Press conducted its sixth annual Poetry Contest. Approximately 700 poems were sent by writers from forty states.
