fellows

Sarah Browning's 2012 Split This Rock poem of the week highlights include poems by Zohra Saed, Purvi Shah, and Tarfia Faizullah

Congrats, dear Zohra, Purvi, and Tarfia!

“Kandahar,” by Zohra Saed, August 3
I have found myself taken by very short poems this year, and this is another tight lyric that packs it all in.
Kandahar –
............Was once a cube of sugar
Refusing to dissolve in the sea.
It became a city from sheer stubbornness.

 

Questions of identity, cultural appropriation, beauty, and the body roil together in this gorgeous poem:
hundreds
of daughters walking towards a foreign
house, parents looking askance, blurred.  
  
They say: absence is a color, the deep
brown of life which is always receding.

 

 

“Reading Tranströmer in Bangladesh,” by Tarfia Faizullah, April 20
A model of a poem incorporating the words of another poet to great effect. Tarfia’s book, SEAM, recently won the Crab Orchard First Book Award. We await its 2014 appearance with anticipation!
I let in 
the netherworld. Something 
rose from underneath. I sit,
wait through my cousin's
sobs.
  

Read more here: http://blogthisrock.blogspot.com/2013/01/our-only-weapons-our-feathered-selves.html

Congrats to Janine Joseph, distinguished finalist for the 2013 OSU Press/The Journal Award in Poetry!

The Winner of the OSU Press/The Journal Award in Poetry

The Ohio State University Press and The Journal are very pleased to announce the winner of the 2013 OSU Press/The Journal Award in Poetry and the Charles B. Wheeler prize, selected by judge Kathy Fagan. This year’s winner is Corey Van Landingham for her collection titled Antidote. Congratulations, Corey!

We received well over 500 poetry manuscripts for consideration this year, and it was an immense challenge to pick just one winner among so many wonderful submissions. We want to thank our dedicated group of readers, our judge, Kathy Fagan, and, of course, the poets who submitted their manuscripts for consideration.

Here’s a complete list of the honorees:

Winner: Corey Van Landingham for Antidote

First Runner-Up: Nancy Kathleen Pearson for Long Slow Distance

Finalists: Lisa Fay Coutley for Errata; Robert King for Some of These Days; Janine Joseph for Extended Stay; Christopher Salerno for ATM; and Michael Schmeltzer for Some Nights the Stars They Sour

Semi-Finalists: Danielle Chapman for Someone Else’s Eden; Aviva Englander Cristy for What She Never Owned; Raphael Dagold for Bastard Heart; John W. Evans for The Consolations; Brandi George for Bell a Body Rings; Michael Homolka for Sleep Sculptures; Maria Hummel for House and Fire; Josh Kalscheur for Tidal; Jennifer Browne Lawrence for The Goddess of Scales; Fritz Ward for Letters from the Handmade Dark; Elizabeth Whittlesey for How to Relume; Eliot Khalil Wilson for The Island of Dogs; and Jim Zukowski for Camp Happy

Congratulations again to our winner, runner-up, finalists, and semi-finalists.

http://thejournalmag.org/archives/3642

Timothy Yu is the Angry Reader of the Week at Angry Asian Man

"Put simply, Asian Americans still aren't part of the public conversation about race in America. That should make us angry, but we should also ask what else Asian American scholars, writers, and activists can do to make ourselves part of the conversation. Blogs like angry asian man have been crucial in pushing that conversation forward."

Congrats, dear Tim! You can read the full interview here. 

Split This Rock eagerly anticipates the release of Matthew Olzmann's Mezzanines

Among the many 2013 books Split This Rock eagerly anticipates are these titles:

Calling Home: Praise Songs, Incantations, Naomi Ayala (Bilingual Review Press)  
Icarus in Love, Antoinette Brim (Main Street Rag)
The Scabbard of Her Throat, Bernadette Geyer (The Word Works)
Pitch Dark Anarchy, Randall Horton (TriQuarterly/Northwestern University Press)
Render, Collin Kelley (Sibling Rivalry Press)
Hum, Jamaal May (Beatrice Hawley Award Winner, Alice James Books)
Mezzanines, Matthew Olzmann (Kundiman Poetry Prize Winner, Alice James Books)
The Light of the Storm / La luz de la tormenta, Carlos Parada Ayala (Zozobra Publishing)
Tenuous Chapel, Melissa Tuckey (ABZ Press Poetry Prize Winner)
Speaking Wiri Wiri, Dan Vera (Letras Latinas Poetry Prize Winner, Red Hen Press)

Read more at: http://blogthisrock.blogspot.com/2012/12/split-this-rock-recommended-poetry.html

Congrats, dear Matthew!

Pre-order Matthew Olzmann's book here and here.