The CSU Poetry Center is thrilled to announce the results of our 2015 book competitions. The following four books were selected from nearly 1,100 manuscripts and will be published in spring 2016. Thank you to everyone who sent us work & congrats to the winners and finalists below.
Winner of the First Book Poetry Competition
Judge: Eileen Myles
Leora Fridman’s My Fault
Leora Silverman Fridman is the author of the chapbooks Precious Coast (H_ngm_n Books), Obvious Metals (Projective Industries), On the architecture and Essential Nature (The New Megaphone), and the chapbook of translations, Eduardo Milán: Poems (Toad Press). She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is founding co-editor of Spoke Too Soon: A Journal of the Longer and forms one fourth of the collective The Bureau.
First Book Poetry Editor’s Choice
Selected by: CSU PC Director, Caryl Pagel
Martin Rock’s Residuum
Martin Rock is the author of the chapbook Dear Mark (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2013) and co-author of Fish, You Bird (Pilot, 2010). With Kevin Prufer and Martha Collins, he edited the Unsung Masters volume Catherine B. Davis: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Pleiades, 2015). He is Managing Editor for Gulf Coast and intermittently publishes the online journal Loaded Bicycle. Martin is working on translations of a number of Japanese poets and is Poet in Residence at Texas Children’s Hospital.
First Book Poetry Finalists: Melissa Barrett: Moon on Roam; Ezekiel Black: Letters from the Junta; Marty Cain: Kids of the Black Hole; Bridget Carson: Zizou; Nick Foster: Cartonnage; Kit Frick: A Small Rising Up in the Lungs; Leora Fridman: The Riots; Matthew Gagnon: The Bodies That Speak at the Helm; Derek Gromadzki: Pilgrimage Suites; Taisia Kitaiskaia: Hello My Unspeakable Name; Hai-Dang Phan: Small Wars; Jacques Rancourt: Novena; Adrienne Raphel: On A Monday the Moon Sank Into the Sea; Brynne Rebel-Henry: Fleshgraphs; Clint Smith: Counting Descent; Alison Strub: Dust Rites; Amy Wright: Upping the Panoply; Candice Wuehle: FIDELITORIA: fixed or fluxed
First Book Poetry Semi-Finalists: Elizabeth Countryman: My Upset Versus Your Upset; Paul Cunningham: The House of the Tree of Sores; Stephan Danos: As if I am Ancient; Cassie Donish: Beautyberry; Brooke Ellsworth: Annie’s Heart is a Bomb; Laura Eve Engel: I Write to You From the Sea; Maryam Monalisa Gharavi: The Distancing Effect; Travis Holloway: Archive Fever; Elisabeth Houston: Baby Poems & Anti-Poems; Christopher Kempf: Late in the Empire of Men; Mike Lala: Exit Theater; James Longley: What Cheer Heptagon; Jesse Nathan: 40 Poems; GennaRose Nethercott: The Lumberjack’s Dove; Rushing Pittman: Says the King; Kenyatta Rogers: Unf***withable; Michael Martin Shea: Winner of the Fence Modern Poets Prize; Katie Jean Shinkle: Snapphilia; Emily Van Kley: Vital Signs; Franke Varca: Chill and Stupor; Lisa Wells: The Fix; Elisabeth Whitehead: In Apparition
Winner of the Open Book Poetry Competition
Judges: Lesle Lewis, Shane McCrae, Wendy Xu
Lo Kwa Mei-en’s The Bees Make Money in the Lion
Lo Kwa Mei-en is the author of Yearling (Alice James Books, 2015), winner of the Kundiman Prize, and The Romances, a chapbook forthcoming from The Lettered Streets Press. Her work can be found in The Margins, The Offing, The PEN Poetry Series, and VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. She is from Singapore and Ohio, where she earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology and an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University. She lives and works in Cincinnati.
Open Book Poetry Finalists: Carrie Bennett: The Land is a Painted Thing; Sally Cox: Somebody, Maybe; M.C. Hyland: An Aperture; Michael Keenan: For Night; Jason Koo: More Than Mere Light; Debora Kuan: Portrait of a Woman with a Hoagie; Sarah Mangold: Boxer Rebellion; John Martone: Ocean; Stan Mir: Three Patterns; Elizabeth Robinson: Encyclopedia [Partial & Incomplete] of Assorted Entities; Kate Schapira: Heroes and Monsters; Sasha Steensen: Gatherest; Betsy Wheeler: Lost Swimmer Plan; Leia Wilson: i murder the stranger that is my father every moment i eat I vow
Open Book Poetry Semi-Finalists: Joan Baranow: Letter That Never; Rosebud Ben-oni: Bloodsport; Monica Berlin: Nostalgia for a World Where We Can Live; Craig Blais: For the French and Indian War Dead; Caroline Cabrera: Saint X; Jack Christian: Omnipresence; Laressa Dickey: Twang; Seth Landman: Who’s Watching; Anna Leahy: Redshift, Blueshift; Rebecca Lehmann: O Sing!; Steve Myers: Susquehanna Sequence, I-XXXV; Jon Thompson: Strange Country; Keri Webster: The Spinster; Steve Willard: Deprive Yourself: Estoúil: A Finger’s Ash
Winner of the Essay Competition
Judge: Wayne Koestenbaum
Lily Hoang’s A Bestiary: Essays
Lily Hoang is the author of four books, including Changing, recipient of a PEN Open Books Award. Her choose-your-own adventure love story Old Cat Lady (1913 Books) is forthcoming in 2015. With Joshua Marie Wilkinson, she edited the anthology The Force of What’s Possible: Writers on Accessibility and the Avant-Garde. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University, where she is Associate Department Head. She serves as Prose Editor at Puerto del Sol and Non-Fiction Editor at Drunken Boat.
Essay Collection Finalists: Jennifer Kabat: I May Not Go Down in History; Krista Eastman: The Painted Forest; Gary McDowell: Caesura; Micah McCrary: Island in the City; Dustin Parsons: Pumpjack: Essays; Alexis Orega: You Don’t Mind: A Memorabilia; Craig Reinbold: Here in the Museum; Julie Marie Wade: The Hourglass: Meditations on the Body; Nicole Walker: Microcosm
Essay Collection Semi-Finalists: Joe Bonomo: Field Recordings from the Inside; Mark Brazaitis: The House of Magic and Sorrow; Christopher Higgs: As I Stand Living; Christine Hume: The Saturation Project; Jacqueline Lyons: Breakdown of Poses; Kim McLarin: Further Notes on Not Killing Myself; Sarah Minor: At Home with River Animals; David Netzeband: Reveilles; Kevin O’Rourke: As if Seen at an Angle; Rachael Peckham: Fields of Vision: Attempts in the Essay; Dawn Potter: The Language of Love; Amelia Stein: Arcs and Waves; Deborah Thompson: Familiars; Vivian Wagner: Under the Gun; Marco Wilkinson: Madder
