Poetry

There is a sense in which these poems feel like deconstructions, or discerning erasures, of Marianne Moore. The rhythm is relentless, the vocabulary is simultaneously gaudy and encyclopedic, there is attention to both visual presentation and invisible form. There is music, standing somewhat rigidly at attention. I heard at once the authority of the voice, the confidence to give the words space and let them either speak to each other or be silent. As distinct as the sound of these poems is, however, they also present variety. While reading "Reference: Mirror," I pictured the speaker as a BBC announcer in the wild, away from civilization too long but still retaining the shape of its soundbytes, gone slightly, madly lyrical. While reading "Reference: Slutty," I pictured the speaker as floating two feet above her own body and looking down. The body is a force to be reckoned with here, as much as the mind.

—Patricia Lockwood, judge’s statement for the LUMINA Poetry Prize

The eroticism of “Flight Fable” enacts a series of birds that hunt, feed, dance, and flaunt their necks. Amid all this avian fluttering and flight, the poem dwells in the charged, conflicted space between desire and action. It is a lovely, strange poem by a poet whose imaginative ears and eyes transform language into an ornithological and amorous event.

—Nathan Hoks, judge’s statement for the Prism Review Poetry Prize