awards

awards

  • Published by Unbound Content on December 2, 2012

    Yes, it's that time of year again! And I'm glad my part in it is done. It's always a hard call. Read them and see for yourself. The unbound CONTENT Pushcart Prize 2012 nominees are:

    Apples to Oranges (from At Age Twenty by Maxwell Baumbach)
    it is said
    that when two things
    cannot be compared
    a case of apples to oranges exists
     
    but those things can be compared
    they are both fruits
    and like humans
    they have skin
    and humans like trees
    can be cut down
    and trees like flowers
    can bend in the wind
    and flowers like hummingbirds
    can astonish with their beauty
    and the hummingbird sings
    the way all the earth does
     
    in harmonious unison
     
    Painting Czeslawa Kwoka (from Painting Czeslawa Kwoka by Theresa Senato Edwards)
     
    I
     
    In Brasse’s black and white photos,
    you are a young girl with a round face
    dropped into a flat, grey world,
    26947 sewn on a striped wardrobe,
    naked beneath these numbers.
     
    What does color bring to you?
    In color you move through our minds.
     
    In color you are a movie star: Mia Farrow—
    slightly protruding upper lip, swollen bottom
    forms a dense shadow to your chin.
     
    In color you are a young woman
    bleeding from within: pale skin
    filters red to pink. This is the
    girl you are at Auschwitz, Czeslawa.
     
    You are not a criminal.
     
    II
     
    Your full color portrait
    forces our reaction—
    your hair is the warmest
    fall in a dead winter, amber
    background sparks the short, matted
    bristles: adolescent questions
    quickly extinguished when a scarf adds
    texture, diagonal patterns, another
    look of a 14-year-old prisoner.
     
    In color you transform: we can
    touch your swollen mouth, feel the
    voice beneath the left side of your face,
    where greys mix with pinks,
    a rash of illness.
     
    The contrast holds us.
     
    III
     
    In a soft color profile,
    above and slightly right
    of 26947, we see a tear
    from your right eye spilling down,
    just underneath skin transparent,
    thin from a bleak setting.
     
    We follow the contour of your
    smeared mouth, slightly opened,
    trace from lower lip to the
    bottom of your chin:
    this part of pinkish-grey flesh
    appears as number 7.
     
    This is not intentional.
     
    IV
     
    In color we feel the
    blacks of uniformity,
    harsh marks of suffering
    blacken the scratched
    shadows below your nostrils.
     
    The black slit above your
    grey lower lip sucks us
    empty—your eyes, black
    oval platters reflecting
    SS soldiers and worse
    within deep, grey carvings.
     
    Black is blacker in color.
     
    V
     
    Painted close-up: a bright
    yellow backdrop brightens
    the scarf’s pattern, your hair
    hidden in black and white
    becomes strands of sunlight,
    movement on still life.
     
    Yellows warm your cheeks,
    your forehead clear of dirt,
    yellows remove the dark patch
    from the tip of your nose we see
    in each of Brasse’s photographs.
    Yellows plunge orange,
    settle on the center left of your chest.
     
    You can breathe them in.
     
    XVII (from A Strange Frenzy by Dom Gabrielli)
     
    Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
    They’re in each other all along.
    —Rumi
     
    XVII.
     
    i am the one in the series
    whom in you stays
    finding the path to the chests in your soul
     
    i am the one who came last
    who picked the fruit without hands
    and drank the juice with my heart
     
    i am the luck which i refused to lose
     
    all the anger and the pain has sense for you
     
    for my silence
     
    for all the empty bottles of poor wine
     
    which sojourned but could not stay
     
    The Feast of St. Catherine (from Saltian by Alice Shapiro)
     
    In our vacant lot the carnival
    burst into town each June
    like a Verdi opera.
     
    Pink gossamer to eat
    mud-stomped grass beneath our feet
    a shrill Italian song
     
    emanating over children’s jeers
    the aim to win, to beat old carnys’
    sleights against all odds.
     
    And the gambler’s vice begins.
     
    Day fades, lanterns light, a crowd wanders
    circling tent-booths lined with wooden ducks
    dead to barrels aimed to kill.
     
    And the gun for sport dawns.
     
    We spin around on giant teacups
    dizzy from the ride
    take note of a faint, free mind
     
    And reach for sweet, indulgent wine.
     
    At dusk, painted horses gallop on everlasting turns
    help us grab the golden ring
    and if our sense is strong enough
     
    A holy promise sings.
     
    Hurricane Season (from The Pomegranate Papers by Cassie Premo Steele)
     
    Facing southeast, I wait for the hurricane,
    feel the purple wind on my cheeks,
    know that nothing will be the same.
     
    I have ridden the air on an eastern rug,
    woven with blood and memory,
    and the colors still cling to my skin.
     
    I am not afraid of the seasons,
    not the mountains or rivers or night.
    I am one desert pink flower in bloom.
     
    And when my summer is over,
    I will return to the earth with gratitude,
    lay my petals upon her damp breast,
     
    and know that nothing is ever the same.
    I have lived, bloomed, given birth,
    died, all in my own name, all in my name.
     
    No Place to Go (from Elegy by Raphaela Willington)
     
    April 18, 2001
     
    No Place to Go
     
    Lost in the wilderness
    of my parents’ house,
    my illness,
    I inherit:
    the bounce of a branch of hemlock,
    your embrace
     
    If you like these poems and you haven't bought any of these books yet, remember that every copy sold sends royalty money to the writers and artists whose work we now celebrate. Browse our bookshelf here.
    Please join me in congratulating the writers.
     
    To see the vox poetica nominees, please click here.
  • Pushcart Prize Nominations

    Pushcart Prize Nominations

    by Unbound Content on December 1, 2011

    This is unbound CONTENT’s second year nominating and these great writers have not made it easy. Read More