2023 Marsh Hawk Press Prize Winners
The MARSH HAWK PRESS POETRY PRIZE
($1,000.00 Cash Prize and Publication of the Book)
Chosen by Mary Jo Bang
Liane Strauss: “The Flaws of the Story”
Mary Jo Bang writes: Like Penelope’s daily weaving, ripped out each night in order to keep in play the possibility of a happy ending (Odysseus’s return, Laertes death forestalled), each of these fascinating poems is part of a larger story, each an exquisitely observed vignette that pinpoints a moment of conversation, or observation, or travel, that reveals, much like a chapter in a novel might, a set of characters with moods and conundrums. As the scenes accrue, the individual points in time become an inner life made visible, a brilliant enactment of a mind talking back to the world: “I know as soon as I wake up it’s time to start rethinking everything again.” Unputadownable, as in “so gripping as to be read right through at one sitting.”
The ROBERT CREELEY MEMORIAL AWARD
($250.00 Cash Prize)
Chosen by Mary Jo Bang
James Zukin: “Mr. Hand & Ms. Viz”
The ROCHELLE RATNER MEMORIAL AWARD
($250.00 Cash Prize)
Chosen by the Marsh Hawk Press Editorial Board
George Looney: “Music Inherent in the Extremities”
FINALISTS
Allison Blevins, Elizabeth Coleman, Christian Gullette, Sarah Carey, Brandi George, Michael Weinstein, Patty Seyburn,
- Minnick, Derek Mattern, Lea Graham, Kathleen Winter, Elizabeth Rees, Connor Fisher, Ellen Malphrus, Cory McClellan