Sundress Publications is pleased to announce that Laura Page is the winner of our sixth chapbook competition. Among a record number of strong and engaging manuscripts, Page’s collection, epithalamium, stood out. Judge Darren C. Demaree had this to say about the chapbook:
“epithalamium is an incredible dancer working beautifully, relentlessly, spasmodically on a stage that was constructed small enough that the artist must at some point jump into the crowd to make their work the whole scene. The poems in this chapbook are dynamic and unique. The language, music, and energy used caught me off guard many times, and I can think of no better goals than that for poetry. None of these poems are “that blushing thing.” All of them are working and questioning the archetypes and mythologies that deserve to be questioned, and through that process something larger emerges. Through that process we learn to “forget stardust. / think transit. think love.” This chapbook approaches the real world with an otherworldly understanding of its machinations, and despite that deep look into our workings it emerges with a passionate idea of where this could all be headed.”
Laura Page is a graduate of Southern Oregon University and editor of the poetry journal, Virga. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Rust + Moth, Crab Creek Review, The Rumpus, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, TINGE, and elsewhere. She is the author of two previous chapbooks, Children, Apostates (dancing girl press, 2016) and Sylvia Plath in the Major Arcana (Anchor & Plume, forthcoming).Visit her at www.laurapage.net.
We also are excited to announce that Sarah Einstein’s A Tripart Heart and Grey Vild’s Chickenhawks & Goldilocks were also selected for publication – both collections will be available later this year on the Sundress website.
Other Submitted Chapbooks of Note
Finalists
Sarah Cooper — 89%
Sarah Einstein — A Tripart Heart*
Alexis Olson — A Girl Fell in Love With a Shark
Grey Vild — Chickenhawks & Goldilocks*
Semi-Finalists
Sara Adams — Swallowing Shark
Kelli Allen — Lyrebird Keeps the Peace
Zeina Azzam — Bayna-Bayna
Kristi Carter — Daughter Shaman Sings Blood Anthem
Melissa Fite Johnson — A Crooked Door Cut Into the Sky
Mary Moore — Amanda and the Man Soul
Shannon Mullally — Perpetual Travel
*Selected for publication
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