Rethinking Erasure: A Q&A With Nicole Sealey
The poet discusses erasure as process and metaphor, how she spent six years turning a report on police racism into poetry, and the inspiration of wild animals.
Tags:
Genre: Poetry
Deadline Approaches for Gulf Coast Prize in Translation
The Gulf Coast Prize in Translation, whose submission cycle closes in just under three weeks, recognizes a prose excerpt translated into English from another language. Why not gather the required materials and share your rendering of someone else’s words for a chance to win a prize of $1,000 and publication?
Submit up to 10 pages of a story or essay in translation, a copy of the original text, a brief biography of the author, a synopsis of the work being translated, and proof that permission to translate the work has been granted with a $26 submission fee, which includes a subscription to Gulf Coast, or a $13 entry fee, which includes a half-year subscription, by August 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Started in 1982 by Donald Barthelme and Phillip Lopate as a 64-page student-run publication, Gulf Coast today counts on a readership of over 3,000 as the nationally distributed journal housed within the University of Houston’s English Department. The press’s annual translation prize alternates genres each year, awarding a group of poems and a prose excerpt. Anam Zafar won the 2021 prize for her translation of Najat Albed Alsamad’s story “My Friend’s Basement” and has said of Alsamad’s work that it “exposes conflict as an individual experience in which entire countries simply cannot be viewed through a single, zoomed-out lens.” One of four of Gulf Coast’s contests, the translation prize represents the journal’s enduring commitment “to providing a balanced combination of literary approaches and voices.”
CAConrad Reads Jack Spicer’s “For Mac”
Caption:
“A dead starfish on a beach / He has five branches / Representing the five senses / Representing the jokes we did not tell each other.” CAConrad reads Jack Spicer’s poem “For Mac” in this short film directed by Matthew Thompson and produced by the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation, in collaboration with the 92nd Street Y, for their Read By poetry film series.
Genre:
Animal Self
In Natasha Trethewey’s “Flounder,” which appears in her debut collection, Domestic Work (Graywolf Press, 2000), the speaker of the poem recalls a scene from her memories as a young girl fishing with her aunt. The aunt explains how to spot a flounder, “A flounder, she said, and you can tell / ’cause one of its sides is black. // The other side is white, she said.” The poem ends with a strong image that subtly casts an emotional parallel with the speaker seeing a connection between her mixed-race identity and the flounder: “I stood there watching that fish flip-flop, / switch sides with every jump,” writes Trethewey. Inspired by Trethewey’s precise use of an extended metaphor, write a poem in which you cast a parallel between an animal in the wild and yourself. What characteristics will you draw out?
Ten Questions for Alise Alousi
“I love when a poem is getting there, when I can’t stop coming back to it.” —Alise Alousi, author of What to Count
Tags:
Cigarette Women by Keyma Flight
Caption:
“Everything that we think is shining is actually burning.” In this Button Poetry video, Keyma Flight reads her poem “Cigarette Women” at the 2022 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam in Baltimore, Maryland.
Genre:
Upcoming Contest Deadlines
What have you been working on? A short story or poem or essay that “tells a story that needs to be told”? A book-length, hybrid-genre work “that challenges conventions of genre and language, content and form”? Or simply a poetry collection? If any of the above, you still have a few days to submit to the following contests with deadlines between August 8 and August 15. Prizes range from $1,000 to $3,000 and include publication for a poem, a short story, or an essay, as well as a book-length work of prose or poetry. Go on, the clock is ticking!
Gival Press
Short Story Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication on the Gival Press website is given annually for a short story. Deadline: August 8. Entry fee: $25.
TulipTree Publishing
Stories That Need to Be Told Contest
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a poem, a short story, or an essay that “tells a story that needs to be told.” The winner will also receive a two-year subscription to the literary database Duotrope and publication in the annual Stories That Need to Be Told contest anthology. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: August 9. Entry fee: $20.
Grayson Books
Poetry Contest
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Grayson Books is given annually for a poetry collection. Brad Davis will judge. Deadline: August 15. Entry fee: $26.
Futurepoem
Other Futures Award
A prize of $1,000, publication by Futurepoem, and 25 author copies is given annually for a book of innovative poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or hybrid-genre work “that challenges conventions of genre and language, content and form.” The editors will judge. Work that incorporates other languages, or self-translated work, is eligible. Deadline: August 15. Entry fee: $28.
Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation.
The Blaney Lecture: Patricia Smith
Caption:
“It’s difficult to describe how I felt about the pictures I collected, how I continued to forge a link with them that I didn’t particularly understand.” Patricia Smith speaks about the photographs she collected over the course of twenty years that inspired her latest collection, Unshuttered (Northwestern University Press, 2023), for this recording of the Academy of American Poets’ 2023 Blaney Lecture. For more on Smith, read her conversation with Tyehimba Jess in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Genre:
Portrait of a Home
The house in which Nobel Prize–winning poet Tomas Tranströmer lived with his wife was located on the island of Runmarö in Sweden and built in the late nineteenth century by his maternal grandfather, a ship captain who needed a place to rest upon reaching landfall. In Tranströmer’s poem “The Blue House,” he describes the historic house’s exterior as well as its storied past. “It has stood for more than eighty summers. Its timber has been impregnated, four times with joy and three times with sorrow,” he writes. Write a poem that serves as a portrait of a place you have lived in. Consider its past tenants, the details of its exterior and interior, and its relationship to your life.
Magdalena Gómez Reads “La Biblioteca Is a Doula”
Caption:
“Crisp new books fell open / in my tiny hands / like tomorrow’s gold...” In this video, Magdalena Gómez, former poet laureate of Springfield, Massachusetts, reads her poem “La Biblioteca Is a Doula” as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets’ educational project for National Poetry Month.
Genre:
Pages
