Tupelo Press is delighted to announce that Meg Wade has won the 2017 Snowbound Chapbook Award for her manuscript, Slick Like Dark. Her chapbook, selected by Kristina Marie Darling, will be published by Tupelo Press in 2019.
Meg Wade is a former Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Creative Writing Institute. Her poems have appeared in CutBank, Pinwheel, Linebreak, Nashville Review, and Phantom Books, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Nashville, Tennessee.
Judge’s Citation for SLICK LIKE DARK
Subtle and provocative, the poems in SLICK LIKE DARK are motivated by history’s forgetfulness. As the book unfolds, we are asked to consider this silence as both power and disempowerment, as calculated withholding and a slow “surrender.” Here, Wade offers us – with intelligence, grace, and incredible skill – an excavation of all that has been buried “in broad daylight,” a “record” pulled from the “thicket’s fire.” Yet these poems are most beautiful in their restlessness, in their movement between “light” and a “violent fanfare,” and in their willingness to inhabit the most liminal and uncertain ethical territories. This is a brave and powerful book. – Kristina Marie Darling*
Runners Up:
Lisa Hiton of Deerfield, Illinois and Richie Hoffman of Chicago, Illinois — Speyer
Matt McBride of Iowa City, Iowa —The Mourners Forget Which Funeral They Are At
Finalists
John DeStefano of New York, New York – The Visible Remains
Gibson Fay-LeBlanc of Portland, Maine – Hockey and Other Poems
Jean Gallagher of New York, New York – Every Little Iliad
Christine Hemp of Port Townsend, Washington – Between the Treble and the Bass
Lisa Hiton of Deerfield, Illinois – The Clearing
Sophie Klahr of Los Angeles, California – Like Nebraska
Claire Paniccia of Stillwater, Oklahoma – Badlands
Max Schleicher of Chicago, Illinois – Exhausted by the Rest
Meredith Stricker of Carmel, California – A Living Coal
Semifinalists
Rachel Abramowitz of New York, New York – The Future Has An Ancient Heart
Kelly Allen of Ann Arbor, Michigan — Sanctuary
Wendy Chen of Syracuse, New York – Ordinary Clamor
Charlie Clark of Austin, Texas – Cocktail Parties in the City of the Dead
Hilary Vaugh Dobel of Brookline, Massachusetts – He Imagined Himself Laughing
Zakia Henderson-Brown of Brooklyn, New York – What Kind of Omen Am I
Iliana Rocha of Edmond, Oklahoma – The Many Deaths of Inocencio Rodriguez
Meredith Stricker of Carmel, California – Chromo Philosophies
Greg Vild of Brooklyn, New York – Chickenhawks & Goldilocks
Laura Watson of Pine, Colorado – Slender Winter
We offer our boundless gratitude to Kristina Marie Darling for giving all of us the benefit of her extraordinary ear and eye. Warmest congratulations to the winner, to the runners-up, finalists and semi-finalists, and perhaps most importantly, to the many poets who permitted us the pleasure of reading their submissions. There are so many terrific chapbook manuscripts coming our way, and we are abundantly grateful for the opportunity to read so much compelling work.
Thank you all for making poetry, that most solitary of artistic pursuits, for believing in yourselves, and for supporting what we do here at Tupelo Press.
Bear in mind that our July Open Reading Period is on, and it is through this reading period that we here at Tupelo Press select the lion’s share of what we publish. We’re always looking for a few transcendent books!
*Because of an email error on our part, we were unable to get the finalists’ manuscripts to Lawrence Raab before other summer commitments precluded him from being able to judge the Snowbound. Therefore, we asked Kristina Marie Darling to step in at the last minute, and she generously agreed. Kristina Marie Darling is Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Quarterly, and Associate Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press, and is the author of 27 books of poetry and essays.
Please note that NOBODY has been affected by this change except the finalists (as our final judge never reads any but the finalists we select). All finalists were advised of this change and offered an opportunity to withdraw and have their entry fee(s) refunded. Happily, none elected to do so.