SENSATIONAL NEWS!!
I have won the RED HEN PRESS POETRY AWARD for my poem “Super Dan Comics Question Box Series #18.”
I am so elated I'm practically
speechless. And for a poet, I assure you, this is hardly ever a predicament. I
am profoundly beholden to the editors at Red Hen Press for selecting my poem as
a finalist, enabling it to be chosen as the winner by the final judge, Cynthia Hogue. Thank you to Cynthia for
choosing my poem for this amazing honor from a powerful
pool of entrants that made it to finalist status. This award is especially gratifying
because the competition is a completely “blind competition,” from the minute
the entries hit the desk at the Red Hen Press offices. A blind competition is important
to us in the literary community because it’s immeasurably significant for a
poet to know that the poem alone speaks for itself - and
nothing else, no identifying authorial information whatsoever, colors its potency. Just the lines
on the page. I am over-the-moon with joy that my poetry has impressed the
editors at Red Hen Press – bless you!, Editor-in-chief Kate Gale, and Judge
Cynthia Hogue. You bet I’ll be thrilled to come out to LA to visit the offices,
meet Kate, and the other editors, and staff. Don’t have to ask me twice!
The Los Angeles Review, Issue
#14, will publish “Super Dan Comics…#18”, and if I’m not mistaken, also the
runners-up, along with a fine collection of wonderful work by other poets and
writers. Please pick up or order a copy! Support the written arts – and welcome to the world a wise alien new
to our planet, making his rounds in the “Super Dan Comics Question Box Series.” Hurrah!
The “Super Dan Comics Question
Box Series” is a sequence of poems occupying one section of my new verse
collection-in-progress, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2016.
Background on Award:
The Red Hen Press Ruskin Poetry Award is named
after John Ruskin, and in honor of The Ruskin Art Club in Los Angeles, CA. The
Ruskin Art Club, founded in 1888, is Los Angeles’ oldest cultural
association. Its 1922 clubhouse was
declared a Los Angeles Historical Monument in 1997.
So this is what it looks like on the other side of the moon. Fabulous!
