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2022 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Winners

A photo of poet Linda Ravenswood.

Madville is pleased to announce that linda ravenswood‘s poetry collection, a poem is a house, is the winner of our 2022 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize, judged by Charlotte Pence!

Yiskah Rosenfeld was the first runner-up with her collection Tasting Flight.

We received 52 total submissions. The first round was read by Candance Reaves and Catherine Pritchard Childress, and winners were chosen from a shortlist of amazing work by 

a poem is a house

by linda ravenswood

Winner of The 2022 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize
Upcoming publication date Spring 2024

A photo of poet Linda Ravenswood.

a poem is a house pushes against the borders of poetry to emphasize how all borders are a construct: geopolitical, literary, and personal. Each poem in this outstanding collection reinvents itself, employing a range of forms, such as visual poems and broken poetry cycles, to recreate vivid details of the speaker’s experiences as someone who grew up in California with Mexican ancestry.

Throughout this book, readers experience a state of bardo, a sense of existing between states: between different cultures, between safety and violence, and perhaps most of all, between past and present. Like memory itself, these poems thrive on elision, repetition, and reversal. Take for example an evocative poem placed early in the book: ‘To live at the scene of an accident.’ The two-line poem simple states: ‘To go on living / at the scene of the crime.’ Such sparsity emphasizes the stark reality of the situation and faces it directly without adorned language that could distract from the fact’s horror. What’s more, the book presents readers with four variations of this poem, emphasizing how trauma is not only situated in the past, but something that interrupts the present—and never leaves the body.

One poem tells readers that ‘this is not really a lullaby for the end of the world this is a map to the beginning of the body.’ Such a statement is not a dichotomy, but simply a reality wherein grief and celebration share spaces. a poem is a house is a dazzling accomplishment that presents a new and unique poetic vision.”

—Charlotte Pence, final judge for the 2022 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize, and author of Code

linda ravenswood is a poet and performance artist from Los Angeles and the founder and editor-in-chief of The Los Angeles Press. Her previous books include Cantadora — Letters from California, The Stan Poems, Tlacuilx, X LA Poets, and Hymnal.

Tasting Flight

by Yiskah Rosenfeld

Finalist for The 2022 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize
Upcoming publication date Spring 2024

“A yearning dominates the vibrant poems in Tasting Flight, specifically the desire to be enough. Of course, though, one is always enough. The observant, insightful, and confident speaker in these poems knows this truth intellectually, but searches to internalize such knowledge as in this breathtaking poem ‘Bird Call Koan with Glossary’:

Across the hall I lay in the dark contemplating this, the infinitely expanding universe of what I don’t know. Stars exploding and being born. Moons in our own solar system still uncounted. And yet some things I think I know with certainty: I’m not pretty. I don’t deserve to be loved. 

If I trill my mating call, who will answer me? 

I forget the moon is always whole.

These lines are representative of the well-crafted poetry readers will find in this book, each poem creating scenes with such vivid details, readers feel as if they are with the speaker, perhaps as an adult gazing at the stars or as a child hiding behind the Life cereal box.  Not only are the details engaging, but the form of each poem closely aligns with its subject, be it in the form of a question mark or the dwindling lines in ‘Submission Guidelines.’ All of the poems are deeply rooted in the lyrical tradition, following the switchbacks and curves of a mind always in motion, perhaps contemplating the beauty of moths at night or the intricacies of raising a child. Whatever the subject, Tasting Flight is a book that sings back to the exploding stars.

Yiskah Rosenfeld balances solo parenting with freelance teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry has appeared in The Seattle Review, The Bitter Oleander, Lilith Magazine, Rattle, Cottonwood, Full: An Anthology of Moon Poems, and The Ravens Perch.

The longlist included:

     

      • Only the Finest Track Stars Smoke Newports by Susan Leary

    The shortlist included:

       

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      Pushcart Nominations 2020

      The Pushcart Prize logo for 2020

      We’ve made our nominations for the Pushcart Prize 2020. We wish we could nominate something from every single book we published this year, because we believe all of our authors are winners or we wouldn’t have published them in the first place, but the Pushcart committee limits us to six nominations per year. And every year that means we’ve had to leave six authors out. (We publish 12 titles per year on average)

      We at Madville Publishing are pleased to nominate the following for your consideration for the 2020 Pushcart Prize:

      Three poems:

      1. “Mysteries of the Corn” by Kyle Potvin from the poetry anthology, Mother Mary Comes to Me: A Pop Culture Poetry Anthology edited by Karen Head & Collin Kelley. Madville Publishing, (November 2020).
      2. “I Know You’re in Detroit” by George Drew from his poetry collection, Drumming Armageddon. Madville Publishing, (June 2020).
      3. “Hive Mind” by Gerry LaFemina from his prose poetry collection, Baby Steps in Doomsday Prepping. Madville Publishing, (February 2020).

      Three short stories:

      1. “Ritual” by Aden Albert from the short story anthology, Runaway, edited by Luanne Smith, Michael Gills, & Lee Zacharias. Madville Publishing, (March 2020).
      2. “Lubbock, 1974” by Bobby Horecka from his short story collection, Long Gone & Lost: True Fictions and Other Lies. Madville Publishing, (March 2020).
      3. “The Last Ride, 1928” by Brian Petkash from his short story collection, Mistakes by the Lake. (May, 2020).

      Congratulations everybody! Thank you for providing such high quality work for us, that we want to include it as one of our Pushcart Prize Nominations for 2020. And thank you for all you do to promote Madville Publishing.

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      Madville Welcomes Linda Parsons as Poetry Editor

      A photo of poetry editor Linda Parsons.

      We are proud to announce that we asked Linda Parsons if she’d consider being our Poetry Editor, and she said yes!

      You may be interested to read Linda’s latest poetry collection, Candescent.

      Linda Parsons is a poet, playwright, and editor. In addition to being poetry editor for Madville Publishing, she coordinates WordStream, WDVX-FM’s weekly reading/performance series, with Stellasue Lee. Her poetry has appeared in The Georgia ReviewIowa ReviewPrairie SchoonerSouthern Poetry Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Baltimore Review, and Shenandoah, among others. Candescent is her fifth poetry collection (Iris Press, 2019). Linda is the reviews editor for Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel and the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee. Her most recent play is SuffRAGE: To Give Voice, written with Jeannette Brown, for Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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      New Titles for #AWP20

      AWP 2020 Logo

      We will have a bunch of new titles on hand at AWP20 in San Antonio!

      It’s our home state, so we decided we had better make a good showing. That is why we pushed out everything we had for Spring 2020, as well as a couple of books we’ve been perfecting. These new offerings cover the full spectrum of what we publish, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. (Of course you can see them all to buy or pre-order on our website at MadvillePublishing.com

      We’ll be offering all of our books at discount prices at #AWP20. Come by our booth, #1658.