2020 Award Winner
Holy Magic by Priscilla Long

Judge Carmen Germain selected Holy Magic by Priscila Long of Seattle, WA as winner, from a field of 35 entries.

Here's what the judge had to say:"Holy Magic is rich in fresh imagery, is intelligent, and is wide-ranging while at the same time thematically linked with the meditations and focus on color, which I felt gave the manuscript unity. I also saw and appreciated forays into forms such as sestina and (maybe) nonce forms; this showed me a poet who was open to other approaches. The work is also rich in word-music. It is the manuscript that kept me reading and re-reading: I found `make it new` there, and liked the life and energy in the poems."

Praise for Holy Magic

"Priscilla Long contains multitudes: scientific writer, art scholar, social activist, historical enthusiast, and well-published poet. If we are, as Muriel Rukeyser might compel us 'to learn the edges of darkness, ' then we must also experience illuminations both resplendent and routine: light beaming on glorious yellows and bawdy purples, spiritual blues and restful greens. Reading this book, I feel as if I'm being skillfully guided by someone who knows art and, perhaps more vividly, believes in how art makes our lives more resonant-sometimes more pleasantly aware, sometimes more susceptible to pain, but always more fully felt."
   —Tod Marshall, Washington State Poet Laureate, 2016-2018

Photo by Jerry Jaz

Runners-Up

First: Lillo Way
Second: Chris Dahl

 

Lend Me Your Wings
Fat Birds

 

Finalists

Judith Carroll
Suzanne Edison
Helena Fagan
Sherry Green
Camden Jones
Melissa Madenski
Michael Malan
Jayne Marek
Sandra Noel
Sylvia Pollack
Stephen Roxborough
Deborah Brink Wöhrman

 

Ordinary Splendor
We Make & Break
Breathing You Home
There Comes a Healing Mist
The Yukon Appears
Not Exactly What I Expected
Deep Territory
Night Chorus
Ghosts in the Pine Woods
Risking It
liquid planet blue
You Can Call It Beautiful

 

MoonPath Press is an imprint of Concrete Wolf