We are thrilled to announce the winner of the 10th Annual Coniston Prize: Adrie Rose. Here is what our esteemed judge had to say about this poet’s work:
Adrie Rose skillfully uses a variety of forms to embody the daily challenges of mothering. She uses a questionnaire for parents of disabled children to explore the real, the ridiculous, the insulting and the heartbreaking questions that are asked, culminating with “Have you tried blaming yourself?” A conversational dialectic uses found language for one of the voices to wonder about a teenager who is cutting and the limits of a mother's devotion. A justified container of a poem holds a wild bat and wild trip to the ER. In each poem, Adrie Rose includes rich detail and description inviting the reader into the complexity of this parenting. We feel a kinship with this speaker who is looking for “one hunger in my house that could be filled.”
—Ellen Bass, Contest Judge
The number of Coniston Prize submissions broke the record this year—in excess of 2,000 poems! From this vast pool of entries, 8 finalists emerged. Their courageous work represents some of the best poetry being written today. We hope our readers will delight in the varied subject matters, forms, and lived experiences that are captured on these pages.
We read so much brilliant poetry during the months we devote to Coniston Prize submissions. While not all groups of poems are selected as finalists, some individual poems are simply too good to pass up. So, this year, 6 noteworthy poems appear in our prize issue. We hope you admire them as much as we do.
Much gratitude to the artists whose work is included in this issue. Their paintings, photographs, collages, and sculpture are remarkable in and of themselves, and elevate the experience of the poems with which they are paired.
Here’s to Issue 37!
—Rachel Marie Patterson and Dara-Lyn Shrager, Editors