2012 Sawtooth Poetry Prize Winner
Ahsahta Press is delighted to announce the winner of the eleventh annual Sawtooth Poetry Prize competition: T. Zachary Cotler of Los Angeles, California, whose manuscript Sonnets to the Humans was selected by Heather McHugh. He will receive the $1,500 prize in addition to the publication of his book by Ahsahta Press in January 2013.
McHugh also selected Beast Feast by Cody-Rose Clevidence of Fayetteville, Arkansas, as the runner-up in the competition; her manuscript will be published by Ahsahta in September 2014.
McHugh, author of Upgraded to Serious among many other books, selected the winner from among 673 entries, 41 of which were named semifinalists. Of that group, 21 were named finalists for the prize. [List follows.]
T. Zachary Cotler is the author of House with a Dark Sky Roof (Salt, 2011). His awards include the Amy Clampitt Fellowship from the Clampitt estate and the Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He's a founding editor of The Winter Anthology, www.winteranthology.com.
Ahsahta Press, named for the Mandan word for “Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep,” was founded in 1974 and publishes eight books of poetry per year, one of which is the winner of its annual contest. The 2013 contest, which runs from January 1 to March 1, will be judged by Ahsahta Press author Dan Beachy-Quick.
Ahsahta Press is based at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho, and is directed by Janet Holmes, a professor in the MFA Program for Creative Writing at Boise State.
See guidelines for next year’s contest
Editorial Board for 2012:
Christopher Caruso
Kyle Crawford
Charles Gabel
Jessica Hambleton
Ryan Holman
Janet Holmes, director
Melissa Hughes
Torin Jensen
Annie Knowles
Stepha Peters
Julie Strand
Finalists for the 2012 Sawtooth Poetry Prize:
Kerry Banazek, Torrents and Groundviews
David Bartone, Practice on Mountains
Hannah Brooks-Moti, The New Years
Cody-Rose Clevidence, Beast Feast and city of gold / land no solace
Adam Fagin, T's Law
Jane Gregory, My Enemies
Alice Jones, Vault
Opal C. McCarth, Surge
Shane McCrae, Blood
Todd Melicker, rendezvous:
Philip Metres, SAND OPERA
Addie Palin, The Cautery
Hannah Sanghee Park, Word of [thee], worded by [the]
Sarah Louise Pieplow, not so / alonesomeness
Jennifer Pilch, Shadows Retrospective
Carmen Gimenez Smith, Be Recorder
Peter Streckfus, The Shoreling
Amish Trivedi, Your Relationship to Motion Has Changed
Cori A. Winrock, This Coalition of Bones
Semifinalists for the 2011 Sawtooth Poetry Prize:
Seth Abramson, Thievery
Gina Barnard, Yellow Bird, Invisible Bridge
Emily Beyer, Cavalcade
Ethan Saul Bull, In the Hour and a Bedroom Later
Thomas Cook, Certain Registers
T. Zachary Cotler, Et in Terra Pax
Brett DeFries, Ezekiel
Matthew Gagnon, The Bodies that Speak at the Helm
jj hastain, female he and correlational femme
Kevin Holden, Aspen
S. Whitney Holmes, Room Where I Get What I Want
Valerie Hslung, sick farm incantations
Angela Hume, Middle Time
Karen Lepri, Apertures
Christian Nagler, Phact—an astrology
Urayoan Noel, Out of State
Andrew Seguin, Architect, Garden
Andrew Wessels, A Turkish Dictionary
Caroline Young, catastrophiliac
Felicia Zamora, Guest
Thank you to all who entered.