Announcing the Winner of the Inaugural Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize
Judged by Geffrey Davis
We are thrilled and excited to announce that the winner of the inaugural Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize, judged by Geffrey Davis is With Midnight Down Your Throat by Caitlyn Curran.
With Midnight Down Your Throat is a visceral collection of poetry that explores the mind-map of childhood and adolescent memory. Traversing a troubled past of childhood trauma and complex family relations, Curran recreates and reshapes the very meaning of memory and what it means to recall. Curran gives us a window into a world of fragmented pain and persistent, numbing loss that is simultaneously sharp and drawn out. Through an abundance of fresh imagery and surprising turns, With Midnight Down Your Throat is an unapologetic examination of how the emotion of formative events can linger long after the concrete memory has been eclipsed by the passage of time.
Curran obtained her MFA from the University of Idaho, where she worked as an English instructor and Marketing Editor for the literary journal Fugue. Her work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Basalt, Hubbub, Miramar, PANK, Raleigh Review, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Willow Springs Magazine and elsewhere. Curran was a 2018 Centrum Fellow at the Port Townsend Writers Conference.
We would like to extend our deepest congratulations to Caitlyn Curran for her award-winning poetry collection.
Thank you to all our talented finalists for entrusting us with their prolific collections of poetry:
· Slaughterhouse for Old Wives’ Tales, Hannah V. Warren
· Prelude in Ursa Minor, Anne Marrie Wells
· The New Life, Seth Simons
· Séance at the End of the World, CJ Scruton
· Close Red Water, Emma Aylor
· With Midnight Down Your Throat, Caitlyn Curran
· Shapeshifting into Blade into Woman into, Ashley Somwaru
· Erasures, Rosanna Oh
· The Worry Dimension, Brett Hanley
We would also like to extend our sincerest thanks to our judge Geffrey Davis.