We are thrilled to announce that Freesia McKee's "What Isn't Dead" is this year's winner in the Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry, chosen by Sarah Vap. Congratulations, Freesia!
Freesia McKee is author of the chapbook How Distant the City (Headmistress Press, 2017). Her words have appeared in cream city review, The Feminist Wire, Painted Bride Quarterly, Gertrude, and the Ms. Magazine Blog. Freesia's poetry is forthcoming in CALYX, Sinister Wisdom, and Nimrod.
In addition to a $500 prize, McKee's winning work will appear in CutBank 89, our summer 2018 issue.
Find Freesia McKee on Twitter: @freesiamckee
At Instagram: @freesiamckee
And at https://freesiamckee.wordpress.com/
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Judge Sarah Vap had this to say about McKee's work:
In "What Isn't Dead," Freesia McKee layers the speaker's memory of a beloved (and themself at the time of that loving) as it is both hijacked and buoyed by the old and new systems of kindness and cruelty—chivalry, family, a 4th of July party that hurts, the strip club next door to their gay bar—until at the end my heart aches for them, confused (as they are?) by their final moment together—the moment's victory/failure at kindness, for everyone involved."
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Sarah Vap, our Fall 2017 Distinguished Hugo Writer, is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Viability (Penguin 2016), which was selected for the National Poetry Series. Her book of hybrid poetics, End of the Sentimental Journey, inaugurated the Infidel Poetics Series with Noemi Press (2013). She is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship for poetry and has taught at Arizona State University, University of Southern California, and Drew University.
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We also send warm thanks to all the fine poets who entered this year, and a special congratulations to all our finalists:
- John Blair
- Isabel Estrada
- Partridge Boswell
& - Brittney Scott