2015 Winner
We are proud to announce that the Winner of the 2015 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Competition has been selected by our final judge, Patricia Fargnoli. This year's winner is Susan Gordon of Ijamsville, MD, for her manuscript There Is a Doe in the Winter Hay Field.
Patricia Fargnoli says of this manuscript: "In Susan Gordon's wonderful chapbook-length poem, she follows the body of a deer from its dying to its disintegration, ....day by day, change by change, and in so doing, gives us a gift about beauty, about death, about change, about the importance of paying precise and close attention to the amazing world."
Reviews:
- A review by Sonja James in The Journal
- A review by Laura Dukes in The Frederick News-Post
“Susan Gordon’s extraordinary language conveys us through death to dissolution and transfiguration, as she bears careful, caring witness to the body of a belly-shot doe day after day, week after week, month after month, through all seasons of the weather and the soul. Time and again precis description breaks open into transcendent vision; beauty entwines with horror, both driving towards the ‘unraveling / of what comes / after everything has been undone.’ This is a masterpiece, a poem I will cherish and revisit for many years.”
—Jo Radner, Professor of Literature Emerita, American University, and Storyteller
Susan's Web Site: susangordonstories.com
Excerpt from
There Is a Doe in the Winter Hayfield
I have been hearing the exploding cracks of rifle shots from the long, empty farm behind mine I don’t know those hunters but I know their signs I find molasses and corn in August left out to call the velvet-antlered buck into ambush I find beer cans and orange peels as the raw dark of hunting season sets in There is a doe in the winter hay field I allow a hunter here, Nick, a bow-hunter, quiet, waiting quick to follow if he has wounded He has never left a deer behind There is a doe in the winter hay field Belly shot she died running her legs outstretched stilled mid-gallop She died in extremity in flight There is a doe in the winter hay field She is close to whole her skyward eye plucked one ear torn Other than that, she is a sweet-faced beauty with a long white throat and a dark nose There is a doe in the winter hay field
$15
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Deborah Brown
Jackie Craven
Lois Marie Harrod
Mariana Hofer
Holly Karapetkova
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Barbara Friedman Stout
Z. G. Tomaszewski
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The Sweat of Bees
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Semi-Finalists
Scott Beal
Karen Vande Bossche
Paul Fisher
Regina Gort
Mary Catherine Harper
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Mark Heinlein
Gina Hietpas
Cindy M. Hutchings
Hope Jordan
Jack Lindeman
Claudia Castro Luna
Katherine Howd Machan
Keith Moul
Cristina M. R. Norcross
Pamela Manché Pearce
Rikki Santer
J. R. Solonche
Joseph Stanton
Allison Thorpe
Dennis Trudell
Jay Udall
Priscilla Webster-Williams
Martin Willitts, Jr
Elizabeth Wurz
Honorable Mention
Laura Apol
Jane Costain
Shoshana Cote
Chris Dahl
Stacy W. Dixon
Ann Eddings
Theodore Eisenberg
Sandra Fees
Jay Franzel
Jerome Gagnon
Karen Greenbaum-Maya
David A. Hecker
Dianna MacKinnon Henning
Don Hogle
Steve Hood
Jodi Hottel
Michael Jackman
Couri Johnson
Teral Katahara
Diane Kendig
Anita Olivia Koester
John P. Kristofco
Ed Krizek
Joan Leotta
Issa M. Lewis
Devon Miller-Duggan
Tracy Mishkin
Sarah Fawn Montgomery
Sharon Fish Mooney
Sandra Noel
Katherine Durham Oldmixon
Christa Pandey
Deborah Phelps
Susan Richane
Kristen Renzi
Russell Rowland
Lynn Veach Sadler
Ryan Scariano
Jane Schapiro
Sharon Scholl
Emily Shearer
Judith Skillman
Carol R. Sunde
Teresa Sutton
Mark Taksa
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Vrenios
Chelsea Whitton
Richard Widerkehr
Ellen Roberts Young