2019 Louis Award Winner

The field of entries this year for the Louis Award was impressive. Contest judge Amy Miller has selected the Winner: Michael Bowden age 68, from the Sierra Vista, AZ, for his manuscript Common Uproar.

Amy writes: "This is a poet of importance, a poet who knows this western American landscape and renders its hidden stories and details — ranch life, work, horses, trails, red-tail hawks — in absolutely gorgeous language, weaving a complex portrait of place that is by turns elegiac and starkly realistic. This book is poem after poem of rich, beautiful language, unerringly sophisticated and surprising at every turn. I enjoyed this book from beginning to end; it never flags, and I was compelled to turn every page to see what the poet would do next. It would be a disservice to say this poet has arrived; judging from the brilliance of this book, this poet arrived a long time ago, and we are only now catching up."

"Attendance" from Common Uproar was featured on Poetry Daily [Poems.com].