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About Pushcart Prize Nominations

The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America. Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in their annual collections. Winners of the Prize have included the likes of Charles Simic, Robert Pinsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus, Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford and John Updike, to name only a handful. No wonder simply being nominated for a Pushcart makes you feel as if you've won something.

Each fall, editors from small magazines and independent book presses worldwide are invited to submit up to six nominations. The nominations may be any combination of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or stand-alone excerpts from novels. Translations, reprints and both traditional and experimental writing are also welcome.

Announcing IPA's Pushcart Prize Nominations for 2024

The Iowa Poetry Association's Editor and Associate Editors have collaborated to select nominees from this year's Lyrical Iowa 2023. Please join us in congratulating and wishing these nominees success (listed alphabetically by author). Poems will be posted after Oct. 1.

Kelsey Bigelow

SIDERODROMOPHOBIA
FEAR OF TRAINS

Never did I expect your Amtrak express
to tear through my ribcage
then pour alcohol on my raw heart

Because of you
I still cringe at train whistles and vodka shots

I lack trust for men who ask me to board
because you brought me into your drunken viewing car
though you already imagined me tied to your tracks

The only thing I can count on
is that each swig of scotch will shred my throat
and still be softer than you


Janet Carl

SPRING IN TOWN - 1942

If wise Eve had never tasted that sweet fruit,
She would still be in the garden, but not this garden,
The one in which we toil and sweat over the ordinary tasks
Of beating and mowing, tilling and fixing.

Never knowing winter, Eve could not guess the joy of the hot sun warming
Our backs, the feel of the breeze refreshing our quilts and souls,
The fragrance we shake loose from a young apple tree.

If Eve had not chosen life over perfection,
Our sons and brothers and fathers would be here,
Sharing our work and living out their days in the sweetness of
Our little Iowa town.

But Eve chose. She took a bite, and we became human, God beaming
At us from the four-eyed steeple,
Making the sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sending rain on the just and the unjust.


Julie Allyn Johnson

finalmente

roosting in lofty rafters
intuition steadies

a precarious perch
the tribe surrounds

but does not sustain me
I've failed to qualify

as one of the elect,
one of their chosen few

no longer riven by sibling guile
or the poison hatchet

of a mother's tongue
I hasten, now, to leave

I'll fly as is my birthright
I shall preen my own wings


Teresa Lawler

Silent Night

Her car is there.
Head facing forward wearing
a grimace as a smirk travels across her face.
My grip on the steering wheel tightens
as I remind my kids to be sure and
grab everything. Our weekend visit ends
as the dusky darkness of January
envelopes the icy exchange.

No words are spoken.
No time for hugs.
Just soft silent goodbyes as they crunch through
the snowy barrier between my truck and her car.

Pulling out of the parking lot into the winter solitude
Small hands wave from the back window
as I contemplate
my silent trip home.


Lisa Morlock

The Rarity of Eiswein
For Tim-the very best one.

You passed in the dawn
and left us a frosted fall day,
coated in the glisten
of powder-sugar snow,
grapes still on the vine-

The cold had come too soon.

And we were left
to make the best of it,
gathering quick and careful,
the chilly orbs clinging low-
salvaging all we could.

They say seasons cut short
leave the very best vintage.
Clean, with a fresh finish,
without faults or flaws.

Like the golden peach glow
of ice wine, you only knew
the honey hours of summer.

And that made you the sweetest.


Ashley Wolftornabane

The History of My Backyard

This land already had a people when the Europeans came
They were called "Sioux" because of miscommunication 
The Oceti Sakowin, let us say their name

"Seven Council Fires", seven parts of the same
Seven tribes, now all sent to the reservation
This land already had a people when the Europeans came

They regard the Buffalo as a relative, we saw them as game
They say "Mitákuye Oyás'in": All are my relation
The Oceti Sakowin, let us say their name

People don't like to talk about it - too much guilt and shame
Children ripped from mothers and force-fed a white education
This land already had a people when the Europeans came

Keeping the "phéta wakján," sacred fire, aflame
Prayer and ritual bring them close to Creation
The Oceti Sakowin, let us say their name

Ugly history should make us feel uncomfortable; that's the aim
Doing better in the future is our obligation
This land already had a people when the Europeans came
The Oceti Sakowin, let us say their name


To read poems of previous IPA Pushcart Prize Nominees:

IPA Nominees for the 2023 Pushcart Prize
IPA Nominees for the 2022 Pushcart Prize
IPA Nominees for the 2021 Pushcart Prize


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