Sweet is pleased to announce the winning poem of the 2021 Poetry Contest, along with two runners up and eight finalist poems.
Judge Laura Donnelly selected the poem “Before school there are icicles” by Meghan Sterling from a field of eleven finalist poems chosen by Sweet Lit poetry editors. Donnelly also singled out “Prey Drive” by Anna Chotlos and “Just the Daily Turn” by Cathlin Noonan as runners up. You may read the judge’s comments on these three poems in the special poetry contest issue of Sweet Lit, which will go up some time this summer. All finalists will be offered publication in the special poetry contest issue of Sweet Lit.
FINALISTS:
“With Any Luck” by Angela Just
“If The Wound Is How the Light Enters You, How Do You Heal?” by Anna Chotlos
“Post-Menopausal Love Poem That Begins with Guilt and Ends with Air Plants” by Jen Karetnick
“The Customs of Grief” by Karen Craigo
“I Wanted My Mother to Say to Me as She Lay Dying” by Natalie Marino
“Bound to Repeat It” by Connie Post
“That’s Right It Starts with an Earthquake” by Michele Parker Randall
Several times a month we connect with our contributors showing where they have been, where they are now, and what’s up for the future.
Name: David Sklar Title of Pieces Published in Sweet: “Real Estate“ Issues: 3.2
Find Him: Twitter My pet project The Poetry Crisis Line is on Facebook.
Still in New Jersey, but a few inches to the west.
Find more from David on the Poetry Crisis website.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
Surviving.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’ve been working on this thing called the Poetry Crisis Line, which is sort of a cartoon, sort of an intertextual experiment, at the web address I listed above.
These look super fun and we are going to check out the rest!
Who is your favorite author?
I can only pick one? I mean, maybe I can narrow it down to Toni Morrison, Charles Baxter, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joy Harjo, T.S. Eliot, Richard Brautigan, Walter Tevis, Shel Silverstein, and Ursula Le Guin. But I’m sure I’m leaving someone out who I’ll think of shortly after I click Submit.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
My favorite poem is “The Abortion,” a traditional poem from Santal, India translated by W.G. Archer, that appears in Technicians of the Sacred, edited by Jerome Rothenberg. It deals with a couple of different castes grieving the baby they could not bring to term. It is heartbreaking but not judgmental, and the flow of it is ceremonial, but not in anything like a fixed meter that I’ve ever seen.
What inspires you to write?
Not enough, lately, though I’ve been working on getting my good habits back.
What are you reading right now?
That is one of the good habits I’m trying to get back. I read poetry a few times a week, but I’m not in the process of reading any book-length works at the moment. My favorite poem that I’ve “recently” discovered (probably late 2020) is “Aboriginal Landscape” by Louise Gluck.
What is your favorite sweet? We would love for you to share a recipe or link to place that serves it. Pictures are great, too!
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
Release of fifth book of poetry, “Shoreless”, published by Persea Books in October 2020. Most recently, I had a poem appear in the anthology “Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight” Edited by Julie Swarstad Johnson and Christopher Cokinos. The poem is titled “A Lady Astronaut Tests for Space.” I also just gave a reading on March 11th with Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers for “Poetry at the Dalí” which can be watched on YouTube.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
Since Borderlines was published, my second full-length poetry collection came out, Revolutions We’d Hoped We’d Outgrown. It was shortlisted for the Clare Johnson Award in Women’s Literature from Jane’s Stories Press Foundation. I also co-edited with Andrew Shattuck McBride the anthology, For Love of Orcas, which won a Nautilus Books Silver Award.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m working with my agent getting ready to send out a memoir that includes the essay published in Sweet, and also finishing an essay collection and my third poetry collection
Who is your favorite author?
I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite, but of living writers, Rebecca Solnit, Rick Barot, Claudia Rankine, Ana Maria Spagna, Pam Houston, Donna Miscolta, Ira Sukrungruang, Lidia Yuknavich, Kathleen Flenniken, and Natasha Trethewey always wow me. I could easily add 100+ more names to this list. We’re really lucky to live in a time when we have access to so much great contemporary literature.
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
I don’t have a favorite, per se, but I could read Marylin Robinson’s Housekeeping over and over. The same for Rebecca Solnit’s Field Guide to Getting Lost.
What inspires you to write?
Reading others’ works (including in Sweet!) inspires me, as does spending time in nature. There’s nothing like hiking a trail, away from everyday concerns, to free my mind, instill a sense of awe, and allow the imagination to thrive.
What are you reading right now?
My nightstand has a stack of fabulous books. Carolyn Forche’s memoir “What You Have Heard Is True,” Rick Barot’s poetry collection “The Galleons”, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Italian memoir “In Other Words,” Jericho Brown’s “The Tradition,” and a stack of books from Copper Canyon Press, including “The Essential Ruth Stone.” I’m also reading submissions for Wandering Aengus Press and its imprint Trail to Table Press, so I’m fortunate to have a deep bounty of reading riches right now.
What is your favorite sweet? We would love for you to share a recipe or link to place that serves it. Pictures are great, too!
My husband makes a cinnamon-oatmeal pancake with fresh berries that has just the right amount of sweetness. With a little butter, maple syrup, and a mug of hot coffee, it’s my favorite way to start the day, though, truth be told, I’d eat them for dinner, too.
Thank you, Jill, for taking the time to reconnect with us. We look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!
Are you a contributor who wants to be a part of Sweet Connections? Come fill out our form!
While I’m still picking blueberries from the farm down the street from my house in Olympia, WA, when in season (even during the pandemic), I now host a weekly live international, intersectional, intergenerational reading series on Facebook, Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry, and a monthly reading series, The Collectibles, with Headmistress Press, based on their lesbian trading card series.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
Eavan Boland published my poem “Gratitude Workshop, 1991” in her final issue as editor of Poetry Ireland Review in December, 2019, and of course, watching Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry group emerge out of the shadows of Covid has been astonishing, nourishing, and inspiring. I’ve enjoyed connecting with poets and their poetry from around the world.
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
My debut collection of poetry, Boats for Women, came out in March, 2019 from Salmon Poetry. I am starting to organize the poems for my next collection, The Glass Studio, due out from Salmon in 2022 or 2023, and I am beginning preparations for my third collection, an erasure poetry project based on Walter Lord’s 1955 classic about the Titanic disaster, A Night to Remember. Then there’s always the curation of the special event readings for Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry. Upcoming this spring/summer will be readings that celebrate the life and poetry of Eavan Boland, express solidarity with labor/fertility rights on May Day; bear witness with Asian-American/Pacific Islander women poets, and a 40th Anniversary tribute to Salmon Poetry. And that’s just by the end of May! In June we’ll host our 2nd Annual Poetry PRIDE Parade. All virtual, of course, nestled between our New Books Showcase readings.
I have a top ten or so of poets I return to often and necessarily. Easily, however, at the pinnacle of that poetry peak is Elizabeth Bishop. Not only do I absolutely adore and admire her poetry, but Bishop’s example of a poet who did not rush to publication gave me permission to feel comfortable with my slow, meandering journey (Boats for Women took 21 years from completion to publication).
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Now this one is much harder. I can’t exist without these books about poetry: Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry and Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider. The book of poetry I have cherished for years is Suzanne Gardinier’s The New World (Pittsburgh). Poems I most share with people: Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do”; Li-Young Lee’s “One Heart”; and William Stafford’s “A Ritual to Read Each Other”.
What inspires you to write?
The quirky, poignant, unfathomable, prismatic aspects of humanity. The desire to discover something about myself and my connection with humanity that I could not perceive/receive in the conscious world.
What are you reading right now?
I continue to gobble up all the literary print journals I’ve accumulated over the years as well as reading or rereading anthologies. A few anthologies of note: All of Us: Sweet, the First Five Years, Poetry 2008-2013; Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse Press); Even the Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry; and HERS: a poets speak anthology (Beatlick Press and Jules’ Poetry Playhouse). I’m also reading lots of collections. I’d like to mention: Eduardo Corral’s Guillotine (Graywolf), Tamara J. Madison’s Threed: This Road Not Damascus (Trio House), and Hilda Raz’s List & Story (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). Then there’s always a book about some aspect of the Titanic disaster for good measure.
What is your favorite sweet? We would love for you to share a recipe or link to place that serves it. Pictures are great, too!
I know you will not believe me, but this is my favorite question that I always look forward to reading! It’s the essence of Sweet! My favorite sweet is a confection made in Gloucester, MA, at Nichols Candies, a family-owned candy store that’s been in Gloucester since 1932. The sweet: a pink wintergreen dollop of a wafer mint that literally melts in your mouth. Divine!
David is a Philadelphia native, but these days you can find him in Washington, DC, where he lives with his family and works at Georgetown University. He teaches creative writing and literature at the Center for Jewish Civilization and promoting student-centered teaching at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship.
What are some major accomplishments you have had since your Sweet publication?
I’m excited to say that I’ve had four books published since those publications, including two collections of poetry—We Were the People Who Moved (2015) and Some Unimaginable Animal (2019)—but I think the biggest accomplishment is just coming back to the page again and again. Books are great—it’s an unbelievable privilege to get to share my work with other folks—but the foundation is the writing. So I think that’s the most important accomplishment any writer can point to. #amwriting
Can you tell us about a current/ongoing project that you’re excited about?
I’m finishing edits on a novel due out in 2021 (Tachyon Publications). It’s called How to Mars and it’s a sci-fi novel about an ill-advised one-way mission to Mars; the small group of Marsonauts, who went in order to escape life, unexpectedly have to get ready for the first pregnancy on another planet.
Such a cruel question! Just one? Well, fine—I guess my favorite author is (and I’m sorry to say that this author has a really long name): Toni Morrison Jane Kenyon Yehuda Amichai Basho Salman Rushdie Rainer Maria Rilke George Saunders Stephen Dunn Virginia Woolf. Long name or not (Toni Morrison for short?), that’s a great author!
What is your favorite poem/essay/book?
Again, kind of cruel—but this time I’ll really honor the request. In the world of poetry I’ll go with Jane Kenyon’s Otherwise.
What inspires you to write?
One of the main things is my hunger to show the power and importance and even magic of ordinary moments and things.
What are you reading right now?
Five books (I always read a lot of things at once): Hanif Abdurraqib, A Fortune for Your Disaster. (poetry) Jim Gaffigan, Food: A Love Story. (non-fiction) Layla Saad, Me and White Supremacy. (non-fiction) Jeff Vandermeer, The Time Traveler’s Almanac. (fiction) Craig Steven Wilder, Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. (non-fiction)
What is your favorite sweet? We would love for you to share a recipe or link to place that serves it. Pictures are great, too!
Heritage India, a restaurant in DC, makes a bread pudding that is a religious experience.
Our annual poetry contest is now in February! Nothing says “love” more than poetry, so we think this is the perfect month. Send us your poems about love, falling in love, saying goodbye to love, or nothing about love at all! Submission fee is $10 and you can submit up to 5 poems for each entry. But don’t delay, there are only 28 days in this month to get your best poems to us. The winner will receive $500 and all finalists will be published in a special contest edition of Sweet Lit.
We encourage and welcome submissions from diverse voices and under-represented populations, including, but not limited to, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, those with disabilities, and the elderly.
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to:
1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and
3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Let’s face it, the pandemic has been tough on all of us. We are all just hanging onto whatever shred of hope we can and we know it’s not over yet. But there is something we can do help the staff of our our little magazine. You all have been amazing with giving us many pieces to consider. So many that our staff can hardly keep up! Starting February 1st, we will close submissions for poetry and CNF. But there is a bigger plan!
Our Poetry Contest will now move to the month of February each year.
Flash CNF Contest will remain in November.
Poetry and CNF submissions will now be accepted April, May, June, and July ONLY.
Graphic Submissions will continue to be accepted year round.
Reducing the submission period we hope will allow our editors some respite and a faster response to our contributors. A win-win for all of us!
Thank you for your continued support and being a part of the Sweet family. We hope that you will find our changes favorable for everyone. Stay healthy, friends. Keep writing. Keep submitting.
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