‎

Get the details on pre-ordering "Spilt" from Green Linden Press.

The prize, named after an essay in Anne Carson’s Plainwater, includes a $1,000 award and a publishing contract. In the spring, Christopher Nelson, editor and publisher of Green Linden Press, personally congratulated Stempleman on the honor.

According to the award announcement, the Wishing Jewel Prize recognizes manuscripts that challenge conventional ideas of what a poetry collection can be, while revealing the ongoing richness and potential of lyric language.

Described by Green Linden Press, Spilt captures the experience of living between the domestic and the absurd, the lyrical and the narrative, oscillating between these states as a reflection of day-to-day existence. The poems explore both pandemic and non-pandemic experiences of separation and quarantine, blending whimsy, deadpan humor, stark realism, and pure fantasy.

Each poem stands isolated as its own distinct world (or word), slightly out of sync with our reality of excess and overwhelming information. The poems in Spilt leak and escape, striving to connect with one another and with us, gathering socially, often stretching lines and language to their limits before pulling them back again.

‎