Anzaldua Poetry Prize Archives

Anemochore: An Interview with Meredith Stricker

Meredith Stricker’s Anzaldúa Poetry Prize winning chapbook “Anemochore” is truly beautiful and inspiring. From her unique and layered title “Anemochore,” to her intricate design and use of space on each page, Stricker offers as much insight and perspective from their placement of her words as from their meaning.

“Anemochore” keeps no borders between visual art, poetry and even music. Stricker’s work here demonstrates a melding of ideas that flow naturally from page to page, evoking all of a reader’s senses.

Meredith Stricker fuses her work with her own experiences, including performances with musicians, her own work as an architect in Big Sur, California and her deep perspective into the value of poetry and imagery. The second part of the chapbook, The Be/s of the Invisible, was a collaboration with several other musicians that link the life of bees to the freedom in poetry.

Her chapbook “Anemochore” will be published by Newfound in spring of 2018.

Steve Mulero: When did you begin writing poetry and what were some of your influences on your early journey into poetry and art?

Meredith Stricker: Because my mother was a war refugee for whom English was a second language and my father’s family from Russia spoke in an archaic form of German, I grew up
in a household where several languages mingled in ways that were basically incomprehensible to me, except as a kind of music or rhythm that was deeply familiar, but also untranslatable.

“Cryptopedia” – An Interview with Andrew Demcak

Andrew Demcak’s “Cryptopedia” is a collection that lives up to the mystery and intrigue promised by its title. “Cryptopedia” succeeds with that most fundamental and pleasing of poetic ideas: finding harmony between form and content. The 2017 Anzaldúa Poetry Prize finalist is a poet, a novelist, and, as he says, a “content creator in various forms.”

Demcak is a Renaissance man who works in unusual ways, cutting up blocks of text from a variety of sources and rearranging them, to create his poems. In “Cryptopedia” he mixes this method with the murky, monstrous and mysterious to create something unsettling yet genuinely moving and thought-provoking. Demcak’s success comes from his pitch-perfect subject choices and his ability to turn a seemingly random selection of lines and quotes into a twisting narrative, a short, emotive gut-punch. It takes talent to write poetry, but Demcak has proved he is not only a great talent, but a true craftsman.

Demcak’s poetry has appeared in a range of journals and we were lucky enough to have him share his craft, as well as some words of wisdom, with us at Newfound.

“The Graffiti of Pompeii” – An Interview with Laura Sobbott Ross

Laura Sobbott Ross has been writing poetry since she was a teenager. Her writing has appeared in The Florida Review, Meridian, and many others. She was a finalist for the 2016 Newfound Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, as well as a finalist for the Pushcart Prize and the Arts & Letters Poetry Prize in 2016.

“Flower Wars” – An Interview with Nico Amador

Nico Amador’s “Flower Wars” is a collection that lives up to its oxymoronic title. It is grounded, it is alive and growing, but it is also full of tension, power and conviction. The 2016 Anzaldúa Poetry Prize winner is nothing less than the heartfelt work of a poet formed by the strength of his political beliefs and his desire to understand and express his place in the world as a queer, trans and mixed-race poet.

‘Simbelmynë’ – An Interview with Anna King

Anna King is a PhD student at Georgia State University, a mother of two, and a small-business owner (she runs a soy candle business with her husband Chad). Her other passions include fitness, preferably Cross-fit at her local gym in McDonough, Georgia. King’s works have been published in literary magazines as well as academically in the “Ellen Glasgow Journal of Southern Women Writers.” King was offered a fellowship by the Summer Literary Seminars and she has been nominated for a Pushcart. King’s chapbook “Simbelmynë” is a finalist for the 2015 Anzaldúa Poetry Prize.

‘West Illegitimately’ – An Interview with Éireann Lorsung

Éireann Lorsung is a writer, teacher, and editor who received an MFA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD from the University of Nottingham before writing her first book Music for Landing Planes. She recently received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant in Literature that will allow her to travel and gather research for upcoming projects. Lorsung resides in rural Belgium where she runs a residency center for artists and writers called Dickinson House. She’s also the creative designer of the micro press Miel and editor of Journal 1110.

‘The First Language’ – An Interview with Amanda Huynh

The notion that fusion and exchange (of culture, of ideas) will result in evolution is central to Amanda Huynh’s poetry. This Texas native nursed a love of writing while earning an undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Texas at Dallas. Huynh is currently earning an MFA in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University, where

‘What Cement is Made of’- An Interview with Daniel Donaghy

Daniel Donaghy is a writer, professor, father, and husband whose poetry evokes growing up in Philadelphia, the inspiration of his chapbook “What Cement is Made of,” a finalist for this year’s Anzaldúa Poetry Prize.

“empathy for cars / force of July” – An Interview with Poet Davy Knittle

By day, Davy Knittle is a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, and by night he’s an award-winning poet. Knittle’s interest in and love of poetry was piqued during high school, when he was taught for a year by poet Yolanda Wisher. While much of Knittle’s life is dedicated to and his writing and his studies, he also enjoys simple things,

Rodney Gomez: 2014 Anzaldúa Poetry Prize Winner

We are very proud to feature our video interview with 2014 Anzaldúa Poetry Prize winner Rodney Gomez. A thoughtful and articulate poet with a deep sense of purpose, Gomez’s interview is inspiring to all of us who believe artists can…

Heather Kirn Lanier: A Poet Obsessed

Heather Kirn Lanier’s poetry chapbook, Heart-Shaped Bed in Hiroshima, a finalist for the 2014 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, reflects an obsession. But it should not surprise us that most of her work does this. Like many writers, she finds she must follow her obsessions wherever they lead.

“The collection is about trying to understand the brutalities of war through mediated forms—memorials, museums, news headlines, biographers. It’s about trying to bridge the chasm between the citizen and the far-away war her country is waging. It’s about feeling responsible to bridge that gap, even while it’s ultimately impossible,” says Lanier.

Olivia Cronk: Junk Drawer Poet and Mood Thief

Olivia Cronk is one of two finalists for Newfound’s 2014 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize. Her sublime imagery, irreverence and precision of language struck the panelists and the judge. Coupled with her unique perspective on poetry, she is one to watch, if not to get to know. Look for her poetry in our print issue.

REGGIE CARLISE: Tell me about yourself.

OLIVIA CRONK: I live on the north side of Chicago, where I also teach writing at a small commuter university, Northeastern Illinois University. I teach both Introductory Composition and upper level Poetry Writing courses, so my artistic and professional selves are at once in competition with one another and deeply entangled.

My first book, Skin Horse (Action Books, 2012), came out of the time of my early teaching life (adjunct work at sometimes three schools at once—this is likely a familiar routine to many Newfound readers) and those poems were an extreme examination of the domestic, often in the flavor of B Horror films, Vincent Price, Giallo, David Lynch, Clara Rockmore. I think those were very, very interior in part because I had such a hectic work life.

And now, my labor situation is a little smoother (or, rather: as smooth as might be expected in the fucked up economy of academic jobs), but I have a small child, and somehow I find myself writing only in long-form (it’s easier to simply “drop in” on a fresh page of an ongoing document)—I only want to work on manuscripts, not on discrete poems. My submission to Newfound’s chapbook contest is from a long poem, “Middle Mansion,” which is about genre, the Fantasy genre, fantasy, (the self inside of the place of) memory, fashion, early adulthood, and apocalyptic settings.

Anzaldúa Poetry Prize | 2014 Winners

We were blown away this year by the work that poets from all over submitted to our annual Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize. Critical awareness, passion, and empathy were the common threads uniting these chapbooks, which we believe attests to…

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