In Utero
EXCERPTS FROM THE LONGLISTS & SHORTLISTS
FOR THE TARPAULIN SKY BOOK AWARDS
IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
In Utero
EXCERPTS FROM THE LONGLISTS & SHORTLISTS FOR THE TARPAULIN SKY BOOK AWARDS
IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
Jacqueline Kari, TWA: A Masque
Picking apart apart the bones of the Child ballad, “The Twa Sisters,” reinterpreting its tale of sororicide and retribution as a a masque that glitters with constellations of love triangles, a katabatic trip to graveland, and the yoked fates of two sisters twinned from their balladic, fairy-tale archetypes. Excerpts from Jacqueline Kari's poetry manuscript, TWA: A Masque, finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize.
Megin Jiménez, Lone Stories
"The Unborn knew this: We needed a beauty queen shooting wolves from a plane. We needed a cowboy in the house. We needed blue eyes hatched in cornfield silos. We needed the destruction that can only come from victory. We needed the hyphenated snap of Northamerican efficiency sounding universal in throats galore." Excerpts from Megin Jiménez’s poetry manuscript, Lone Stories, a finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize.
Andy Fitch, Garageland
"You ask yourself what value (in terms of life, of action) 'Up in Heaven’s' bizarre punk/pop fusion holds, for precisely which audience. You wonder if Mick’s departure from punk sound, if not punk sentiment, betrays its own escapist anxieties before what Nietzsche describes as the two worst contagions: 'great nausea at man,' 'great pity for man.'" Excerpts from Andy Fitch’s hybrid-genre manuscript, Garageland, a finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize.
Laynie Browne, Periodic Companions
"In our actions we are beyond the believable and we divine, through tea leaves or wind, chemical signals, market rates or text codes of our clan— where we are driven next— furthest from before. Join our little gathering despite these many faults and without which we wonder whose art is reverential. Meet our misshapen family." Excerpts from Laynie Browne’s novel manuscript, Periodic Companions, a finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize.
Ally Harris, Her Twin Was After Me
"I came from garbage, the daughter of a prison plumber, daughter of a man whose feet are baptized in shit. I came from garbage. I rose up from a borrowed backyard with a noon glaze and twigs mussing my malformed head." Excerpts from Ally Harris’s poetry manuscript, Her Twin Was After Me, a finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize.
Paul Cunningham, GOAL/TENDER MEAT/TENDER
"I’m no amateur when it comes to negotiations, but I’m willing to offer you my head. I’m willing to sacrifice myself to continue the species. This is an institution of unsportsmanlike policies and I’m doing my best to generate a little public interest." Excerpts from Paul Cunningham’s hybrid-genre manuscript, GOAL/TENDER MEAT/TENDER, a finalist for the 2015 TS Book Prize.
Julianne Neely, poems from “I’m Like the Language Boys”
"Yes / my insides / look like bar graphs / don’t act like / you’re unsure what that / means Yes I am invested in your well-being / but / I must reinvent the opus I am" -- from Julianne Neely's I’m Like the Language Boys, shortlisted for the 2019 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards.
Joshua Corey: excerpts from “Hannah and the Master”
"Widescreen nativity: nativity of the eye. Ringed by lashes and flames. // Endgame cinema, Nuremberg hypothesis, the present unforgiven by both past and future...." -- from Hannah and the Master, a finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prizes.
Lisa Marie Basile and Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein, excerpts From “Nympholepsy”
"We’re almost fucking but we’re not. We’re all tongue. We’re all tongue down the glass, mouth open and taking. No, we’re not. We’re wasted on memory tonight. We’re fucking memories." -- from Nympholepsy, by Lisa Marie Basile and Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein, a finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prizes.
Miranda Metelski, Excerpts from “Resisting the Book of a Woman Possessed”
“Spiders crawl down my thighs, across my abdomen. A kind of scholarly pornography.” — from Miranda Metelski’s Resisting the Book of a Woman Possessed, a finalist for the 2017 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prizes.