Wednesday | 07.18.07

Winners of the Southeast Review's 2007 Poetry Contest Announced

Winner: Michele Rozga for “The Lifespan of a Sparrow” Selected by Mark Doty

The 9 finalist poems (Selected by SER Staff) which will be published are:

Natalie G. Diaz “Master” and “Why I Don’t Mention Flowers When Conversations With My Brother Reach Uncomfortable Silences”
Rebecca Lauren “Fat Man Walking” and “Departing Norfolk In November”
Harry Bauld “Ball”
Jill Drumm “USE”
Elinor Benedict “Teacher”
Greg Bachar “Tired Of Rust And Broken Bones”

This is what Mark Doty had to say about Michele Rozga’s “The Lifespan of a Sparrow”:

What I admire about this poem is the unexpected movement of its thinking, from the fact of the length of sparrows' lives to "the other side" -- of winter and, seemingly, of the living world, where new life comes into being as "the held trail of spark." That phrase alone would be enough to make this poem rewarding! Then the poet moves into human beginnings, a sense of childhood as life inside an unbroken egg, the self not yet emerged. So the sparrows become occasion for an unexpected meditation on what it is to be in time, to "hatch" into a life.

Tuesday | 07.17.07

Winners of the 2007 Southeast Review's World's Best Short Short Story Contest Announced

Winner: Mark McBride for "The Electronic Age" Selected by Robert Olen Butler

The finalists who will be published are:

"Garage Sale" by Scott Elingburg
"White girl/boy angst" by Ryder Collins
"Evenness" by Mathew R. Goldberg
"Apricot Skin" by Cynthia Lelos
"Mr. Potato Head Reveals His Secrets" by Maureen Sherbondy
"Friends Get a Dog" by Marsh Muirhead
"Snow, Mexico" by Carolyn Scarbrogh
"My First Apartment on the Second Floor" by Patrick R. Swaney
"1968" by Martha Hicks Leta