Part of the Shoreline Voices series, showcasing poets from California’s Central Coast, Out of the Ground is a collection of poems inspired by the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and the flora of our region. Out of the Ground includes poems by more than forty poets from Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Kern, and Ventura counties, including […]
Speech Crush
“Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing a broken vessel with lines of tree sap and gold, the poems in Sandra McPherson’s new book, Speech Crush, run a vein of intelligence and attention through often harrowing experiences—of deep loss, of scammers and self-immolators, of institutionalization and separations that rival those of Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.” … McPherson’s poems ask us to take into ourselves a wrecked, a transformed beauty.” Jordan Smith, author of Little Black Train and Common Spirits
Downtime
Part of the California Poets Series, Downtime features new poems by Gary Soto. He describes the process for writing this collection: The Monday when Daylight Savings, 2021, kicked in, I was left in the dark. The morning light appeared in our eastern window, then was gone by the time I finished washing the lunchtime dishes. […]
Our Music
David Young, author of Field of Light and Shadow, says “What joys of discovery lie in wait for readers here, in Dennis Schmitz’s final collection. There is no falling off: the same lancing wit prevails, along with the psychological and spiritual acuity which has always marked his work. His poetic canon, first to last, here rounded out, inspires delight and reverence. His originality is our treasure, a gift we scarcely know how to celebrate adequately.”
What’s Up, Gunpowder?
New from the Shoreline Voices Project
Part of the Shoreline Voices series, showcasing poets from California’s Central Coast, Out of the Ground is a collection of poems inspired by the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and the flora of our region. Out of the Ground includes poems by more than forty poets from Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Kern, and Ventura counties, including […]
Alta California Chapbook Prize
Submissions are currently being accepted for the next Alta California Chapbook Prize. Two sets of 8-12 pages of poems will be selected for publication in bilingual editions. The judge for this year is Alexandra Lytton Regalado. Send poems, in either English or Spanish, by October 1, 2023. Full details on our Submittable page.
Other recent announcements:
Barry Spacks Poetry Prize
Congratulations, Kellam Ayres!
Selected by Gary Soto as the winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize, her manuscript In the Cathedral of My Undoing will be available from Gunpowder Press in early 2024. Read the full announcement, including finalists, here.
Catherine Esposito Prescott selected as winner of the 2022 Spacks Prize
Congratulations to Catherine Esposito Prescott! Her manuscript Accidental Garden was selected by Danusha Laméris as the winner of the 2022 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize.