Judge Alexandra Lytton Regalado and series editor Emma Trelles have chosen the winners of this year’s Gunpowder Press Alta California Chapbook Prize: Amelia Rodriguez’s The First Amelia and Fred Arroyo’s Alba and Other Songs. The winning chapbooks will be available from Gunpowder Press in Spring 2024.
The flowing, associative poems of The First Amelia sing with confidence and travel through the veins of memory, family, and the landscapes of Colima. Amelia Rodriguez conjures images of sparring hawks, crushed rubies, trees glassed with ice, a snared kite, and other wondrous and unique visions. She converses with the men and women of her past, and at the center is a twinned self, “two Amelias hovering / above the turning earth,” that is hungry and ever-present.
Alexandra Lytton Regalado
JudgeAlthough Alba and Other Songs is only 14 pages long, this lyrical and well-crafted chapbook has the breadth and substance of a full-length collection. Focusing on the said and unsaid, in an imagistic and incantatory style, Fred Arroyo has written an honest yet tender examination of a father-son relationship. Steeped in the nature of his barrio, Arroyo’s poems trace the borders of land and body to tell a story of family, exile, and belonging: “There are no boundaries / save the lines on maps. // There is no time / save the eye of memory.”
Alexandra Lytton Regalado
JudgeThe judges recognized, as Honorable Mention, Against Surrealism by Luis Torres and nine finalists:
- J.P Dávila, Poemas Sueltas
- Diane de Anda, Reflections
- Chelsea Guevara, Somewhere Over the Border
- SG Huerta, Origen
- Karl Michael Igesias, From the Future
- Max Lemuz, SoCal Sinai
- Mia Leonin, Ofrenda
- Gerardo Pacheco Matus, Desert Cantos Poemas
- Marilyn Melissa Salguero, Blister
Gunpowder Press thanks the judges for their work through this process and thanks all of the poets who sent their work for consideration. Congratulations to both our winners, and thank you to Emma and Alex!
