The winners of the Alta California Prize, selected by Francisco Aragón from an incredibly rich collection of submissions, are Florencia Milito‘s Sor Juana and Gabriel Ibarra‘s On Display. Francisco also recognized Felipe De La Rosa‘s Summer Blooms in Paramount as an honorable mention. In addition to the winners and honorable mention, eight poets were distinguished as finalists including:
Elaine Alarcon, Blood Echoes
Li Yun Alvarado, Luz Like Love
Kenneth Chacon, How the Cholo Became a Mystic & Other Dreamer Poems
Tomas Moniz, Theory of Falling Bodies
Melinda Palacio, Alamar
Jorge Quintana, Dying in America
Linda Ravenswood, A Poem Is a House
Danny Romero, My Father’s Friends
Florencia Milito is a bilingual poet, writer, and translator whose work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Indiana Review, Catamaran, Diálogo, 92nd Street Y, Quiet Lightning, Ninth Letter, Latinas: Struggles & Protests in 21st Century USA, Zócalo Public Square, womenvoicesforchange.org, and GUEST, among others. A Hedgebrook and Community of Writers alumna and CantoMundo fellow, her writing has been influenced by her early experience fleeing Argentina’s 1976 coup, subsequent childhood in Venezuela, and immigration to the United States at the age of nine. In 2020, she read at the 8th Winter Warmer Poetry Festival in Cork, Ireland. Her bilingual poem Song of Transformation was featured in the UC Berkeley Arts Research Center’s Fall 2021 Flash Reading Series. Her bilingual collection Ituzaingó: Exiles and Reveries / exilios y ensueños was published in 2021 by Nomadic Press. Of Milito’s winning manuscript, Sor Juana, Francisco writes:
Sor Juana reveals an exquisite alchemy—the provocative life and death of the baroque master, but also the speaker’s own “inherited trauma” as “a child of [a] dictatorship,” which follows her into exile, prompting: “This is the heart of the wound.” The artistry here is replete with skill and grace. “History wedges itself / inside four syllables”—the thesis of this breathtaking book-length poem.
Gabriel Ibarra was born and raised in Fresno, CA. He earned an Honorable Mention for the 2011 Ernesto Trejo Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of American Poets, judged by the late Phil Levine. His poetry has been published in the Packinghouse Review, and from 2014-2016, to honor his roots as a Puentista, he served as a Puente Program Mentor at Fresno City College. Currently, he teaches as a full time English Lecturer at Fresno State, and serves as the Campus Liaison for the Fresno State Creative Writing Alumni Chapter, whose goal is to connect multiple generations of Fresno writers. Of Ibarra’s winning manuscript, On Display, Francisco writes:
“Mira, tu Papa is on TV,” says a mother, coaxing her boy to imagine that Erik Estrada is his father. “Our time together—episodes / rerun is never real, only instances / of his dark, oily hair mirroring mine / as I peddle closer, reach out, / trace the round static of his face.” Wow. It’s a heartwrenching moment that broke me. On Display is moving art, the poet’s craft up to the task.
Of honorable mention, Felipe De La Rosa’s Summer Blooms in Paramont, Francisco writes:
“I listen for the elotero,” the single-line stanza that opens Summer Blooms in Paramount, hints at what will unfold across its twelve pieces, deploying white space as part of its score, shuttling seamlessly across linguistic borders. There’s a lovely melange of southern California landscapes here, where “ephemera kisses / [g]low like dandelions” or where the speaker invites you to “[f]ly inside water swiftly open your pond-eyes” to these gorgeous poems.
Gunpowder Press and series editor Emma Trelles thank Francisco Aragón for his careful consideration, as well as all the poets who allowed us the opportunity to consider their work for publication.
