2016 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize Winner

Kurt Olsson's manuscript Burning Down Disneyland was selected for the 2016 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize by Thomas Lux, who said:

I love the title of this book (though I read it as metaphor!) and I love the innovative mischief of its poems. Let it be known: a true poetic intelligence and imagination lives between its covers.

Kurt Olsson’s first collection of poetry, What Kills What Kills Us, won the Gerald Cable Book Award and was published by Silverfish Review Press in 2007. In 2008, the book was awarded the Towson University Prize for Literature, given annually to the best book published the previous year by a Maryland writer, as well as named Best Poetry Book of 2008 by Peace Corps Writers.

Olsson’s poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, FIELD, The New Republic, Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Review, Antioch Review, Poetry East, Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, and The Threepenny Review. He also has three chapbooks to his credit: I Know Your Heart, Hieronymus Bosch; Autobiography of My; and Terra Incognita. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, he has received several grants from the Maryland State Arts Council.