The winner of the 2024 Alta California Chapbook contest is Michelle Moncayo for her chapbook, Here on this 76L, forthcoming from Gunpowder Press. From our distinguished final judge Richard Blanco:
“Michelle Moncayo’s poems burn strong with authentic feeling and personal icons swirling with wings, food as a form of prayer, and the poignant music of heritage. There is a radiating center to this collection, one that speaks to the power of where we come from and how we carry our origin stories with us in painful and beautiful ways. This is a voice that spoke to me with intimacy and truth.”
Honorable Mention and Finalists: The judges also selected Memorias de un país en peligro de extinción by Leonora Simonovis for Honorable Mention.
Nine manuscripts were distinguished as Finalists:
- Eneida P. Alcalde for Cariño
- Erika Ayón for Create Birds
- Michaela Chairez for Zest!
- Brenda Delfino for Oraciones
- Matthew Gonzales for Human Non-Portraiture
- José Enrique Medina for Haunt Me
- Elizabeth Pérez for Refugee Lotteries
- Melinda Palacio for Camino
- Luis Torres for Brief Encounter
Winner Michelle Moncayo is a Dominican/Ecuadorian poet in New Jersey. Her work explores diaspora, queer identity, and mental/physical illness. She graduated with her MFA from Randolph College in 2024. She received a 2020 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She has received fellowships from SPACE at Ryder Farm, Vermont Studio Center, Sundress Academy for the Arts, CantoMundo, and VONA. Her poetry has appeared in Até Mais: An Anthology of Latinx Futurisms, Broadsided Press, No Tender Fences: An Anthology of Immigrant & First-Generation American Poetry, Palette Poetry, & Ninth Letter. You can find her at michellemoncayoart.net and @mmon1392.
Thanks to poet Richard Blanco for his generous service as judge for the prize.
About the judge: Richard Blanco was selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history—the youngest, first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of many collections of poetry, including his most recent, Homeland of My Body: New & Selected Poems (Penguin Random House, 2023). He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. He has received numerous awards, including the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Paterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. He serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. In April 2022, Blanco was appointed the first-ever Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.
About the series editor: Emma Trelles is the 9th poet laureate of Santa Barbara and the daughter of Cuban immigrants. She is the author of Tropicalia (University of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. Emma is an Established Artist Fellow at the California Arts Council and a Poet Laureate Fellow at the Academy of American Poets. For more, visit emmatrelles.com
About the series translator: Alexandra Lytton Regalado is a Salvadoran-American author, editor, and translator. She is the author of Relinquenda, winner of the National Poetry Series (Beacon Press, 2022) and Matria (Black Lawrence Press, 2017). Alexandra is the translator of Efímero by heidi restrepo rhodesand Family or Oblivion by Elena Salamanca. Her poetry translations have been published or will appear in New England Review,Poetry International, FENCE, and Tupelo Quarterly. www.alexandralyttonregalado.com
Judge Alexandra Lytton Regalado and series editor Emma Trelles have chosen the winners of the 3rd 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.
Alexandra Lytton Regalado
JudgeAlexandra 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
The winners of the second 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
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.
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.
As the first Alta California Chapbooks, series editor Emma Trelles selected Nicholas Reiner‘s Levitations and Crystal AC Salas‘s Grief Logic, both published in 2022.
Of Levitations, by Nicholas Reiner, Emma Trelles writes:
“Equal parts lament, memoir, and lyric, this chapbook is written in a wholly original voice that is as accomplished as it is precise. Each poem reveals another sharply crafted layer of memory and observation—whether about family, chess, death, or how remembering is a way of keeping love intact.”
Of Grief Logic, by Crystal AC Salas, Emma Trelles says:
“These poems read and sometimes physically appear like a sprawling Latinx pillowbook, filled with the intimate and honest particulars of family and what it means to navigate language, landscape, and girl/woman/hood. This chap is all heart, image, and sound
—and then some.”