Ballard Spahr Prize 2023 Winner by Caroline Harper New Paperback Book 9781571315304

Selected by Maggie Smith for the 2023 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry this debut collection of poems explores the aftermath of historys most powerful forces devotion disaster and usRooted in the Gulf Coast A History of HalfBirds measures the line between love and ruin Part poet part anthropologist Caroline Harper New digs into dark placesa cave a womb a hurricaneto trace how violence born of devotion manifests not only in our human relationships but also in our connections to the natural and animal worlds Everywhere in these pages tenderness is coupled with brutality a deer eats a baby bird a lover restrains another quotI promised a love poemquot New proclaims then teaches us about the anglerfish how it quotattracts its mate and prey with the same lurequotIn News exceptional voice familiar concepts take on a shade of the fantastic A woman tastes the earth for acidity buries lemons and pennies for balance Limestone quotsucks the sea into little demitassequot and hyacinths quotsip the sun blackquot A lone elephant wanders into the wilderness of rural Georgia never to be seen again But perhaps most arresting about News work are the truths told by its strangeness like the...