Split This Rock Announces 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominations
Split This Rock is thrilled to announce six nominations for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. Please join us in celebrating these incredible and necessary poems by reading, listening, and sharing. To access the full poems, visit the 2022 Pushcart Prize special collection within The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database or click the links on the poem titles below.
"Can we climb // out of this greedy mouth, / disappear, and then return in force? // My stars are tucked in my pocket, / ready for battle."
"SELF-PORTRAIT OF THE BLK GIRL BECOMING THE BEAST EVERYONE THOUGHT SHE WAS" by I.S. Jones
"god of the faithful night, teach me to lose my mouth in reverie // to laugh in my predator’s blood to let it fill my belly // how it trickles through the floorboard of my teeth"
"Remembrance" by Kateema Lee
Content Notice: grief, abduction & murder of Black girls
"They are grains in the air, left floating / in afternoon, evening, and night breezes, / settling like ghost on retinas."
"Stone" by Aideed Medina
Content Notice: refers to imperialism & military occupation
"I make my own heaven. I drag it out of the streets, and inhospitable terrains. I mixed "tabique", brick, mortar with my hands, kneading, // I need, to make my own heaven. // It is clandestine, in broad daylight."
"Blindness Locked Me Out" by Emily K. Michael
Content Notice: refers to ableism
"The Friday dance nights for five dollars / where antsy teens shuffled in a circle & the boys / used too much drugstore cologne & the girls / flaunted noisy earrings & strappy shoes. / i took a place in the circle, left my white / cane on the sidelines, tucked in my purse."
"My Body Holds Stones" by Laura Tohe
Content Notice: refers to grief, settler colonialism, anti-Indigenous violence & genocide
"My body / holds stones / where I stood / in the corner / and looked / into the fractures / between two worlds."
Image Description: Split This Rock's red logo with white text that reads "2022 Pushcart Prize Nominations" is centered over a blue background with a starburst illustration. Around the words are images of the 6 poets nominated for a Pushcart Prize in circular frames.
Photo Credits: I. S. Jones by Nicholas Nichols, Tamiko Beyer by Susi Franco, Kateema Lee by Khalia Jackson, Emily K. Michael by Chelsea Whiteman, Laura Tohe by J Morgan Edwards.