We are thrilled to announce the winners of our 2024 Poetry Contest as chosen by guest judge Carla Sofia Ferreira!
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About the author:
K. Mobley (they/them) is a bundle of crows in a long green cloak. A poet based out of Missouri, their work focuses on identity and upbringing. They were a winner of Garden Party Collective's Flyover State Poetry Contest, and also have been published in Chestnut Review, Street Lit, and Wingless Dreamer.
Carla's note:
This gorgeous poem unearths and makes its own the historical narrative of Mary Toft, richly blending this legendary woman’s biography with the poet’s own personal narrative. You don’t have to know Toft’s story to delight in this poem, though I was rewarded by the rabbit-hole search it inspired. “mary toft, give me strength” reads like part prayer and part rebuke, confronting the sexism of our healthcare system, both historical and present-day. It does so with elegant and arresting command over form and style. While women’s pain often goes ignored and trivialized by much of the medical establishment, this poem “give[s] a name to my discomfort” against yet “another man : who does not understand : says that the female body has long been a mystery.” The author’s deft use of colons mimics the interconnected nature of the human body itself, the poem’s visible form defying “this doctor with his tools and his authority.” Thus, “mary toft” embodies the strength of women who resist and know their “own name[s].” I deeply admire this poems’ reclamation of power and its defiance against cruelty.
Stay tuned for K. Mobley's winning poem in our upcoming issue, launching at the end of the year!
About the author:
Susan Page Deutsch (she/they) is a writer and editor based in Norfolk, Virginia, where she also teaches youth classes at The Muse Writers Center. She is a former intern and fiction reader at New England Review, and their previous work has appeared in the Santa Barbara Literary Journal and Tangled Locks Journal.
Carla's note:
Greek legend and family mythology stir together in this beautiful poem that invites you into a mother and daughter’s kitchen, tracing tradition back to the “grandmother [who] taught us this / recipe.” This warm and fragrant poem teaches the reader about “the kind of love / that grieves the ground cold and the days short.” I adore the rich sensory details, the sense of place and season, and the skillful employment of recipe as memory exercise, with the poem’s contrapuntal riff imitating how margin notes often punctuate family recipes. This poem embodies a “here” that recollects histories that could otherwise be lost. Tender and embodied, “family recipe” will stay with me, reminding me of what we carry of those who are no longer with us, and of how our lives are seasoned and nurtured by such lasting love.
Stay tuned for Susan Page Deutsch's winning poem in our upcoming issue, launching at the end of the year!
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About Carla:
Carla Sofia Ferreira is a Portuguese-American poet and teacher from Newark, New Jersey. Her first full-length collection, A Geography That Does Not Hurt Us, was published by River River Books in 2024. Author of the micro-chap Ironbound Fados (Ghost City Press 2019), her writing can most recently be found in Grist, EcoTheo, Okay Donkey, The Rumpus, and Glamour among others. Currently an MFA student in poetry at Rutgers University-Newark, she has received fellowships from the Sundress Academy for the Arts and DreamYard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium and her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Carla's work as an English teacher continues to inform and nourish her writing as a practice of community and care.
