Michael Bowden
Another April morning,
and here we are again,
standing in blossom.
Snow off the mountains.
Indictments dismissed.
The geometry of sunlight
on backyard fences.
Sparrows in the bird bath
at their slapstick ablutions.
All of it familiar.
All of it comfort.
Let the record show
Sally sprinting and barking
along the bright alley.
Quail like courtiers
in their feathered hats.
Payback forgotten.
Trespasses forgiven.
And, yes, the whole day left.
from the journal SOUTHERN POETRY REVIEW
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“Attendance” draws upon my school days—as both student and teacher—for its title and organizing principle. I recall a moment in particular when our teacher, taking roll, paused at one student’s intrepid response upon hearing his name called. Present, he replied—in what seemed more an assertion about being, than location. Not here; but present. “Attendance” is a poem concerned with being present to the world.
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2021 Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize

Sumita Chakraborty won this annual award for her debut collection, Arrow. Judge Nick Laird wrote, "Here are brief lyrics, prose essays, parables, lengthy lineated epics–and all of them given life with language stretched and pummelled into shape."

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"Osier is a poet I have never met and about whom I know very little, but her poems are mysterious, rich in their clarity, uncanniness, and clairvoyance. Her work feels at once familiar and strange, and that quality has haunted me."
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