Pushcart Prize

Hello, I have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for my poem Interview With The Mortuary Attendant. This is obviously very exciting, but it may leave you with questions. So I will attempt to answer them!

Q: What is the Pushcart Prize?

Every year, Pushcart Press hold a competition for the best published works by small presses and select some for an anthology. This is well-regarded as a best-of- compilation of small press work (Pushcart Press note that it is for "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot".)

Q: How did you get nominated?

I sent in a poem for the Pink Plastic House Haunted Dollhouse Halloween Chain, a 90 day poetry countdown for Halloween. Kristin Garth, the editor, accepted it, published it and now has selected it as one of her nominations for the Pushcart Prize.

Q: How do you feel about that?

Excited, flattered, grateful. Because although I think (I know) the poem is good, and spooky, so fits the brief, that did not guarantee publication, let alone being picked as one of the best.

Q: Will you win?

No, I probably won't win.

Q: What? Why not?

There are thousands of small presses and editors get six nominations each. So the odds go against me there. My piece is a formal, precisely constructed piece of poetry and it is also a slightly knowing look at genre fiction (vampires), riffing off the two great vampire novel sequences of my lifetime. The first is out of fashion, the other is a pound a penny, people riffing off Twilight everywhere. It's not that this isn't a combination worthy of recognition, but with hundreds of competitors there will be smarter takes, and poems as elegant and interesting.

I mean Kristin nominated better poems at the same time as me.

Q: So what now?

It's an honour just to be nominated! And also a spur, to write more and better poems.

MORE AND BETTER POEMS

Talking of more and better poems, here's links to the Haunted Dollhouse 90 day poetry chain and the other five that Kristin nominated.

The Every Tree by John Compton
Seadevil Siren by Taylor Brunson
The Brittle Mermaid by Vanessa Maderer
Features by Yuan Changming
Operetta by Rachel Mehl