Best New Poets 2009

We would like to congratulate all the poets selected for the 2009 Best New Poets anthology, especially Pilar Gomez-Ibanez, author of “Losing Bedrock Farm."

The poem "Losing Bedrock Farm" was IR's 2008 Poetry Contest Winner and you can find the poem in our Winter 2008 issue. Congratulations, Pilar!

Announcements

Hey Blue Light Readers! We've updated our website with a few things of interest:
-- the 2009 1/2 K winner, runners-up, and finalists (also posted below)
-- the 2009 Fiction Prize guidelines! Deadline for the contest is October 15th, so get writing!

We've just returned to our office after a (much needed) break so if you've emailed/mailed us in the past couple of weeks, we'll be getting back to you soon. We've had a wonderful summer with y'all and are looking forward to a rockin fall!

-Nina

2009 Half-K Prize Winner

We are pleased today to announce the results of the 2009 1/2 K Prize. Our final judge was Lydia Davis. A few of her books include a novel, The End of the Story, and four full-length story collections—Varieties of Disturbance, Samuel Johnson Is Indignant, Almost No Memory, and Break It Down. Her work has also been anthologized in The Best American Poetry and The Best American Stories.


And the winner is...

2009 Indiana Review 1/2K Prize Winner

“I Was Lucky That the Furniture Was Ugly”

Rebecca Bridge

Runners-Up

“Bering”
Joe Caliguire

“Holding up traffic as if to say”
Elizabeth Wilcox

“The Fifth Date”
Marie Potoczny

This is Our Final Answer!

Yay! It has been a fun contest and great to hear from all the blog-readers. The final question in the July Trivia Contest was answered quickly and correctly by Elizabeth.

The face on the "Support Your Local Poet" button was none other than Mr. Walt Whitman, also pictured here with his nice and fluffy beard. In honor of the poet, and summertime itself, please enjoy this poem by Walt Whitman himself.

Continuities

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form--no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.