The Editors of Locked Horn Press are excited to announce the winner and finalists for the 2015 LHP Publication Prize:
Winner:
Elizabeth Acevedo, "La Ciguapa"
Finalists:
Geoff Bouvier, "The Paradox of the Heap of Troubles"
Nadia Chaney, "Wintering Place"
Locked Horn Press will be publishing these poems, along with a selection of other poems considered for the LHP Publication Prize, in our forthcoming America(s) Anthology.
excerpt from the winning poem, "La Ciguapa"
They say she came beneath the Spanish saddle of the first mare.
Rubbed together from leather and dark mane. Hungry.
That she has a hoof between her thighs and loves men
like the pestle loves the mortar;
she hums them into the cotton thick fog
of the mountains. They follow her none word nonsense
and try to climb her, tall and dark and rough as sugarcane
and don’t know until they’re whittled down how they’ve scraped
themselves dead. They say the men were the first to undo her name;
thinking burying it would rot her magic, that long cry
they were compelled to answer; they hung all five-toed dogs
because they alone knew her scent—
LHP on "La Ciguapa": Dedicated to the Antilles, and deeply rooted in powerful magic and legend, Acevedo's "La Ciguapa" adeptly uses mythology to place us in an acutely colonized present. The poem is both chronicle and incantation—it weaves story and fact, history and herstory, oppression and expression to create a potent piece of commentary on one corner of our complex and multifaceted America(s).
About the winner
Elizabeth Acevedo was born and raised in New York City, and her poetry is infused with her Dominican parents’ bolero and her beloved city’s tough grit.
She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. With over twelve years of performance experience, Acevedo has graced stages nationally and internationally including renowned venues such as The Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, and South Africa’s State Theatre. Acevedo is a National Slam Champion. She lives in Washington D.C., and has been published, or has poems forthcoming, in The Acentos Review, The Ostrich Review, Split this Rock, Callaloo, Poet Lore, and The Notre Dame Review. Acevedo is a Cave Canem Fellow, Cantomundo Fellow, and participant in the Callaloo Writer's Workshop. Her book of poems, Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths is forthcoming (YesYes Books).