The Editors of Puerto Del Sol would like to thank everyone who submitted their work to the 2018 Poetry and Prose Contest. Our winners were chosen by Farid Matuk and Danielle Dutton respectively.
2018 Poetry Contest Winner: “Langauge in Question”
by Benjamin Garcia
Chosen by Farid Matuk:
"It is not easy to write a poem that thinks and feels at once. It is much more difficult for a poem to activate these double registers while writing about language. Yet this poem escapes the trap of self-referentiality by trusting humor and image, history and moment, talisman and tongue. If a living language is always exceeding its standard, outpacing any handbook of grammar or dictionary, this poem helps it run faster still."
2018 Prose Contest Winner: “How I Came to Live Here Now”
by Sean Alan Cleary
Chosen by Danielle Dutton:
"I was immediately intrigued by the voice of Liam Murphy, who starts off by telling us he doesn’t feel like a Liam Murphy (it's an “aw-shucks” name, he tells us), and I was kept in place, turning the pages, not only by Liam’s story of abandonments, but also by the immediacy of the spaces he conjures up—the apartment with its cold walls, the balcony, the various buildings designed by his godfather Josep. It’s an ambitious and serious story, one that moves in many directions at once, and one I was pleased to inhabit."
Finalists for Poetry:
“Untitled Poem from ‘State of the Wards’” by Levi Andalon
“Elastic Moment” by S. Brook Corfman
“Love Matrix” by Genevieve DeGuzman
“When I Say Water I Mean” by Peter Mason
“Mango Skins” & “Maria” by Abagail Peterson
“The Genesis” by Valone Ruiz
Finalists for Prose:
“The Real World” by Allison Brimley
“Acolytes” by Joseph Harris
“Other Susan” by Will Kelly
“The Internet" by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi
“Funeral for Introverts” by Aurelie Sheehan
About our Judges:
Danielle Dutton is the author of Margaret the First, SPRAWL, and Attempts at a Life. Her writing has also appeared in Harper’s, BOMB, Fence, Noon, The Paris Review, etc. In 2009 she cofounded the acclaimed independent press Dorothy, a publishing project. Born and raised in California, Dutton now lives in Missouri with her husband and son, where she teaches literature and writing at Washington University in St. Louis.
Farid Matuk is the author of the poetry collections This Isa Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine) and The Real Horse (University of Arizona Press), and of several chapbooks including My Daughter La Chola (Ahsahta) and from Don't Call It Reginald Denny (Society Editions). His work has been anthologized in The Best American Experimental Poetry, 2014 and in Angels of the Americlypse: An Anthology of New Latino@ Writing, among others.