25th Anniversary Chapbook Contest Poetry Reading & Publications Launch

This poetry reading and publications launch celebrating our 2021 Chapbook Competition winner, Bianca Rae Messinger, and runners-up, Dujie Tahat & Benjamin Aleshire, was moderated by the competition’s 2021 Guest Judge, Simone White. We also heard from the CBA artists who designed, printed, and assembled this year’s publications: 2020-2021 Book Artists-in-Residence, Alva Mooses & Oswaldo Garcia; Instructor, Yuchen Chang; and Administrative Assistant, Allison Carter-Beaulé.

Of Messinger’s winning manuscript ‘Parallel Bars,’ White said, “This group of poems changes on each page, apparently enacting what it says, ‘feeling what it’s like to feel things over a continuum instead of a sharp peak and valley.’ It’s not that this sentiment is so much a breakthrough (this statement is not unlike William James’ about ‘feelings of and,’ to take one example of how the century has dealt with writing feelings)—it’s the invention of an explosive, wry diagrammatic specific talking that makes the group of poems so great and makes them stand independent, wanting their own small book.”

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Support

This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Annual Chapbook Competition

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