Welcome to Issue 28! We are thrilled to announce the winner of the 7th Annual Coniston Prize: Laura Villareal.
With language that is alive and piercing with rich sound work and haunting images, these poems are both confident and aching. From the very first lines, I was drawn to the clear voice in these poems, how each line felt like it was drawing us closer into the strange inner world of the speaker. The friction between the desire in the narrative and the evocative images ("Not the conch shell/ split in a pomegranate/ busy with gnats") offered a tonal surprise that reverberated long after reading.
— Ada Limón