Rattle is proud to announce the winner of the 2018 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award:

Katie Bickham (web)
Shreveport, Louisiana
for
“The Blades”

 
The 2018 Readers’ Choice Award was selected from among the Rattle Poetry Prize finalists by subscriber vote. Only those with active subscriptions including issue #62 were eligible. “The Blades” earned 24% of the votes and the $2,000 award. Here is what some of those readers had to say about their choice:

All ten of these poems were masterful and heartbreaking or hilarious, each in its own way. I’m choosing “The Blades” as my favorite because in seven vivid paragraphs, Bickham creates a new myth as powerful and memorable as the Greek myths, beautifully written and sharp as a blade. The last paragraph was shocking and unforgettable.
—Mimi Plevin-Foust

Late fall of 2018, I read The Power by Naomi Alderman. What. A. Novel. This dystopian future imagines a response to #MeToo in which women discover that—shockingly—they have had an ability which makes them strong, dangerous, unique, and unpredictable, and as society adjusts to this “new generation” of women, power dynamics shift swiftly and startlingly. Similarly, this poem envisions a new myth for women of the body and its trauma as its new strength. I connected with the narrative form that made it believable, a cause-and-effect perspective on how it might really happen when we suddenly change and have to suddenly accept ourselves. “Empowering” is sometimes an overused term, but this poem was genuinely empowering.
—Maggie Hess

I know how important it was for me to win the Readers Choice Award in 2017, so I made sure to make an extra effort in my voting this year. On the first day, I read the poems one to ten in order. On the second day, I read the poems from ten to one. On the third day, I read the poems in random order. Then on the fourth day, I skimmed through all of them. On each day, the poem that stuck with me was Katie Bickham’s “The Blades.” I have not been able to get it out of my head. That is the poem I vote for.
—Jimmy Pappas

I like the way Katie Bickham’s “The Blades” uses a mythic narrative arc to elevate the language to a fevered pitch which does not let up through all seven stanzas. The poem is filled with images, startling turns of phrase (“one wing per wrong,” “hair sliced off like a whisper,” “statures curved downward like sorrow,” “women folded // around their secrets like envelopes”), and allusions to both literature (“red letters”) and current events. The poem can rightly be called a tour de force for the technical skill it displays and the way, as Alicia Ostriker would say, it “steals the language” from its male oppressors.
—Robert Allen

To read “The Blades” and all of the other finalist poems, pick up a copy of Rattle #62, or wait until the April, when those poems start appearing online at Rattle.com.

Katie Bickham was the winner, but this year’s voting was as evenly divided as ever—each of the remaining poems received 6–13% of the vote, and all of the finalists had their own enthusiastic supporters. As always, it was an interesting and informative experience reading the commentary. To provide a taste of that, here is a small sample of what our subscribers said about the other finalists:
 

On Destiny Birdsong’s “Long Division”:

This one kept me coming back to it, and it rewarded me more and more with re-reading, something none of the others did to any equal measure although I liked all the poems and, when I first read them, thought I would have a hard time choosing this year. So I didn’t choose, then. I just kept thinking about the poems, and “Long Division” was the one that stayed in my mind, partly because it’s so complex, partly because the voice is so compelling, partly because the images are so arresting. I was afraid that when I read it again, it wouldn’t seem as strong. But it did and did and does.
—Lynne Knight

It’s hard to write good poems about rape, about how it intersects with other parts of one’s sexual identity. It’s hard to keep it real without veering over into titillation or the pornography of violence. This poem manages to do all that and more—it’s use of language, repetition, the swing between high and low culture all mark it as something truly special. It’s not preachy. It doesn’t tell us what to do or how we should think. It is righteous and fierce while being tender, like Cardi B.
—Kristin Mathis

 

On Debra Bishop’s “Lonely, Lovely”:

This poem makes me want to finish my poetry. It is the deepest deep down thing inside me.
—Charles Kesler

Ms. Bishop has crafted a picture that is so clear it’s as thought she’s plucked a note on a string instrument that rings true and reverberates and grows louder rather than passing back into silence. It is the essence of what we mean when we say, “that speaks to me,” or “it resonates with me.”
—Emily Parker

 

On McKenzie Chinn’s “You Don’t Look Like Someone”:

What makes Chinn’s poem outstanding and important is that she meditates on what really happened behind the words in a brief elevator exchange and arrives at a place to take back personal power. After hearing a statement that questions her belonging in the building, the speaker “arms” herself with the “learned response, survivor staple.” Chinn’s line breaks, expert repetition, and brevity of language emphasize the “centuries” long gaps “between the someone and the who,” and the insinuations of racial dominance in the remark, what the speaker hears through the “thin walls in this place.” By the end of the ride, she has angered beyond a defensive to an antagonistic stance, both corrosive in social interactions, but she continues to reflect on what she “could’ve / said” to put the exchange on equal footing. These inner twists and turns are real and well rendered.
—Sandra Wassilie

As a woman of color, I can’t help but identify with the speaker in the poem and her experience. Plus, I like the mixing of different stanza forms and text styles in the poem.
—Stephani Maari Booker

 

On Steve Henn’s “Soccer Dad”:

For me, the winner is Steve Henn’s unexpected Soccer Dad. It is smooth, funny, sad and speaks the truth without any overt anger—this poet has a polish that takes the politics of our incredibly hypocritical society, our manipulations of our own children, our neighbors, our selves—how we got to the thug in the White House, really, and the intense loneliness we feel in our everyday lives, and he spins it into a truly marvelous read. I shared it with a good friend of mine, who is a “reader” of my poems and I loved hearing him read it in his own voice. We took turns reading it, and each time, this poem/monologue became more important, and even funnier, if possible. A true standout, among the finalists. I look forward to more of his work.
—Michelle Margolis

I laughed and felt part of the poem, part of the experience on the soccer field , part of wanting to hide poetry from silly judging eyes, and the end, a perfect comedic moment. You know the protagonist is going to stand up and do something hysterically proud and ridiculous . For Love. And then it happened. Like a perfect pratfall in a comedy. And like all good comedy, it revealed us, and made comedy into something that is poignant true sad and funny all at the same time.
—David Susswein

 

On Courtney Kampa’s “In Charlottesville After Charlottesville”:

This is the poem I came back to again and again. Courtney Kampa is doing such a deft and difficult thing here: describing a moment of national outrage and tragedy by showing us the marks it left on the lives of people who were actually there, including her. With its incongruous images (“their faces doing that angry Goya thing / with the colors,” “the steel front bumper / severed, like two arms bent, palms up / and sorry”), this poem feels like it simmered a long time while the poet figured out just how to write this thing that affected her so deeply, personally, physically, as a person who lives in this community. Poems of witness, when done well, can carry a sort of self-propelled power via the events they describe. But this one goes beyond; it’s masterful writing by a poet who probably doesn’t feel good about having made this tragedy into art. You can sense that, all through these lines.
—Amy Miller

I love the way this poem spirals grief all over the place, illuminates different versions of “mortal sin,” and most impressively, tells us something about intergenerational violence and the forms of rage we inherit. There is so much kneeling and crouching and claustrophobic deference in this poem— a brilliant meditation on passivity and exhaustion in our current political climate.
—Megan Fernandes

 

On Michael Lavers’ “Will Exult Over You With Loud Singing”:

It’s touching, plainspoken, suspenseful, eventful, subtle, complex—a novel of a poem. With its particulars about three generations of a family it also conjures reflections universal enough so that any reader might relate them to their own experience.
—Paula Bonnell

Reading through all these wonderful poems gave me a glimpse into the challenge faced by anyone who’s having to judge a poetry contest. But the Lavers poem stood out in its ability to shift back and forth in time and in its interweaving of the abstract with the particular. Just as there are layers in and beneath the bark of a tree, there are layers of meaning in this poem. It calls me to revisit it again and again.
—Alexa Selph

 

On Darren Morris’ “To the Insurance Agent Who, in Denying Coverage, Explained that Everything Happens for a Reason”:

The poem takes on a major human concern—religious faith—and grapples with it by considering one horrible act done in the name of faith. It’s brave, and its shocking central image will stay with me a long time.
—Mary Ann Honaker

Fantastically dark poem. Brilliant use of history to tease apart that bland sop, “Everything Happens for a Reason.” Hell yes, it does, but that reason can be unjust, misguided, malicious, and perverted as all get out.
—Devon Balwit

 

On Loueva Smith’s “The Dead Weight of Dogs”:

There is always a kind of strangely split feeling about the love we feel for those who require our constant care. This poem is an attempt to bring together that duplicity toward the humane. Honest and courageous.
—William D. Dyes

I read Loueva Smith’s “The Dead Weight of Dogs” immediately after reading Nickole Brown’s award-winning chapbook, To Those Who Were Our First Gods. I walked around in a gray cloud for the rest of the weekend, fighting a lump in my throat and seriously thinking about becoming a vegetarian. “The Dead Weight of Dogs” went straight to my soul—it is a poem I will not forget, and the last four lines still bring tears to my eyes. A poem with that much impact deserves the Reader’s Choice Award.
—Carol Clark Williams

 

On Mike White’s “The Way”:

It’s short. It’s one slithery sentence. Its use of rhyme suggests it could have been written as an epigrammatic couplet but it toys with that idea and moves along as the dog moves along or, to put it another way, its “in-the-way” structure is lifted to reveal something new and original.To go a bit further: if you take “to” as an echo of “two,” then all four legs—one, to, three, fourth—are referenced in the poem. Great things come in small vessels. I hope it wins.
—Conor Kelly

I love short poetry, especially when it successfully captures everything that needs to be said in a few brief lines. Saying a lot with the bare minimum is incredible skill. My parents are both amputees and the theme of White’s poem, in particular, really hit home for me. It’s simplistic and clever, but most of all the language leaves you with this ringing in your ears, and I don’t know if it’s the rhyme or something deeper, but I hope it never goes away because I love this sound.
—Tenley Sablatzky

 

Rattle is proud to announce the co-winners of the 2016 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award:

Ellen Bass
Santa Cruz, California
for
“Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness”

 

David Kirby
Tallahassee, Florida
for
“This Living Hand”

The 2016 Readers’ Choice Award was selected from among the Rattle Poetry Prize finalists by subscriber vote. Only those with active subscriptions including issue #54 were eligible. Both Bass’s and Kirby’s poems earned exactly 14.4% of the votes, resulting in the first ever tie. The $2,000 award is split equally between them. Here is what some of those readers had to say about their choices:
 

On Ellen Bass’s “Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness”:

From line one, I knew this poem was going to take me somewhere boldly vulnerable. I love that the piece depends on the body and title being together to work. The relationship between the loss of the narrator’s mother and wife’s illness is painfully honest and revelatory, yet the rich, detailed memories moving through the piece are so real and close that a sense of comfort is felt, too. This poem embodies not only the heartbreak and beauty of love and loss, but also the doubling of this heartbreak over time. A truly stunning piece! —Nicole Miyashiro

“Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness” really hit me hard with the deep emotional truth of it, and a close reading reveals all of the art that brings that truth home. There is a compassionate rendering of parts of her mother’s life. Apparently she minded a liquor store. It seems she was a drinker as well. Some of that life seems so mundane as to be pitiable, but there is no scorn for it, only understanding. All the details are acutely observed: for example her lipstick of Fire and Ice dates her time exactly (of course I remember it because I wore it!). Close after the fire and ice she remembers the snow her mother shoveled. There is an early intimation of death when she describes her mother putting on her bra, settling the straps in the grooves in her shoulders, “reins for the journey.” This reminds me of Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death,” where the horses’ heads were pointed toward eternity. The journey is also her life, headed as all lives are, toward death. A lot of the beauty of the body of the poem is in the assonance and internal rhyme and off-rhyme threaded through it: for example, all the crumpled bills … steeped in the smells of those whose body heat, cheap cologne, onions and grease, lumber and bleach and later the cream of wheat her mother cooked for her father. Never did I feel the sense of the poem was subordinated to this artistry. Instead, the poem gains in feeling so that when it ends with the story her mother told her of when her father was in the hospital in danger of dying and her mother sat in a diner crying while a kind waitress never asked her a question but just continued to re-fill her coffee cup, we are really afraid that the poet sees herself in the same sort of situation, afraid of losing her wife.
—Ann Gearen

I am deeply moved by the Ellen Bass poem “Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness,” which avoids reacting to or directly commenting on her wife’s illness and focuses instead upon her mother by presenting her both in moments when they were together or apart in a kaleidoscope of images.
—Marcus Cafagna

From the first unforgettable sentence, “I didn’t know that when my mother died, her grave/ would be dug in my body,” Ellen Bass exerts an unrelenting, emotional and tender assault on the psyche of the “I” (or anyone) dealing with the harsh reality of loss. Details (crumpled bills, pink or yellow napkins, hot black coffee, etc.) become bitter, sweet, knives, and like objects, keep expanding in the universe of memory.
—Brenda Yates

 

On David Kirby’s “This Living Hand”:

The idea that you can take a fragment written in the margin of a Keats’ poem to tell the story of one lost soul in the sea of many while quoting literary figures, Jefferson’s edited words about truth, and mystics all connecting to Keats’ fragment is an amazement. When Kirby holds his “living hand” out to his dead friend, the Celtic “thin place” opens and I grab it. Listening to the horror of political news this morning yet again, I hold onto Kirby’s poem.
—Perie Longo

David Kirby’s poem “This Living Hand” would be my choice. It is a powerful story, told with understatement and straightforward language. The weaving in of Keats’s dying moments gives the poem an even deeper level of poignancy.
—Alexa Selph

It is a single very personal elegy and homage to writers and writing, to the young who should not have died so young, to multiple stories colliding, to ideals we hold to be self-evident, to a world that should be better but isn’t, and to the mysterious power of poetry. Its casual language and spiritual force undo me every time.
—Alicia Ostriker

“This Living Hand” has well-wrought seams, partly because the most obvious one, “It’s so hard to connect/ with others sometimes,” seems at first too jagged and abrupt—but then it becomes clear that this very abruptness enacts the dilemma at the heart of the poem, between the here and not-here, the living and the dead, a dilemma beautifully resolved at the end as the speaker urges his friend to reach out in the timeless world of the dead the way he was unable to reach out in life. Plus the image of the hand as a metonymy for the writer justifies the sudden presence of Keats in the poem even more—as does the fact that both writers died far too young. I think it’s a deeply moving and beautifully achieved elegy, and apart from Julie Price Pinkerton’s wonderful “Veins,” which feels like a memoir skillfully rendered to its essentials, Kirby’s poem is the one that went straight to my heart and stayed there.
—Lynne Knight

To read these poems, pick up a copy of Rattle #54, or wait until the end of March, when those poems start appearing online at Rattle.com.

Ellen Bass and David Kirby were the co-winners, but this year’s voting was more evenly divided than any other—each of the remaining poems received about 8% of the vote, and all of the finalists had their own enthusiastic fans. It’s always interesting and informative experience reading the commentary; to provide a taste of that here is a small sample of what our subscribers said about the other finalists:
 

On Noah Baldino’s “The Nurse Lifts the Clipboard & Replaces All Your Vital Signs”:

The Lewis Carroll-like play of words, the horror of his/her experience, the times that we’re living in blended with the personal and the public … a surreal experience tinged with wildly black humor. This made for a truly literary and artistic piece that I believe will live on, burned into any soul that knows what it is to be at all different in this world. Noah has crafted a poetic—and scalding—masterpiece.
—Michelle Margolis

In a field of strong poems, Noah Baldino’s “The Nurse Lifts the Clipboard …” stands out. It plays with or presents us with a semi-surrealist scene that is presented emotionlessly, objectively, and yet is disturbing, unsettling. The implicit horror of the situation is all the stronger for the almost off-hand way in which it is narrated.
—Tom Hansen

 

On C. Wade Bentley’s “Spin”:

Phenomenal piece. Powerful and very balanced between the heartbreak and the logical but melancholy scientific metaphor. This is a striking and honest way of embodying the pain of fatherhood; the interior conflict of our fascination with and distaste for all the emotions that we are unwittingly held captive by (especially with our daughters). We wish only to be strong, and we are thrilled and enchanted by their trust and faith in seeing that. Then, denied this relationship, estranged by geography or circumstance, we find ourselves betrayed by our own strength, abandoned by our believed sovereignty, even our logic is left daft by melancholy as we discover ourselves to be old heroes with no damsels or dragons left to rely upon.
—David T. Trueb

For me, there are multiple touchstones, some which emerged on the first reading, and others that surfaced only on subsequent readings. The poet captured the longings and vulnerabilities of so many parents—and also the real or perceived recriminations we tend to carry throughout our lifetimes. It is comforting to apply the “Spin” and feel the continuum, regardless of where we happen to be walking in relationship to our children in this moment—and then perhaps, even into the beyond. This poem has a universal quality to it, and I appreciate the realm of possibility it offers in the end.
—Susan Turner

 

On Rhina P. Espaillat’s “The Sharpened Shears He Plied”:

I love how this poem stabs you on its first read, and then just keeps resonating, deepening, drawing you back for further reads to appreciate the exquisite rhyme scheme, the carefully chosen form that fights against the very imagery—an overgrowing garden—that it summons. All while capturing that stab of grief that accompanies a realization of the emptiness of things that once held meaning but cease to when the person who plied them is gone.
—Ilana A Kelsey

This is the shortest poem on offer and, if past choices are to go by, it won’t be chosen. But it is my choice for numerous reasons. There is the sense of a world “almost” in sympathy with the loss but not and that leads to what her note calls “an internal solitude, a human absence that only sentient beings can understand or allay.” And that internal solitude is beautifully modulated in this poem. She mentions the Romantics and the simplicity of the presentation and, especially the last line, remind me of Wordsworth’s Lucy poems. Like Wordsworth, she manages to get great resonance from the simple word “difference,” albeit with another evocation. There is a wonderful sense of rhyme (often slightly off kilter) and a wonderful sense of metre, something that many of the other short-listed poems lack. When a poem is that brief, the choice of words has to be exact. And it is. That penultimate line is a case in point. Someone else, a lesser poet, would have written “Nothing” instead of “No thing.” But that would have changed the metre, the meaning, and the emotion. It is for its wonderful cohesion and its emotional depth that I pick this as my choice of the poem which deserves to win the 2016 Reader’s choice award.
—Conor Kelly

 

On William Fargason’s “Upon Receiving My Inheritance”:

The work radiates a piercing poignancy that’s all the more powerful because the story of a man—of two men, really—is packed in the form of a poem, a shrapnel bomb explaining co-existent pain and gratitude in one person. The author’s use of relentless thank-you’s is a testament to humility, even while acknowledging the probability of worse things to come. Deeply felt irony reveals a special mind. How else do we gain understanding of others’ lives except through stories? This story happens to be formed as a poem, but its power will resonate with me as though I’d read a thousand-page novel while wide awake.
—Noreen Ayres

I like this “poem without a period.” The run-on syntax of the poem allows for multiple meanings. There is a sense of intensity and concentration and progression and inevitability. There are phrases which can be read in different ways at the same time. The poem builds to a climax which is both appropriate and ironic. One might say that the language of the poem is so precise it cuts like a knife.
—Robert Allen

 

On Ingrid Jendrzejewski’s “Superposition of States”:

Here is a perfectly balanced poem in which form meets function. The lines are staggered so that what we have are two independent poems married into a new relationship. If read lineally, as it should be, it forms a kind of ghazal. Like the ghazal form, this one gets its power from surprise. But there is something else at work, a kind of verbal peek-a-boo in which the narrator reveals and hides at times, is both objective and subjective, which I think imitates a more realistic processing of intimate event(s). A miscarriage is at the heart of the poem yet is tempered and contextualized by a nearly academic explanation of quantum phenomenon. Ultimately, the clinical sterility of emotion reveals a deeper human grief and loss. The Schrödinger’s cat experiment conducted within, proves the possibility and perhaps the necessity of the poetic form.
—D. Morris

In “Superposition of States,” two strands in tandem, where one is a discussion of measurement that ends a superposition of states in the field of quantum mechanics and the other a description of waiting for the results of a blood test, a measurement of whether a baby is dead or alive, simultaneously distance the speaker from the finality of the situation and add to its intimate coldness. I particularly appreciate the structure of alternating the two discussions line by line that creates dissonant line breaks yet rhythmic repetitions and intersections that parallel the shifting emotional state of the speaker. When it would seem impossible, she expresses that a superposition of states is possible, a baby living and dying. This ending evokes what is the reality for every living creature as well as the tremendous courage to risk having a baby at all.
—Sandra Wassilie

 

On Craig Santos Perez’s “Thanksgiving in the Anthropocene”:

The sarcastic tone is seemingly roasting the American populace for the longevity of Thanksgiving as a holiday. It brings the symbolism of the classic holiday spread into question, while flippantly commenting on the methods by which all of this food is procured; which in truth, is quite the sensitive matter to some. The idea of consumerism at the expense of humanity is extrapolated line by line as the poet trudges through gruesome facts while softening the truth through humor. But if anything this indifference, or frankly benign attitude, further critiques the attitudes of Americans upon the revelation of such atrocities. Finally, the structure itself was immaculate, especially the use of line breaks in the middle of thoughts. One specific example is found in the 12th couplet, which begins with “most”—which in relation to the previous line makes this one of the most horrid revelations of the poem; the emphasis given truly lends itself to jarring the reader into thinking and not just passively reading.
—Nick Plunkett

Kicked my ass with sad truth. Now I’m going to teach it so it can kick more asses.
—Danny Stewart

 

Emily Ransdell’s “The Visit”:

I love the power of simplicity. It is a subject many of us can identify with, and the poet conveys this scene with wisdom and compassion. Her understated language hits me in the gut.
—Lori Levy

Though many of the poems were good, the emotion this poem evoked made it the only choice for me. The subject matter is difficult and not easy to read about, but Ransdell’s imagery is perfect, her stanzas tight. The ending goes right to that line of sentimentality without crossing it, something that is not easy to achieve. Kudos to Ransdell for this beautiful poem.
—Robin Wright

 

On Patrick Rosal’s “A Memory on the Eve of the Return of the U.S. Military to Subic Bay”:

Rosal’s poem strikes that perfect balance of graceful and unsettling. The threat is real and infantilized. Laughter becomes stark, suspicious, but retains its lightness, adds softness right as it adds madness, freezing the reader, perfectly impending. The timeliness of its uncertainty is simply lagniappe.
—Chad Foret

Amazing how a simple day of tag along on a visit can suddenly be pitched to high tense anxiety. “I’m serious …” A five-year-old with a gun, seemingly amused, aware of his “side of the gun.” I am assumming that all came out peacefully—we are never told the outcome—I was a bit freaked as I read. I loved the tension, the interesting spacing in and of lines, it makes you read it differently—like a remembrance told in a haunted way, that stays with the speaker to this day. “I’m Serious!” And if our current state of affairs isn’t a time to be serious, I don’t know when is …
—Mary Ericksen

New at Rattle

 
November 30, 2022

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2022:

“Soprano from the Junior Choir at the Protest” by Shawn Jones (Summer 2022)
“The Fates” by David Kirby (Fall 2022)
“State of Grace” by Anna M. Evans (Winter 2022)
“Shoes” by L. Renée (Winter 2022)
“I Tell My Son to Cover Himself in Someone Else’s Blood” by Rachel Mallalieu (Poets Respond)
“silent after” by Joshua Eric Williams (Poets Respond)

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
December 14, 2021

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2021:

“A Question of Time” by Kathleen Dale (Spring 2021)
“Can We Touch Your Hair?” by Skye Jackson (Spring 2021)
“Prayer for Mr. Armand Palakiko” by Robert Lynn (Spring 2021)
“Ninety-Nine” by Clemonce Heard (Summer 2021)
“23 Miners Dead at Century Mine” by donnarkevic (Summer 2021)
“Encephalon” by Ann Giard-Chase (Winter 2021)

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
November 30, 2020

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2020:

“The Gray Man” by Jimmy Pappas, from Falling off the Empire State Building, March 2020
“Coronavirus in China” by Anthony Tao, from Poets Respond, online, February 23, 2020
“After a Shooting in a Maternity Clinic in Kabul” by Tishani Doshi, online, May 26, 2020
“Social Experiment in Which I Am the [Bear]” by William Evans, Rattle #67, Spring 2020
“To My Student with the Dime-Sized Bruises …” by Laurie Uttich, Rattle #69, Fall 2020
“Pantoum from the Window of the Room Where I Write” by Alison Townsend, Rattle #70, Winter 2020

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 15, 2020

Congratulations to Alison Townsend, winner of the 2019 Rattle Poetry Prize, for her poem “Pantoum from the Window of the Room Where I Write.” The award is $15,000, and the poem will be published in issue #70 of Rattle in December 2020. Ten Finalists each received $500 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $5,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 
June 1, 2020

Congratulations to Ted Kooser and John Philip Johnson on winning 2020 Pushcart Prizes for “A Town Somewhere” and “Book of Fly,” respectively.

 
March 10, 2020

Rattle is happy to announce the following additional Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2018, selected by their board of contributing editors:

“Slut” by Ukamaka Olisakwe, Rattle #65, Fall 2019
“Stroke” by Matthew Dickman, Rattle #66, Winter 2019
“The Other While Ago” by Tim Skeen, Rattle #66, Winter 2019
“In the Endoscopy Center” by Wendy Barker, Rattle #66, Winter 2019
“Late Sonogram” by Amanda Newell, Poets Respond (May 28, 2019)

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then chooses winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
January 1, 2020

Effective immediately, we are doubling all of our payments for poems! Starting the first of the year, we will be paying $200 for poems in our print issues, and $100 for poems featured online.

 
November 26, 2019

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2019:

“The Book of Fly” by John Philip Johnson, Rattle #63, Spring 2019
“Stern” by Al Maginnes, Rattle #63, Spring 2019
“What My Children Remember” by Rasaq Malik Gbolahan, Rattle #65, Fall 2019
“Slut” by Ukamaka Olisakwe, Rattle #65, Fall 2019
“Stroke” by Matthew Dickman, Rattle #66, Winter 2019
“Abundance” by Amy Schmidt, Poets Respond (January 20, 2019)

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 15, 2019

Congratulations to Matthew Dickman, winner of the 2019 Rattle Poetry Prize, for his poem “Stroke.” The award is $10,000, and the poem will be published in issue #66 of Rattle in December 2019. Ten Finalists each received $200 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

March 10, 2019

Rattle is happy to announce the following additional Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2018, selected by their board of contributing editors:

Nancy Miller Gomez – “Growing Apples”
Mather Schneider – “The Zoo,” from A Bag of Hands
Mike White – “The Way” (online in April)
Guinotte Wise – “The Why of Bull Riding”
Dante Di Stefano – “In a James Dickey Poem”
Megan Falley – “Ode to Red Lipstick“

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then chooses winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
March 1, 2019

Congratulations to James Valvis, winner of the 2019 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for his poem “The Distracted.” The annual award of $1,000 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
February 15, 2019

Congratulations to Katie Bickham, winner of the 2018 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, for “The Blades.” The prize is $2,000. Subscribers voted for the winner, from ten editor-chosen finalists. To read some of what our readers said about this and the other finalist poems, click here.

 
November 29, 2018

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2018:

“To the Firefighters Sleeping in the Yard” by Amy Miller, Poets Respond (online), August 2018
“Dog at the Farm” by Timothy DeJong, Rattle #60, Summer 2018
“Meditation on a Dining Room Table” by Marvin Artis, Rattle #61, Fall 2018
“The Distracted” by James Valvis, Rattle #61, Fall 2018
TBA, Rattle #62, Winter 2018
TBA, Rattle #62, Winter 2018

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 27, 2018

Rattle is happy to announce the following Sundress Best of the Net nominations. In other words, these are the “best” six online-only poems we’ve published in the last year, by our estimation:

“Open Carry” by Rebecca Starks
“Violence Fractal” by Molly Fisk
“Getting Sober” by James Croal Jackson
“Ode to Mennel Ibtissam …” by George Abraham
“The Choicest Parts” by Jhoanna Belfer
“The World Entire” by Amy Miller

For more information on the Best of the Net series, visit the Sundress Publications website.

 
September 15, 2018

Congratulations to Dave Harris, winner of the 2018 Rattle Poetry Prize, for his poem “Turbulence.” The award is $10,000, and the poem will be published in issue #62 of Rattle in December 2018. Ten Finalists each received $200 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 
April 15, 2018

Congratulations to Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, Nickole Brown, and Elizabeth S. Wolf, winners of the 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize. The chapbook will be distributed to all 8,000+ subscribers along with three separate future issues of Rattle. Subscribe today to receive each of these three books over the next year!

 
March 1, 2018

Congratulations to Rebecca Starks, winner of the 2018 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for her poem “Open Carry.” The annual award of $1,000 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
February 15, 2018

Congratulations to Jimmy Pappas, winner of the 2017 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, for “Bobby’s Story.” The prize is $2,000. Subscribers voted for the winner, from ten editor-chosen finalists. To read some of what our readers said about this and the other finalist poems, click here.

 
November 28, 2017

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2017:

“Spring” by Sara Springer – Summer 2017
“Containment” by Francesca Bell – Summer 2017
“In Which I Name My Abuser Publicly” by Meghann Plunkett – Poets Respond
“Phases of Erasure” by Bill Glose – Winter 2017
“Heard” by Rayon Lennon – Winter 2017
“In America” by Diana Goetsch – In America

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 29, 2017

Rattle is happy to announce the following Sundress Best of the Net nominations. In other words, these are the “best” six online-only poems we’ve published in the last year, by our estimation:

“In Which I Name My Abuser Publicly” by Meghann Plunkett
“Violaceae” by Jose A. Alcantara
“What We Did in the Resistance (Part 1)” by Alison Luterman
“Pause” by Mai-Lan Pham
“Call Me by My Name” by Jamaica Baldwin
“How I Am Like Donald Trump” by Rachel Custer

For more information on the Best of the Net series, visit the Sundress Publications website.

 
September 15, 2017

Congratulations to Rayon Lennon, winner of the 2017 Rattle Poetry Prize, for his poem “Heard.” The poem earned $10,000 and will be published in issue #58 of Rattle in December 2017. Ten Finalists each received $200 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 
April 15, 2017

Congratulations to Taylor Mali, winner of the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize for The Whetting Stone. The chapbook will be distributed to all 7,500+ subscribers along with the Fall 2017 issue of Rattle. Two runners-up will also receive publication and full distribution: In America by Diana Goetsch will appear with the Winter 2017 issue, and A Bag of Hands by Mather Schneider will appear with the Spring 2018 issue.

 
March 13, 2017

Rattle is happy to announce the following additional Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2016, selected by their board of editors:

Abby E. Murray – “Prayer on National Childfree Day”
Brendan Constantine – “Red Sugar Blue Smoke”
Zeina Hashem Beck – “You Fixed It”
Jennifer Jean – “#CarryThatWeight”
Anna M. Evans – “The Adjunct’s Villanelle”
Julie Price Pinkerton – “After I Got the Email …”
David Kirby – “This Living Hand”
Emily Ransdell – “The Visit”
Chrys Tobey – “For the Archaeologist …”

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then chooses winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
March 1, 2017

Congratulations to Kelly Grace Thomas, winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for her poem “And the Women Said.” The annual award of $1,000 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
February 15, 2017

Congratulations to Ellen Bass and David Kirby, co-winners of the 2016 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, for “This Living Hand” and “Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness,” respectively. Their poets split the $2,000 prize. Subscribers voted for the winner, from ten editor-chosen finalists. To read some of what our readers said about this and the other finalist poems, click here.

 
November 29, 2016

Rattle is pleased to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2016:

“How My Mother Spends Her Nights” by Rasaq Malik Gbolahan – Spring 2016
“And the Women Said” by Kelly Grace Thomas – Spring 2016
“Deadbeat” by Nancy Gomez – Summer 2016
“A Handbook for the Blind” by Darren Morris – Fall 2016
“Veins” by Julie Price Pinkerton – Winter 2016
“Superposition of States” by Ingrid Jendrzejewski – Winter 2016

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 25, 2016

Rattle is happy to announce the following Sundress Best of the Net nominations. In other words, these are the “best” six online-only poems we’ve published in the last year, by our estimation:

“Divining” by Rosemerry Trommer
“[Here, said the ocean]” by Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.
“Ghazal: Back Home” by Zeina Hashem Beck
“While Reading the News” by Leila Chatti
“To the Woman Who Ruled …” by Bayleigh Fraser
“I Am Over Here Sobbing” by Amy Miller

For more information on the Best of the Net series, visit the Sundress Publications website.

 
September 15, 2016

Congratulations to Julie Price Pinkerton, winner of the 2016 Rattle Poetry Prize, for her poem “Veins.” The poem earned her $10,000 and will be published in issue #54 of Rattle in December 2016. Ten Finalists each received $200 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 

May 16, 2016

Congratulations to David Kirby, who won a Pushcart Prize for his poem “More Than This,” from issue #50. The poem will be reprinted in the Pushcart Prize anthology at the end of 2016.

 
April 15, 2016

Congratulations to Zeina Hashem Beck, winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize for 3arabi Song. The chapbook will be distributed to all 7,500+ subscribers along with an issue at the end of the year; one of the runners-up will also be distributed to each subscriber at random, so that everyone receives two chapbooks. The runners-up were: “Kill the Dogs” by Heather Bell, “Ligatures” by Denise Miller, and “Turn Left Before Morning” by April Salzano. All four chapbooks will be available for individual sale.

 
March 8, 2016

Congratulations to Jack Vian, winner of the 2016 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for his poem “Musashi-san.” The annual award of now $1,000 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
March 4, 2016

Congratulations to Jennifer Givhan for winning the 2015 Lascaux Prize in Poetry for her poem, “The Polar Bear,” which first appeared in Rattle’s Poets Respond series in May 2015. She earned $1,000 from the Lascaux Review. Read the poem again and find more about the Lascaux Prize at their site, here.

 
February 29, 2016

Rattle is happy to announce the following additional Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2015, selected by their board of editors:

Don Kimball – “Burial for a Stray”
Ethan Joella – “A Prayer for Ducks”
Lynn Levin – “Buying Produce …”
Peter Munro – “If This Is Middle Age …”
Matthew J. Spireng – “Dog Sitting in Snow”
Dennis Trudell – “Holiday Tale”
Rachael Briggs – “A Total Non-Apology”
David Kirby – “More Than This“

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then chooses winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
February 15, 2016

Congratulations to Valentina Gnup, winner of the 2014 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, for “Morning at the Welfare Office.” Her poem earned her $2,000. Subscribers voted for the winner, from ten editor-chosen finalists. To read some of what our readers said about this and the other finalist poems, click here.

 
November 25, 2015

Rattle is happy to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2015:

Roberta Beary, “Genetics” – Spring 2015
Franny Choi, “Home (Initial Findings)” – Fall 2015
Dennis Trudell, “Holiday Tale” – Fall 2015
Tiana Clark, “Equilibrium” – Winter 2015
Patricia Smith, “Elegy” – Winter 2015
Zeina Hashem Beck, “Ghazal: Back Home” – Poets Respond

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 15, 2015

Congratulations to Tiana Clark, winner of the 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize, for her poem “Equilibrium.” The poem earned her $10,000 and will be published in issue #50 of Rattle in December 2015. Ten Finalists each received $200 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 
March 9, 2015

Rattle is happy to announce the following additional Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2014, selected by their board of editors:

Jill Jupen – “The Space Between”
David Cavanagh – “The Ice Man”
Troy Jollimore – “Cutting Room”
Marianne Kunkel – “I Guess”
Bruce Taylor – “Good News Bad News”
William Trowbridge – “Battleground”
Chris Anderson – “The Blessing”
Peter Murphy – “Grand Fugue”
Rita Mae Reese – “The Problem of Empathy”
Aisha Sharif – “Why I Can Dance Down a Soul-Train Line …”
Craig van Rooyen – “Waiting in Vain”

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
March 1, 2015

Congratulations to Hannah Gamble, winner of the 2015 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for her poem “Biscuit.” The annual award of $500 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
February 15, 2015

Congratulations to Courtney Kampa, winner of the 2014 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, for “Poems About Grace.” Her poem earned her $1,000. Subscribers voted for the winner, from ten editor-chosen finalists. To read some of what our readers said about this and the other finalist poems, click here.

 
February 1, 2015

Thanks to Sherman Alexie for selecting Danielle DeTiberus’s “In a Black Tank Top” from Rattle #43 for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2015, forthcoming from Scribner in September 2015.

 
November 25, 2014

Rattle is happy to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2014:

“Crown for a Young Marriage” by Mary Block (#43)
“Tamara” by Troy Jollimore (#43)
“Your Fat Daughter Remembers …” by Lucas Crawford (#44)
“Blessing” by Chris Anderson (#45)
“Waiting in Vain” by Craig van Rooyen (#46)
“A Spokesperson Said …” by Sonia Greenfield (Poets Respond)

Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
September 15, 2014

Congratulations to Craig van Rooyen, winner of the 2014 Rattle Poetry Prize, for his poem “Waiting in Vain.” His poem earned him $5,000 and will be published in issue #46 of Rattle in December 2014. Ten Finalists each received $100 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $1,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 
June 1, 2014

Rattle is excited to announce a new series, Poets Respond, in which poets are encouraged to write and submit new poems based on news items from the last week. A response poem will appear each Sunday, and each author will receive $25. To read poems from past week, and for information on submitting your own work, visit the Poets Respond page.

 
March 7, 2014

Congratulations to Francesca Bell, winner of the  2014 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for her poem “Where We Are Most Tender.” The annual award of $500 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
January 13, 2014

Rattle is excited to announce that, beginning in 2014, we will be able to pay all of our poets. Contributors to the magazine will receive $50 per poem/essay, in addition to the complimentary subscription. For information on how to submit, read our guidelines.

 
December 1, 2013

Rattle has just released the first annual Rattle Young Poets Anthology, featuring 60 poets under the age of 16. For more information, visit the page.

 
November 11, 2013

Rattle is happy to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2013:

Roberto Ascalon, “The Fire This Time,” #42
Bill Christophersen, “Hole,” #40
Joel F. Johnson, “Oakbrook Estates,” #39
Lynne Knight, “While Plum Blossoms Sweep Down Like Snow,” #42
Jon Sands, “Decoded,” #40
Julia Clare Tillinghast, “Bells,” #41

We have three editors, so we each just chose our favorite two poems from 2013. Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 

October 23, 2013

We noticed an error in our Privacy Policy and have updated it to fix the mistake. It previously said that this website does not use cookies, but WordPress actually does use a few cookies for your convenience when you comment. To view the full policy, click here.

 
September 15, 2013

Congratulations to Roberto Ascalon, winner of the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize, for his poem “The Fire This Time.” His poem earned him $5,000 and will be published in issue #42 of Rattle in December 2013. Ten Finalists each received $100 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $1,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 
June 23, 2013

Rattle is happy to announce a new annual anthology of poetry written by young people. The Rattle Young Poets Anthology will be a stand-alone volume of poetry written by poets ages 15 and younger, releasing in December of each year. For more information, see the Young Poets page.

 
February 13, 2013

Congratulations to Eugenia Leigh, winner of the  2013 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor for her poem “Destination: Beautiful.” The annual award of $500 is given to the poem that exhibits the best use of metaphor among all of the submissions Rattle received over the previous year. For more information, see the Postman Award page.

 
December 15, 2012

Issue #38, and hopefully all subsequent issues, will now be available in the ebook format. You can purchase individual copies for the Nook and other ePub readers at BarnesandNoble.com and for the Kindle at Amazon.com. We’re also providing free ebook version for all print subscribers. To download your files, foll

 
November 27, 2012

Rattle is happy to announce the following Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2012:

Erik Campbell, “Great Caesar’s Ghost,” #37
Joanne Koong, “Clockwork Conjectures,” #38
Ken Meisel, “Woman Releasing a Tonguelss…” #37
Rebecca Schumejda, “How to Classify a Reptile,” #37
Heidi Shuler, “Trials of a Teenage Transvestite’s…” #38
David Wagoner, “The Plumber’s Nightmare,” #37

We have three editors, so we each just chose our favorite two poems from 2012. Nominees are sent to Pushcart Press, who then choose winners to reprint in their annual anthology. For more information on the Pushcart Prize, visit them here.

 
November 1, 2012

Rattle is excited to officially announced that we’ll begin quarterly publication in 2013. New, slimmer issues will appear every March, June, September, and December. Spring and Fall issues will be entirely dedicated to a theme, Summer and Winter will be open to anything. Our subscription prices will only be going up very slightly, to cover some of the extra postage, but subscribe or renew by the end of 2012 to receive quarterly issues at the biannual rates! To order, go here.

 
September 15, 2012

Congratulations to Heidi Shuler, winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize, for her poem “The Trials of a Teenage Transvestite’s Single Mother.”  Her poem earned her $5,000 and will be published in issue #38 of Rattle in December 2012. Ten Finalists each received $100 and publication, as well as a chance to win the $1,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber vote. For more information on the winners, click here.

 

June 1, 2012

Rattle is happy to introduce a new reading series at the Flintridge Bookstore & Coffeeshop in La-Canada, CA.  Join us at 5 p.m. on the first Sunday of every month for a selection of readers from the current issue. For more information, and a schedule of readers, check the Reading Series page.