Rattle is proud to announce the winner of the 2023 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award:

Dusty Bryndal
Brooklyn, New York
for
“No Evidence”

 
The 2023 Readers’ Choice Award was selected from among the Rattle Poetry Prize finalists by subscriber vote. Only those with active subscriptions including issue #82 were eligible. In another close race between the top four poems, “No Evidence” earned 18.8% of the votes and the $5,000 award.

Here is what some of those readers had to say about the winner:

The repetition used throughout by the speaker saying she never wrote about these heavy emotions, thoughts, or life altering experiences before really places so much more meaning into this poem. The speaker has been bottling this up for so long and we are allowed into her mind, if only for a while, yet I am left feeling like I know her personally and now carry the weight of her loss. This poem didn’t feel like the speaker getting diagnosed with cancer was the center of the poem. The takeaway for me was that life goes on even after losing someone you can’t imagine living without and how awful it can be to be the one that gets to live.
—Cassandra Manzolillo

The struggle is so evident in this poem, the way she braids the two huge struggles in her life together and apart, her use of lineation, stanza breaks, and white space to shape her experiences in this poem. The final couplet summing it all up!
—Dell Lemmon

Her poem was beautiful. It was a brilliant look into the dual experiences of grief and having cancer. Everyone’s worst nightmares—losing a child and having cancer—happened to her all at once, and we can really feel the pain.
—Tatiana Raudales

The journey of the poem is poignant. You understand the double loss this woman underwent and the strength she showed in the face of adversity. The emotions are felt clearly by the reader and the story of the poet is heartfelt. As a survivor of a life-threatening illness, I found the poem to be deeply relatable.
—Wendy Van Camp

Dusty’s poem resonated with me. I recently moved back to my home province to help my elderly newly-widowed mother. She suffered a cardiac event a few months ago and it has been a revolving door of doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, lab tests, ecgs, pet scans, and angiograms. What struck me most about this poem is how Dusty sprinkles it with descriptions about the agony of waiting, waiting, and waiting some more for results, consultations, appointments, and the inevitable massive event that may make all the waiting moot. How she persisted with treatment in the face of the worst experience a parent can endure, made my heart ache but also made me dig my heels in with her to carry on—like the way I used to press on the non-existent brake pedal on the passenger side of the car while teaching my son to drive. I will think of this poem during the next 7 weeks of appointments with my Mom.
—Angelle McDougall

Yesterday, I had my annual mammogram. Within an hour of returning home, I received an email with the results: no cancer detected. Also, I have a son. His life is upside down and his heart has been broken by his wife going off the rails after 20 years and three beautiful children, but he is alive. For that I am so thankful. I do not think Dusty’s heart will be much mended by her poem winning, but I cannot not vote for her poem. She writes masterfully, puts her reader right there beside her heart. And winning may give her a nanosecond of joy. Her grieving heart deserves that and so much more.
—Maggie Westvold

Because her kid is fucking dead,
And it hurt like it was mine.
—Breonne Stiglitz

Read “No Evidence” online right now. To read all of the finalist poems, pick up a copy of Rattle #82, or read them one at a time this month as daily poems at Rattle.com.

Dusty Bryndal was the winner, but this year’s voters as divided as ever, and all of the finalists had their own enthusiastic supporters. Every year, it’s an interesting and informative experience reading the commentary. To provide a sense of that, here is a small sample of what our subscribers said about the other finalists:
 

On River Adams’ “A Lesson in Meetaphor”:

I don’t have much patience with writing about writing or poetry about poetry. This poem is an exception. That might be because all language is metaphor, standing in for the thing itself, so this exploration is more foundational. While exploring what does and doesn’t work as a metaphor, it bent my mind a little, then, then quietly left the room, taking my breath with it.
—Karen Berry

A poet who understands that form and syntax strengthen poetry. River Adams’ use of couplets and alternating short and long sentences adds nuance and energy not only to her strong opening metaphor, but to the whole idea of the impact metaphorical imagery has on so many subjects. Her form compliments and impacts the very imagery she so successfully evokes.
—Yvonne Logan

On Lisa Bass’s “Makeup”:

Such a tender, detailed poem I love the way it builds and builds. I have a granddaughter who went through that phase; now the focus is on piercings and nail gels. Poem really conveys both the insecurity of the girl, the shock of the shock of the mom and sister.
—Linda Lancione

I loved how tension-filled the poem is throughout, and your immediate connection not only to the mother, but the daughter as well. I love that we don’t need to know why the daughter has been in her room. The imagery of a young woman hiding behind makeup and the comparison to a space suit needed for survival is stunning. I found myself returning to it several times.
—Tammy Greenwood

On Roberta Beary’s “Sonnet #1: My Way”:

Any poem that rhymes “steamy hot” and “Charlotte” does it for me!
—Jim Feeney

There is so much going on in this poem! The tension of living with a troubled teen and the sense of being afraid to “jinx it” is captured perfectly. The long lines and absence of end punctuation—until the literal end of the poem—support the tone of tension and caution. Then, to use the symbolism of the makeup and dare to add the astronaut metaphor is just plain powerful. Bravo.
—Nancy Nott

On Isabella DeSendi’s “Elegy for Tío Lazaro”:

She turned a man’s whole life into a piece of art—and she impactfully highlighted the larger story of the inequity and injustice toward immigrants in this system who have struggled their whole lives to keep up. I especially love the way she writes about how he could fix broken things (it’s why god gave us hands) and her beautiful use of our constellations of deaths. Finally, it’s the kind of poem that offers up more gifts every time we read it.
—Valentina Gnup

As always, I can find reasons to choose each of the poems, but after several re-readings, I’m voting for “Elegy for Tio Lazaro.” I think it’s a wonderful example of making the personal universal; most of us have suffered (even if not so drastically) at the cold hands of bureaucracy, and the comment offered here on the shameful indifference to the undocumented is all the more powerful for not being polemical. The portrait of the uncle is tender without sentimentality and angry without self-pity. I also admire the clarity of the language and power of the images—”the animal of his thin, brown body lassoed // to an oxygen tank” and “The tip of the letter, still sticking out // of my mom’s black purse like a cigarette / already flickering gone.” The last one is especially good, returning readers as it does to the cigarettes smoked on the sly at the beginning.
—Lynne Knight

On Diana Goetsch’s “Motel Surrender”:

It’s the one that’s stayed freshest in my mind this winter, that juxtaposition between the coldest season and the inevitability of burning.
—Thomas Mixon

I love the music of that poem so much—the rhyme and alliteration, the humor and the Shakespearean finality of the final line.
—Katy Stanton

On Meredith Mason’s “Use Your Words”:

I finally settled on “Use Your Words,” precisely because of the sensitivity and restraint with which the poet and mother chose the casual but powerful words spoken by her son, herself, and any parent and child facing unwanted separation. Congratulations to Meredith Mason on this subtle moment so finely, gracefully caught in unassuming language!
—Rhina P. Espaillat

This was a tough call as I loved all these poems—however, this one cut me to the core. As a divorced mom of two, I feel the “long-gone” in this poem acutely. The sonnet form is a perfect reflection of the speaker’s attempt to rationalize and order her and her son’s emotions/situation while lending a sing-song quality to the poem. The slight breakdown of structure and punctuation that occurs in stanza 3 builds to the volta—the maple’s hands are empty, just like the mother’s. The closing couplet is the speaker’s last attempt to reconcile her feelings while acknowledging that this is a distance that she will never fully escape or overcome. I want to weep when I read this, but I feel less alone as a result of this meditation. Bravo!
—Sara Smith

On Amy Miller’s “Umbrella”:

It says more in fewer words, creates a vivid metaphor, uses dialog, risks sentimentality by employing a sleeping baby and proves that an honest use of language can turn the most mundane, borderline cliche moment into something bigger than itself.
—Rasma Haidri

My vote for the 2024 Readers’ Choice Award goes to Amy Miller’s deceptively simple “Umbrella.” There is a lot of trauma and injustice going on in the world right now and profound poems written about them, but I found that this poem gifted me a much-needed rest. It is almost as if the poem itself served as an umbrella for the readers, shielding them “raindrops exploding.” The poems that get published today seldom focus on beauty and innocence, preference going to the poems that shout or emote. I like the quietness of this poem, the whispered observation of such mundane things as the “little double Oks” of a child’s hands. The poem causes me to pause and reflect. Even when I walk away from this poem, I think about it because the imagery and language are simple but beautifully told.
—Andre Le Mont Wilson

On Jacob K. Robinson’s “The Pool”:

I am not a boy, I am not from Texas, and I don’t like to swim, but this poem reaches me in an emotional place of aching and haunting familiarity. I chose this poem from the place where it lingered and stirred up waves of feelings, the place where the best poems land in me when they fall from out of the blue. Like this one. Thank you.
—Michelle Ballou

There is an individual voice present: the poem sounds like no other; and the feel for reality is different from any other poem I’ve read. The imagery is fresh and striking. The line lengths and line breaks support the poem’s meaning beautifully. I like the way the poem becomes far-reaching in its implications during the second half, and that speaks to the attention to structure Robinson shows. The way the poem’s ending words echo the beginning demonstrates impressive organization. Also, the ending of the poem is moving, in an understated way, in keeping with the poem’s voice. It also highlights the work’s psychological and philosophical depth.
—Austin Alexis

On Tim Seibles’ “Ants”:

Seibles has written the best ant poem since Robert Frost’s “Departmental,” and like Frost’s wry exploration of human mortality through the lens of the family Formidicae, Seibles’s poem explores the intricate colonies of bittersweet desire that constitute our life-journeys. I love this poem, and how it keeps on walking through me, long after I’ve put it down.
—Dante Di Stefano

The poem starts with something small, an ant, and takes us on a big journey although it’s only a walk down a street in the speaker’s memory, a street that’s no longer familiar, and nothing is familiar anymore, “even my own country.” Like the ant, what can we do but keep walking. That is deep and true in these difficult times. I love the simile, “the city like a black leather jacket.” I love the ant on the dashboard and then the ant returns later on in the poem, this time on the basketball court where the speaker wishes he could believe “what that ant believed with those fancy sneaks flashing all around.” The language is clear and magical. All the turns in the poem bring a surprise. The voice is real. I want to follow wherever it takes me. It took me to a real place of feeling, and that feeling is universal.
—Susan Browne

Rattle is proud to announce the winner of the 2021 Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award:

Erin Murphy
Altoona, Pennsylvania
for
“The Internet of Things”

 
The 2021 Readers’ Choice Award was selected from among the Rattle Poetry Prize finalists by subscriber vote. Only those with active subscriptions including issue #74 were eligible. In the closest vote since the tie in 2017, “The Internet of Things” earned 16.4% of the votes and the $5,000 award, edging out Rayon Lennon and Susan Browne, who earned 13.9% each. Here is what some of those readers had to say about the winner:

A little like the Winter 2018 cover of Rattle, Erin Murphy’s “The Internet of Things” has the spare geometry of the bare branches of a sapling in a snowfall where a robin, all red feathers, orangey beak, and black mask, perches, waiting for that glance, understanding that will connect two worlds and for a moment, just as long as that glance lasts, let them be one. The subtitle defines the word, but what is “The Internet”—or anything? The spare sequence of doublets leads in sets of keys, key changes, rips on a piano, to “the grief”—”Oh—the grief. The brief / ecstatic flight of things.” And what could have been—and was—isolation becomes connection, even union with those last four words.
—Steve Lautermilch

Because I keep coming back to it. Because each time I read it, it surprises me. Because each time I read it I am showered with a cascade of startling, baffling, and beautiful sensations. Because, finally, the grief given to flight.
—Julie Naslund

Too many poems are autobiographical, and blatantly so. Murphy uses a series of crisp visual images, contrast and duality in this contemplation of connectedness, and ends with sudden severance in a heartfelt outburst of grief. It is a finely crafted work, not at all self-indulgent. The author Charles Dickens spoke of good art hiding the art behind the art. Murphy’s work does that. In her simple and focused images she tells a whole story, placed in the framework of universal contrasts.
—Anita Jawary

I love the abundance of short i sounds that echo things—hill, silt, moonlit, pitter-patter, clipped, skin, stippled. Love the way it says so much with, seemingly, so little. That filtering down to the fundamentals that is so challenging to achieve in a poem is beautifully done here. Given the title and focus on this poem’s investigation, it’s particularly poignant that the shared humanity brought out in the list of things is so very much in contrast to the things on the internet of things. I admire this poem.
—Christine Poreba

“The Internet of Things” is not clever, overwritten, or self-conscious. It does not score political points or tell us how we’re supposed to feel. Every time I read its pure, unhindered truth, it grounds me and brings me such peace, reminding me of what is most important in poetry. My body, my heart recognize the truth inherent in this poem without even having to try. I keep rereading “The Internet of Things” just to experience the afterglow that grounds me in what it really means to be human.
—Elizabeth Potter

I like its brevity, and its playful seriousness.
—Charles Harper Webb

I love the musicality and specificity that jumps out in a list poem of “things.” There is a an exhilaration that builds to the sudden turn to grief at the end—then quickly turns back to wonder. Beautiful!
—Holly York

I tried to judge the poems for imagery, language, feelings realized as I read each; just the overall mastery of the craft, even looking at appearance on the page. My final choice has much to do with an envy long harbored–the gift some have in being able to pull so much meaning and emotion out of so few words! Erin Murphy’s poem is masterful in its brevity. Beautiful in its imagery. Heart-wrenching in her finely honed word selection. I tried to choose a favorite phrase to include here. No can do. It’s freaking full of favorite THINGS.
—Maggie Westvold

To read “The Internet of Things” and all of the other finalist poems, pick up a copy of Rattle #74, or wait until the April, when those poems start appearing online at Rattle.com.

Erin Murphy was the winner, but this year’s voters were divided, as they always are—each of the remaining poems received between 6% and 12% of the vote, and all of the finalists had their own enthusiastic supporters. Every year, it’s 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 Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose’s “After My Teenager Tries to Kill Herself …”:

I kept on coming back to this one like a zombie to spongy brains. I was moved by the narrator’s honesty, powerlessness, and love. (Life is hard, almost-death is harder, but the living dead, well …)
—Jonathan Greenhause

Every parent can relate to the nightmare Elizabeth unfolds for us in her poem, even if we have not personally dealt with that circumstance. It’s the fear captured with depth, and precision; the juxtaposition of the nightmare and the reality. There is some measure of absurdity also, with the “jumping Taco Bell’s counter / rummaging for chips and salsa” that is relatable in the way that no matter what we do as parents, things can still go horribly wrong. She brings it home beautifully by marrying the two disparate scenes and pinpointing her/our willingness to lie just to let our children have the last chip. It’s like a punch to the gut. Bravo Elizabeth!
—Shyla Shehan

On Heather Bell’s “This Is How I Make My Money”:

Her poem operates on multiple levels at the same time. It sounds cliche, but I laughed and cried while reading it. Actually, I laughed a lot more than I cried, which I needed. After reading and re-reading this poem, I discovered more of Bell’s work, and I’m thoroughly impressed.
—Charles B. Snoad

The blend of bare confession and hyper imagination, the unspeakable desperation and hysterical laughter, the way this poem runs a million miles away screaming with its teeth on fire while slumped, barely able to sigh in front of the camera. That’s why.
—Michael Mark

On Susan Browne’s “Do You Have Children?”:

The question is like the chainsaw “that just won’t quit.” The wish in the last stanza is so honestly and simply expressed that it seems to hush the rude noise of the insensitive questioner.
—Lee Robinson

I like how the speaker has just been asked that question, and already we’ve got a chainsaw going off behind her. You feel that it’s actually her annoyance. That paired with shouting and hot asphalt, I really thought the poem would end in anger or bitterness. I thought it might get sarcastic when she describes the quilt with the lambs on it. But no. As a pleasant surprise for the reader, she flips the entire mood of the poem on its head with the very last line, which got me.
—T. J. McGuire

On Rayon Lennon’s “Follow Me”:

The poem’s imagery is vivid and unusual, but never contrived or overplayed. I learned something new, without feeling taught. Evoking caged lobsters battling with taped claws as a metaphor for two Black men’s ongoing struggles with class and race? That is something only great poetry can do.
—Nancy Romines Walters

This poem gives me everything I yearn for when reading poetry—stunning language, visceral feeling, and the gut punch of a reality I can relate to a little bit better having read the poem. As a BIPOC woman, I have been on the receiving end of racism in many forms. Yet I have not lived in the skin of a black man. This poem transports me into that experience, while also beautifully elucidating broader aspects of systemic racism in America. An amazing balance of personal and social commentary, brilliantly written. Bravo.
—R.B. Simon

On Dayna Hodge Lynch’s “Black Boys as Fireflies”:

This poem is clearly written and yet metaphorical. It’s powerful because it’s very real. The writer watched it unfold. It’s power is that it’s the story of thousands of young, black men. After the death of George Floyd, we can all understand it. It’s a call to a deeper justice, to reset the balance between young, black men and the police. Dayna has captured a moment in time that we all thought about last year. Her brother’s been stopped by the police. She and his mother can see him. He’s complying with the officers, but will he come home tonight? They watch the lights of police cars flashing like fireflies. Young black men are an endangered species.
—Fred Pierre

I grew up in the south, I’ve felt that, “the air between God’s palms.” The humidity can be stifling. I could imagine as a mother looking on powerless at her son. That’s so painful. Her succinctness is perfection. This will always need to be read, and read again!
—Elizabeth Puckett

On Mary Meadows’s “White Privilege Skydives with Black Guy in Appalachia”:

I enjoyed that the author kept me engaged for 7 1/2 pages of poem that spilled broadly over those pages telling a story that is adventurous, emotional, sexy, relatable, racial and always human. From the title to the concluding period, she kept me going.
—Frank Beltrano

Brave, skillful, and leaping—leaping in so many ways—literally and poetically, in time, space, imagery, and realization. You know, it looked like a long poem, but didn’t feel long at all, not a wasted word (and this is coming from someone who rarely likes anything more than a page or two). But Mary’s poem lifted me off my feet. I also loved her line and word placement. I was easily and willingly along for the ride (and the jump!). It accomplished so much. I was very impressed and moved.
—Tom O’Donnell

On L. Renée’s “Exodus: Gilliam Coal Camp, West Virginia, 1949”:

I love the authentic use of regional dialect and what the mother says to try to keep her child from leaving, and her heartbreak when it happens. A searing story told in the form of a poem, epic.
—Susan Marsh

I love how the personal, universal, historical are so seamlessly woven, and how the pacing and flow of the words wrap powerful, restrained emotion around the story they tell. The lines and verses plod with such somber weight and resignation, so much always-the-same, so much repressed fear, so much mother Mary, while Junior Mary is off to the side, almost out of view, a kite pulling at the end of a tangled line, trying to get lift. The ending feels sudden, like a big gust of wind, only it’s Big Mary’s heart that is cut loose to soar. Threw my heart in my throat.
—Daelene King

On Zella Rivas’s “Purgatorio”:

This poem read like a transcript of my own arguments, my own conflicts, my own fears. I struggle to get down, get out, get past the myths, the lies, the misunderstandings still roiling within me from my childhood six decades ago. This pain, this power, this bravado and toughness are real.
—Francis Hicks

When I first read the finalists, I thought it would be impossible to choose one over the others because they’re so different and each one has so much to recommend it. So I read them again and felt the same way. I wasn’t surprised to read that so far in the voting, it’s pretty much even. But when I reread the poems just now, I realized why “Purgatorio” is the one that stayed with me—and both thrilled and chilled me (again) when I got to the end. I think it’s a brilliant self-portrait and an almost eerily accurate rendering of the battle that the self constantly wages with itself. What I love about the poem is that it shows the battle without oversimplifying it or undercutting its gravity by offering a resolution. We know there really isn’t any resolution other than death. But the poem doesn’t condescend to us by spelling out what we already knew. What we didn’t know is how a poet’s imagination could transform that struggle into art.
—Lynne Knight

On Richard Westheimer’s “My Father Transformed by Dying”:

Westheimer’s poem resonated with me because of its economy of words. The aching recognition of grief as parents grow old and approach death … “no room to move but away” is powerful. How do we reconcile the interior spark of the vibrant (if stern) parent of our childhood with the silent, distant galaxy where that spark has drifted? What do we need for understanding?
—Gurupreet K. Khalsa

My choice is “My Father Transformed by Dying,” for several reasons. It’s the most direct and humanly communicative of the lot, eager to be understood; it has more substance than fireworks; it has the taut, live skin of a sonnet, even without rhyme or perfect meter, and that skin contains it wholly, cleanly, with perfect details conveyed in quick metaphors, without any extra packaging material. The only other poem among them that I almost chose is “The Internet of Things,” which has the same slender economy despite a haunting, musical use of repetition. It’s essentially a love letter to reality, composed–as thought is–of imagery conveyed in sentence fragments: not skin this time, but bones.
—Rhina P. Espaillat