Young Poets Introduction

It was an incredible honor to spend time with this year’s Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize submissions. I felt a true pulse and spark in every poem I read — a reminder that a poem is a living, breathing organism that cannot be, and shouldn’t be, confined just to the page.

From the first two lines of this year’s winning poem, Daniel Zhang’s “Golden,” we know we’re in the presence of a poet who greets the world with his arms wide open: “The man in sequins is slamming his head / against the red window.” This poem encapsulates so much of what it means to be a human: the daily heartbreak, violence, and thirst for acceptance we all experience. I am in awe of this poem’s breadth and generosity when it comes to exploring these human themes. Nothing is too small to ignore; everything deserves the spotlight, even for a small moment. The speaker of this poem brings us “a bouquet of irises / underneath a utility pole” alongside “an imprint of your vertebrae / on my still-warm mattress.” Zhang is a poet with an eye for the image; everything in this poem feels real and close enough to touch. “Golden” shows that even in immense chaos, uncertainty, and sadness, there is something to be redeemed, to be loved. I’ll carry the small details and grit of this poem — “an X you carved / into your mosquito bites” — with me for the rest of my life.

Blair Enright’s “Dr. Freud’s Magic 8-Ball” is a poem to be reckoned with. Who’s not a sucker for a Magic 8-Ball? Here we get a speaker pulling us close, perhaps even too close: “you piss in a cup enough times / & you get better. whatever time // you’re at, that’s the charm.” I can’t, and don’t want to, look away. What stays with me is this poem’s deep and sincere playfulness: whether in subject (Seamus Heaney! Beowulf!) or sonically (the internal rhymes hit perfectly each time). I adore how this poem captures every brutal detail, every varying emotion of mental illness on the page right down to the “nonskid / socks.”

Gaia Rajan’s “Ghost Town, Ohio” reminds us that everything deserves a second glance, everything can be transformed: “Anything can be a spinning tire or anything can be a dead end / speckled with spit or anything can be a memorial / if you look hard enough.” I adore this poet’s generous and attentive eye and ear, and I want to traverse whatever ghost town this speaker is willing to take me. I’m deeply gutted by this poem’s meditation on loneliness, its grasping toward others. I feel it in my chest when the speaker says, “My father gave me / the posture of a guillotine.” I return again and again to get lost and dizzy in this poet’s world.

What I am most impressed by in Zhang, Enright, and Rajan’s poetry is their deep generosity toward their subjects. These are poets with a deep grasp on humanity and empathy. They are tremendously talented, and I’m so excited to read — and I eagerly await! — their poems for years to come.