Bacopa Literary Review 2023 Award Winners

 FICTION

AWARD: "In the Red" by Lisa Isaac

Lisa Isaac writes from her lakeside central Florida cottage where she lives with her wife and a smattering of entitled pets. Between working and writing, she tends a wild but flower-full garden. She studied fiction at Florida State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

HONORABLE MENTION: "Red Yucca" by Emilee Prado

Emilee Prado is a fiction writer and essayist whose work appears in Cincinnati Review, Wigleaf, Fractured Lit, and elsewhere. Emilee was raised in a working-class family. She has lived in Asia and South America and currently resides in Tucson, Arizona. Find out more at emileepradoauthor.com or on social media: @_emilee_prado_. 

CREATIVE NONFICTION: 

AWARD: "Sh'mot (Names) / Exodus (The Way Out)" by Hailee Nielsen

Hailee Nielsen grew up in rural Michigan and lives in Ann Arbor with their two cats. Their work has previously appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, and in the 2020 Issue of Bacopa Literary Review.

HONORABLE MENTION: "Portrait and Punctum" by Sue Hann

Sue Hann's debut memoir in essays is forthcoming with Neem Tree Press. You can find her at suehannwrites.com and on Instagram @SueHannwrites.

HUMOR

AWARD: "Kringle" by Mary Liza Hartong

Mary Liza Hartong lives and writes in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. She's a Darmouth grad, a Fulbright Scholar, and a proud aunt. Her first novel is forthcoming from William Morrow in 2024.

HONORABLE MENTION: "Curly" by Roberta Anthes

Roberta J. Anthes is a retired college English teacher and track coach, but her most recent occupation has been caregiver to her elderly mom. She's had pieces published in The Southern California Review, Writer's Digest Show Us Your Shorts, and Women on Writing. 

FORMAL POETRY

AWARD: "Burning Haibun At the Creek" by Haley Winans

Haley Winans is a garden-lover and bunny mom from Annapolis, Maryland. She has poetry published in Slipstream, The Shore Poetry, and elsewhere. She's in the University of Memphis MFA Creative Writing program. She's a founding co-editor of Beaver Magazine. During undergrad, she studied Environmental Studies and Creative Writing, with a focus on environmental justice, sustainable agriculture, and poetry.

HONORABLE MENTION: "Two faced Abecedarian" by Matthew J. Spireng

Matthew J. Spireng's 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize-winning book Good Work was publishing in 2020 by Evening Street Press. An 11-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also author of the full-length poetry books What Focus Is and Out of Body, winner of the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award, and five chapbooks. 

FREE VERSE POETRY

AWARD: "st0p bl0cking the sun (car0usel)" by August Reynolds

August Reynolds is a triple English major at Virginia tech whose work has appeared in a wide variety of journals over the years. He currently resides in Blacksburg, VA and shares his home with two cute but quite dumb cats.

HONORABLE MENTION: "How to sing in the electric chair" by Martins Deep

Martins Deep (he/him) is a poet of Urhobo descent, a Taurus, photographer, digital artist, & currently an undergraduate student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He says hi @martinsdeep1.

VISUAL POETRY

AWARD: "Snow" by Chingshun J. Sheu

Chingshun J. Sheu is Assistant Professor of Applied English at Ming Chuan University in Taoyuan, Taiwan. He's also Taiwan's premier Anglophone film critic, indexed on Rotten Tomatoes at CJ Sheu. Tweet at him @cj_sheu.

HONORABLE MENTION: "1040A" by Sara Adams

Sara Adams' chapbooks include Poems for Ivan (Porkbelly Press), Western Diseases (dancing girl press), Think Like a B (Trump erasure poems; SOd press; free to download!), and six Ghost City Press Summer Series Micro-chaps (also free to download). Check out more of Sara's work, including chapbook links, at kartoshkaaaaa.com. 

~Thank you to everyone who submitted to this year's contest. Stay tuned for our upcoming journal release reading!~

Health, Poetry, and People of Color: A Reflection on Intersectionality

By Poetry Co-Editor Reinfred Addo

In the 2022 issue of Bacopa Literary Review, we the editors had a special request for the poetry submissions: in addition to general themes and non-themes within free verse, formal, and visual poetries, we asked for free verse and formal poetry that touched on the theme of health/sickness/wellbeing by Black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC). This theme came about because I’ve noticed that, throughout history, systems of injustice have infiltrated health, whereby health and wellbeing of BIPOC people has been placed on the margins whereas that of White people has received more attention and eradication effort. Historically, this pattern has included examples such as: the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, medical textbooks using illustrations and models of predominantly white people, physicians’ not considering that BIPOC people display physical symptoms to certain conditions in a different way to white people (e.g., eczema), and the assumption by health professionals that Black people have a higher pain tolerance and thus their complaints about pain can be minimized (which has contributed to issues such as a higher maternal mortality rate for Black mothers compared to their white counterparts). 

During the last few years, we’ve seen this issue in the form of the COVID pandemic, whereby BIPOC individuals have lost more people than white people, and whereby BIPOC scientists played key roles in developing the needed vaccines yet the public face of said vaccines have tended to be white people (especially white males). Because Bacopa is an international journal that receives many submissions from BIPOC individuals around the world, and because poetry offers a creatively powerful angle into the theme of health, our call for submissions was our small attempt at ensuring the voices that make up this portion of our submittership are heard regarding such an ever-relevant theme. 

Surely enough, the poems we received did not disappoint. The quality of submissions around this theme was so high that it was a tough job for us to decline some of them due to the logistical/spatial/economic constraints of the journal. The ones we did publish, we feel, are symbolic of the high degree of health-related poems we received during the submissions period. In the journal, readers will find many examples, such as this section from “In the Name of the Name” by Missouri-based Sunyoung Kay: “Today, I march / to this building / that rises like a castle of mirror-gleam windows / where my dad once stayed / stomach stilled, putrid, black gunk / being drawn from a tube down his nose, / to witness the next thousand little drownings.” Of note, we felt so strongly about this poem that we gave it the honorable mention distinction in the free verse category. Another such example is the pantoum “Solitary Musings” by Afro-British writer Maroula Blades, from the formal poetry category. Here’s a line of this work’s vivid account of COVID-19:

Heat kills COVID-19. I hunch over a bowl of steaming water.
The mind is foggier than the rising menthol mist.
My head slumps like a clump of tabloid papier mâché.
Ten hours to pass before bedtime, solitary confinement.
My mind is foggier than the rising menthol mist.
I need groceries. Should a friend make a visit?
Ten hours to pass before bedtime, solitary confinement.
The clock’s second hand turns in slow motion.

Bacopa 2022 contains more health-related pieces like the above which speak to us on both a craft level and content level. We hope, like us, readers are stopped in their tracks and develop an appreciation of the brilliant work created by each author who tackled this special theme.  

Bacopa Literary Review: Notes on Visual Poetry

By Poetry Co-Editor Oliver Keyhani

There is no one definition nor one set of standards for what constitutes visual poetry. However, one critical aspect is that it shouldn’t be considered simply as a poem with a visual in the background or vice versa. We could start by saying that visual poetry is form of literary expression that combines the power of language with the beauty of visual art. This category of poetry emphasizes, amongst other aspects, the visual parameters of language, which expands to how placement, shape, size, and typography of words are arranged on a page. At some basic level, we seek work that is both aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking; the essence of which should include words, even if abstracted into asemic text, having no specific semantic content, and/or images that combine to create powerful and meaningful messages–even if those “messages” are the obscuring of the language and words themselves!

Concrete poetry (also known as shape poetry) is one common form of visual poetry. Words are arranged into a particular shape or design, such that the constructed image becomes part of the meaning of the poem. Concrete poetry can be incredibly effective at conveying complex ideas and emotions in visually stunning and intellectually engaging manners. Similarly, but sometimes distinct, calligram poetry uses words to create an image that resembles or mimics the subject of the poem. Often used to create poems about nature, animals, or other objects, that can be rendered with words forming the image, it can be a powerful means for conveying both beauty and complexity of the natural world. 

Visual poetry can also include non-representational language coupled to visual elements as intermedia and extends to non-language “alien” scripts (as mentioned, asemic writing). Visual poetry forms are highly versatile and can be used to express emotions, ideas, sometimes in a playful and lighthearted manner, but can also be deeply serious and thought-provoking. These poems are particularly apt at sharply conveying personal experiences or to make commentary on social and political issues. From we, the Editors’ perspective, visual poetry allows the poet to experiment with different forms and styles. There are no hard and fast rules about what visual poems should look like, which means that poets have the freedom to be creative and to explore new ways of expressing themselves. 

A few thoughts: (i) have a clear idea of what you want to convey with your poem, (ii) know what message you want to communicate, and (iii) understand how and why you are using the visual elements of the poem to communicate that message. Some of the most powerful works of visual poetry have been created by poets who were willing to take risks and to push the boundaries of the form. Remember that visual poetry is more than just the way words look on the page coupled to images, it is about the synthesis and network between the words and the images, and how these elements combine to create connected meaningful works of art. Broadly speaking, we look for pieces that experiment with forms and styles to reach and touch the audience. This is only our second year having Visual Poetry as a category for Bacopa. We hope to see your creations as works of art that can inspire and speak to the human experience in a profound way.

Take a look below at last years Award and Honorable Mention for inspiration!

Bacopa Literary Review Visual Poetry 2022 Award: "A Change in Mood II" by Karla Van Vliet

Bacopa Literary Review Visual Poetry 2022 Honorable Mention: "NEWS" by J. Nishida

An Interview with Lilia Anderson

By Fiction Editor Alec Kissoondyal

Benny & Bjorn by Lilia Anderson was Bacopa’s Fiction honorable mention for 2022. I was drawn to the story for the compelling characters, small town political intrigue, and most notably, the perfect balance between humorous and heartfelt moments. I spoke with Lilia Anderson about her creative process and the inspiration behind Benny & Bjorn.

What inspired the idea for your story, Benny & Bjorn?

I am absolutely fascinated by the literary use of twins. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin are two of my favorite novels. Both of which utilize twins to thematically drive the plot. Furthermore, like many women my age, the film The Parent Trap was a major part of my childhood. All this media pushed me to write a story about twins switching places. 

Much of my fiction is inspired by the Minnesotan lake town where I live. I didn't have to utilize much creativity in writing about adults obsessed with their high school selves, the social politics of schools and churches, and the raw disdain for anyone who chooses to leave lake country. There is a sense, in this neck of the woods, that we live in the greatest place on earth, and anyone who would dare leave it is a fool.

While Benny & Bjorn focused largely on the negative elements of this culture, there are endless things I adore about this part of the world. There is a lot of love among the cedars and the lakes, and a lot of joy between the rivers and the bonfires. I hope Bjorn's unconditional devotion to his family illustrates that, no matter how misplaced it may be. 

As a reader, one of the things that drew me into the story was the tone, which was simultaneously heartfelt and funny. How did you balance these elements while writing the story? 

That is so nice of you to say, and I'm so glad I was able to convey that! 

While he didn't intend to, Bjorn broke Benny's adolescent heart, and the latter cannot move past it. I knew I wanted this to carry over throughout the story but I didn't want it to be a complete downer the entire time. By throwing an earnest character into an absurd and selfish world, I was hoping to create a tragically humorous story. Bjorn is the only kind character, and I used him to drive the sentimentality while relying on Minnesotan caricatures to create some humor. 

During the writing process, did the story ever take an unexpected turn that surprised you?

The story is - and I say this out of love - absolutely ridiculous. While the reader is likely well aware as to what Benny and Bjorn are doing, the other characters are completely oblivious. Initially, I debated having the twins run their switching places operation as a longer con and have other people in on it. I surprised myself by having the small-town mayoral election be the entire crux of the story but am glad I did so. It keeps the story absurd - everyone did know Benny had a twin, after all - and allows Benny to cut Bjorn out immediately after getting what he wants.

Despite being identical twins, Benny & Bjorn have unique personalities. What was your process in determining which role each twin would play in the story?

After determining that the story would be a simple one and focus only on a mayoral election, I knew that the twins would need to be quite polarized. In the novels I mentioned above, the relationships, personalities, and faults of the twins are much more nuanced, and the line between who is right and who is wrong is often blurred. In this shorter form of fiction, I knew that it would be most powerful if Benny completely betrayed his brother and left no room for sympathy from the readers. Bjorn doesn't do anything wrong throughout the story, and while his family and hometown see him as weak for leaving, he really is quite strong (if not a bit irrational). 

Are there any projects you are currently working on/forthcoming publications that you want to mention?

If you're itching for more immoral, small-town Minnesotans, check out my Pushcart Prize nominated short story, "Runerock," published by Feels Blind Literary. The link can be found on my website (liliaanderson.com/publications). It is chalk full of passive-aggression, Miller Lite, and falling snow. 

Thank you so much for reading my story, all! 

Danae Younge’s Melanin Sun (−) Blind Spots: An Award-winning Debut

By Editor-in-Chief J.N. Fishhawk

Former contributor Danae Younge (Prose Poetry: “Emissary on the Wall,” Bacopa Literary Review 2021) is the author of the award-winning chapbook Melanin Sun (−) Blind Spots. The manuscript was chosen by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies as winner of their annual College Undergraduate Competition. NFSPS is a conglomerate of the state poetry societies involved in the institution of Poet Laureate, and their CUP competition is considered one of the largest poetry undergraduate competitions in the country. Melanin Sun (−) Blind Spots, Younge’s debut chapbook, was published and made available for purchase in summer 2022. Younge describes the book as “a micro-collection of 10 cohesive poems.”

Reviewers cite the powerful way that Younge uses experimental techniques in these poems to craft a narrative through-line that expresses her grief at her Black father’s passing. This grief is filtered through and commingled with her struggle to find a clear sense of self, history, and identity as a biracial, queer woman in white supremacist, queerphobic, male-dominated U.S. society. 

The poems in Melanin Sun build on and expand outward from the deftly deployed experimental elements that drew Bacopa Prose Poetry Editor Kaye Linden to choose “Emissary on the Wall” for inclusion in Bacopa 2021. The experiments include mixing techniques of erasure, such as government style black-rectangle redaction and the copy editor’s tactic of strike-through typeface with the deft use of more conventional poetic tactics such as innovative line breaks and fresh, lively metaphors and similes. Younge breaks her poetry apart from the inside out, exposing her own inner processes of self-criticism and the struggle for coherence and cohesion within her work and within her consciousness, boldly writing the kind of self-talk usually reserved for our most intimate inner monologues directly into her lines:  

Tender hearts like soft 

mollusks caught, heavy in some old white man’s net 

behind a reed-woven tugboat, like love—no stop, STOP 

doing that. Epic similes are the same deal; “like” carves a 

crawl space, but there’s not enough room to hide unless 

you make a home in the shadows…

In the months since this, her first chapbook’s critically acclaimed debut, Younge has not rested on her well-earned laurels. She tells us that she is currently working on a project with her college's letterpress printing shop to create broadsides with five poems from the collection and the work of visual artists from her campus community. She and her collaborators asked artists who connected with the themes of struggling to self identify or battling grief to submit. These broadsides will be displayed and sold at a pop up event in Los Angeles before being permanently moved to Occidental College's library.

To learn more about Danae Younge’s work, read reviews of her chapbook, and order a copy for yourself, check in with her at https://www.danaeyounge.com/.

Bacopa Literary Review 2023 Submissions Period & Contest, March 19th-April 16th

Bacopa Literary Review is an annual international print journal published by the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, Florida. We are seeking submissions in six categories this year: Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Humor, Formal Poetry, Free Verse Poetry, and Visual Poetry. This blogroll shows the quality of writing we seek by highlighting work we respect from previous Bacopa issues as well as other sources. We ask that all potential contributors submit their work anonymously, as we read blind for fairness’ sake. See detailed instructions for submission on our Submittable page at: https://writersallianceofgainesville.submittable.com/submit

The submissions period for our 2023 edition will open on March 19th and close on April 16th, 2023. There is no submission fee. Our contest features a $200 Award and a $100 Honorable Mention in each of the six categories. Contributors whose work is selected for publication will receive a complimentary copy of the journal. Prize winners and honorable mention awardees will each receive two complimentary copies in addition to their cash rewards. Authors, please submit to only ONE category. Submissions to more than one category may result in disqualification. When the contest opens, entries are to be submitted via Submittable only, at the web address listed above. 

Although Bacopa Literary Review is organized, funded, and published by the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, it is a truly international journal. Our feet are planted on the sandy earth and our hearts flow with the spring-fed rivers of North Florida, and we work hard to encourage submissions from writers in our local area, as well as the rest of the Florida peninsula. But we also reach out to the world, and the world sends us its words. Over our thirteen-year history, we have published the work of authors from all fifty U.S. states, as well as Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean, India, Africa, Europe, China, Japan, and Australia. Though Bacopa is an English-language journal, we have published a variety of works by authors from bi- and multi-lingual backgrounds whose creations blend, mix, and play with multiple languages, and/or contain internal translations. We are honored to feature the work of a truly global community of creators.

About our parent organization: The Writers Alliance of Gainesville (WAG) is a nonprofit organization based in Gainesville, Florida. WAG promotes, encourages, and supports aspiring and experienced writers in Alachua County and the North Central Florida region as a whole. Monthly programs for writers are free and open to the public. Members receive a free copy of Bacopa Literary Review each year, and may have their work critiqued by joining critique pods. WAG promotes its members' books, services, and websites/blogs. To learn more about WAG and meet some of its members, click on this video.

Bacopa Literary Review's 2023 Editorial Team

Editor in Chief J.N. Fishhawk is a poet and freelance writer. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks and Postcards from the Darklands, ekphrastic poems accompanying artwork by artist Jorge Ibanez. Info at fishhawkandrocket.com. The second book in his and illustrator Johnny Rocket Ibanez’s ongoing World of Whim Sea children’s series is forthcoming in 2023.

Managing Editor T. Walters is a poet, writer, and musician living among the orange trees. Their work appears in Nymeria Publishing’s Descendants of Medusa. Books, baking bread, and pulling needle through thread make up a significant portion of their life. They live to connect, create, and marvel at nature’s many wonders.

Poetry Co-Editor Reinfred Addo is a Ghanaian-American writer, and author of the poetry collections Washed Over and The Dedicadas. His work has been published in various publications and by various organizations. He currently lives in Gainesville, Florida and enjoys the area’s arts initiatives, including Bacopa Literary Review, Poetry Jam, DOPEnmic, and ARTSPEAKS.

Fiction Editor Alec Kissoondyal is an undergraduate at the University of Florida pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English. His fiction has been published in Zephyr Literary Journal, Bacopa Literary Review, The Bookends Review, Roadrunner Review, Let’s Stab Caesar! Magazine, Retro Press Magazine, Drunk Monkeys Magazine, The Centifictionist, and The Los Angeles Review. He has a forthcoming short story to be released in Cornice Magazine.

Poetry Co-Editor Oliver Keyhani is a visual and performance artist, poet and writer. He is a member of the Gainesville Fine Arts Association and a founding member of the Carousel of Souls Curiosities Circus Troupe (CoSCCT). His short experimental poem-play “Children of Gaia” has been produced at the Tank Theater in NYC. His hybrid visual-poetry works the “dada manuscripts”: thé avec dada and the book of dada dandies have received international acclaim, with forthcoming releases planned.

Creative Nonfiction Editor Stephanie Seguin studied English Literature and French at the University of Florida. She has published humor, short fiction, and personal memoir and spent over 15 years as a freelance editor and teacher of languages.

Editor Emeritus Mary Bast's creative nonfiction, poetry, and flash memoir have appeared in a number of print and online journals, and she's author, co-author, or contributor to eight professional books from her career as a psychologist, leadership consultant, and Enneagram coach. Bast is also a visual artist.

Girl, Sunsplit: Beautiful Language Tells an Unusual Story

By Creative Nonfiction Editor Stephanie Seguin

Girl, Sunsplit by Neethu Krishnan, was Bacopa’s Creative Nonfiction prizewinner for 2022. One of the things that stood out instantly about this piece was how words were so carefully selected to create beautiful images. In the very first paragraph, "talons" of heat foreshadow the author's painful condition, and the use of the word “snail” perfectly conjures the image of a large procession moving slowly.

I’m cross-legged on my bed, the AC safeguarding me from the talons of South Indian heat. Padding to the dark-tinted, curtained windows of my bedroom, I keen my ear to the thuds and clangs, trying to gauge how long till they snail to the road facing the front of our house.

The language is beautiful throughout, but the words don’t distract from the story itself, that of a young girl reckoning with an unusual illness, at odds with her very environment.  And in fact, the beauty of the images created seem at odds with the anguish the author is experiencing.

A surge of cold cocoons me. Relieved, I nestle into the dryness. I keep my eyes trained on the muted sun, nose-pressed against my window, as the cold kneads its chilly fingers into me, reconstituting me from an infinite incoherence of molecules into a finite and mostly non-ionized human-approximating whole.

When reading creative nonfiction, I am also easily charmed by an unfamiliar world I can spend a few minutes in and feel at home.

Steel plates loaded with rice and curry in hand, we emerge from the dark cave of the bedroom into the corridor, where there’s no dearth of sun. Large sections of the outside-facing walls are criss-crosses of vibrant, kingfisher blue painted wood, just like the twin front doors and their frames. Seating ourselves on the narrow bench and desk in the corridor, we finish our meals, large diamonds of warm light tickling our sweaty backs.

Girl, Sunsplit was a complete immersion into someone else's world, with all the beauty and all the pain. For me, writing like this is what makes creative nonfiction so compelling.

Neethu Krishnan is a writer from Mumbai, India. She holds postgraduate degrees in English and Microbiology and writes between genres at the moment. Her work has appeared in The Spectacle and is forthcoming in Seaside Gothic and the anthology "Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging" (Volume Silver) from Improbable Press.