{"id":39211,"date":"2025-07-17T18:44:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T01:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=39211"},"modified":"2026-01-23T13:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:45:13","slug":"winner-of-the-willow-springs-surrealist-poetry-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/winner-of-the-willow-springs-surrealist-poetry-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Winner of the Willow Springs Surrealist Poetry Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2024 Surrealist Prize Finalists<\/h1>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"Willow<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in <\/strong>Willow Springs 95<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Winner<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

“Upon Reading \u0160alamun’s Opera Buffa<\/em>, The Trees Outside My Window Reel and Rhumba” by Ronda Piszk Broatch<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Toma\u017e tells me, I’m wrapped in your stole!<\/em> I tell him
your exclamation points drop like wind-snapped limbs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A moon and a pillow described grief, similarly.
The wind grew fifty-some miles per hour, whistlingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toma\u017e’s translator says (a) poem is all flung-ness,<\/em>
spun-ness, a value-neutral sublimation of all rec-<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ordered matter into seraphic process.<\/em> Dust encrusts
the red porcelain roses atop my ancestor’s ring box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porcelain, Paul Celan. Toma\u017e’s translator likens
the man to an amalgam of petuntse and kaolin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something’s left confused\/incomplete\/out in the rain.
Who comes back? Who gives in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ask Toma\u017e: what would you pick up, a bomb<\/em>
or a dandelion?<\/em> He prefers to sit between his dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The translator mourns the poet’s passing, saying
Hell on earth would be better served by opera seria.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Finalists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Willie James<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

“I Wanted a Little Candlelight in the Garden”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bruce Bond<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

“Clouds”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corey Zeller<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

“It Was Like That, and After That, It Was Like That, Only All the Time”<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Melissa Kwasny writes of the winning manuscript, \u201cThe winning poem has the insight and errancy that we want from surrealist work, as well as formal inventiveness and humor. It\u2019s clever, and at the same time moving, with its talk of the fragility of people and porcelain\u2014and its pun on poor Celan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2024 Surrealist Prize Finalists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-issue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39405,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39211\/revisions\/39405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}