Home > PRISM Online > The 2022 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize Winning Pieces as chosen by judge Grace Lau

PRISM international is proud to announce the winning pieces from our Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize along with Grace Lau’s judge’s essay.

Grace is a settler living in Ontario on the traditional and Treaty territory of the Anishinabek people, now known as the Chippewa Tri-Council comprised of the Beausoleil, Rama, and Georgina Island First Nations. Her debut collection of poetry, The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak, is published by Guernica Editions and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her work can be found in Grain Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Arc Poetry, and elsewhere. Find her on social media at @thrillandgrace.

Judge’s Essay

It was such a privilege to read the shortlisted poems. I visited with each of these poems as often as I could during the weeks I had with them over the holidays, and enjoyed my time with each. Gradually, after re-reading each poem a few times, I’d start thinking of them while doing random things around the house, like the dishes or laundry. In the end, three of them kept beckoning me back. 

The winning piece, “poem with resonance,” took a unique idea and expanded upon it in a range of wonderful ways. What does resonance have to do with seizures? With memory? This poem ties all three together. It’s science and art and nostalgia. I didn’t expect to be taken inside the minutes and seconds of a seizure the way this poem transported me, inside an MRI machine — and then, inside a time machine. 

My mother and grandmother and brother and father and grandfather all inside of me,

generations of fracturing neurons meeting in my gray matter

so that with every seizure the years and stars and bodies that made me resonate.

The dead and the living and all their ghosts collecting dust in my prefrontal lobe.

Even now, this poem resonates in me.

In “Timelapse,” the poet’s visuals are striking and unexpected. Somehow, this short but vivid poem manages to capture the feeling of not only looking at a timelapse, but also the smells and emotions of memory:

every spring I burn the roots. toss grass seeds and dream of a meadow. the knapweed returns every year. in spring when rain mixes with cottonwood the air smells like nostalgia.

But what I enjoyed most about this poem was the “meta-ness” of it—it is a poem about a timelapse and its many visual pieces, but it is also ultimately about the passage of time and the poet’s daughter growing up. A lovely poem that works on different levels.

“performing grief at the Apollo” is a meditation on all the ways we try to force grief into a box that looks right. I appreciated the nod in the poem to how, as lovers of words, we often feel compelled to deal with grief—and every other strong emotion—through writing. (Guilty.)

The cry ain’t ugly enough. run it back. I don’t think they heard my poetic blubbering. from the top. I smash a glass against the wall and it shatters into a million beautiful pieces. Did you catch that? into a million beautiful pieces. take 3 but this time really feel it. okay. I smash my whiskey-filled glass into the flat screen and I shatter into a million bloody shards.

I will not give away the ending here even though it is the most powerful part of the poem, but I loved how it spoke to the never-ending, non-linear nature of grief.

Congratulations to all of the shortlisted poets! It was a pleasure to read your poems and experience the power of your work.

Please join us in congratulating these writers!

Grand Prize
“poem with resonance” by Emory Brinson

Emory Brinson is a public policy and literary arts student studying at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the land of the Narragansett Indian Tribe. She is terrified of spiders and obsessed with writing about the body and its fragments. Her poetry is a meditation on the ways the past echoes throughout the physical form. She is from Charlotte, NC, and her other passions include building equitable educational systems, drinking Earl Grey tea, and playing Scrabble with her grandmother. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest, and YoungArts. She was a finalist for the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, and she is published or forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, Apiary Magazine, Olney Magazine, and more. 

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Runner-Up
“Timelapse” by Leesa Dean

Leesa Dean is a graduate of Concordia (BA) and the University of Guelph’s (MFA) Creative Writing programs and teaches Creative Writing at Selkirk College in Castlegar, British Columbia. Her previous publications include Waiting for the Cyclone, nominated for the 2017 Trillium and ReLit Awards, and the poetry chapbook The Desert of Itabira. Her novella-in-verse, The Filling Station, was published by Gaspereau Press in November 2022, and she has a second chapbook, Apogee/Perigee, forthcoming with above/ground press in 2023. She lives on an acreage with her husband, daughter, and a wild bush cat named Tuba in the rural community of Krestova, BC.

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Second Runner-Up
“performing grief at the Apollo” by Edythe Rodriguez

Edythe Rodriguez is a Philly-based copywriter, hardcore Bustelo drinker and non-violent Beyhive member. She loves neo-soul, battle rap, and long walks through old poetry journals. Edythe has received fellowships from PEN America, Hurston/Wright, The Watering Hole, and Brooklyn Poets. Her work is either published or forthcoming in Obsidian, Brown Sugar Literary, Call and Response Journal, and Alebrijes Review.

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Thank you to Grace, our winners, and all who submitted!

Don’t forget The Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction judged by Waubgeshig Rice is open until January 15th! Learn more on our Contests page, and submit via Submittable. Free submissions for Black and Indigenous writers and a limited number of free submissions for low-income folks.

PRISM Online
Andrew Calderone