Congratulations to the Winners and Finalists of the 2021 First Annual Maverick and Emerging Poet Awards, presented by the ruth weiss foundation. Founded with the aim to extend a helping hand to poets and artists, we are proud to award the winners of this year’s Maverick Poet and Emerging Poet Award to women, transgender, and non-binary artists who struggle to get their voices heard.

Katie O’Pray: ruth weiss was an icon - the experimentation and authenticity seen in her work; the fierce glee with which she lived; the spaces she created to let fellow artists explore their otherness. it is such an honour to receive this prize in her name. ruth weiss interwove poetry with her life in a way that welcomed and shaped generations. even in the wake of her death, she is empowering somebody like me.

Poetry has lived inside of me for as long as I can remember. There was never a burning desire to be a poet, but rather an underlying knowing that has taken at least thirty-seven years to realize. Word magick visited younger versions of mySelf when least expected, when the body was in depths of shadow emotions spiraling inward, and often provided a lifesaving form of release for little Dirt.

we are performing

(we are perfectly)

on the stage of

LATE

to work,

LATE

to home,

LATE

to bed,

LATE

to life.

on your second hand – binder – I don't think the pain is muscular – I think the binder

will be having an effect on your posture – perception – ability to breathe & stand up straight

whoever wore it before lost – their use for it – because of the weight – the density – the lack

thereof – because of the pain & aerated marrow – the malnutrition – the DIY double

mastectomy – you have performed – you stand with the doubtful hunch

of a question mark – your nightly exhale is a wish bone – scanned flat as a piece of paper

To see the Pleiades in a cluster

of weeds. Seven constellated starbursts

of dandelion, plain-faced, wearing joy's hue

in a season of grief and birth in starkest

proximity.

In the beginning, there were smoke-filled rooms. With men

who shouted "wo-man" at their wives. With people who cashed

government checks at the supermarket. In the beginning,

there were people who got cartons of cigarettes for their birthday

and Christmas. There were people who bought me scratch-offs

and said, "If you win, we can split it." There were stuffed animals

legend tells of a soft & strong

witch whose vapid skin gave way

to the most surprising of things—

impossibly so, vines sprouted from

her scalp, tumbling down shoulders

ripe with berries, her belly blanketed

by a bed of wispy moss, her legs

tough as tree trunks, and between

each stubby toe, a tiny beetle nestled

The tears in seat 11B had no birth. They did not struggle, breech or burst from the young woman's eyes. They became her, plainly, as a stench becomes a sow. It was an eleven-hour flight to Honolulu and she had never been on a plane before.