Contributors

Snake~Nation~Review Issue 21

Dance From Inside My Bones

Winner of the Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award

Poetry by Lana Hechtman Ayers

There’s such sweetness and bravery in Lana Hechtman Ayers’ poems, a clarity that’s always gentled by the poems’ lyricism and by the poet’s ability to see her own life — even the losses and cruelties she’s faced — with humor and grace and a faith that’s “verdant” and “calmly stirring.” Dance From Inside My Bones offers the reader that cool shade, too, with upturned palms. It’s a generous offering, a gift.

— Cecilia Woloch

Dean's Links
www.deanpoling.com
www.valdostadailytimes.com

Lana Hechtman Ayers

Snake Nation Press is proud to announce the finalists of the Violet Reed Haas Poetry Award.

Visit our blog for insight into the process of selecting the finalists from Editor Roberta George.

Finalists

David Evans of Charbondale, IL, for A Chorus of the Wild

Dion Farquhar of Santa Cruz, CA, for Wonderful Terrible

Leonard Dress of Perrysburg, OH, for The Orpheus Complex

Veronica Patterson of Loveland, CO, for Around the Block of the World

Suzanne Wadley Rhodenbaugh of St. Louis, MO, for The Whole Shebang and Silver for the Long Haul
Lucas Carpenter of Oxford, GA, for The Mutilated Man

Christina Lovin of Lancaster, KY for Settlement

Scott Owens of Hickory, NC, for I Forgot to Write the Name

David Salner of Frederick, MD, The Feta, the Olives, the Wine

Lianne Spidel of Greenville OH, for Something Made of Earth

Rupert Fike of Clarkston, GA, for This One Shot We All Get

Judith Hemschemeyer of Winter Park, FL, for Hope

Gregory Byrd of Clearwater, FL, for Florida Straits

Peter Kahn of Chicago, IL, for Swing (and Miss)

Please welcome Kathy Flann, whose keen eye, quick pencil, and tremendous heart have reached practically everybody in the invented but wholly believable community of Smoky Ordinary, from small to great, the up-and-comers to the down-and-outers, from the woman caring for her dying husband to the man that howls like a dog, from a jaded former United States President to the bird smashed on the grill of his limo. This collection marks the beginning of an original and memorable career.
–Madison Smartt Bell

Kathy Flann

Winner of the 2008
Serena McDonald Kennedy Award