things
i know to be true,
but will never prove
(for Annette Kern)
that
when someone you love
dies
you get to call
“dibs”
on their weightless soul
because
they will require a partner;
someone
to transcribe the message,
walk
the 3 blocks to Home Depot,
purchase
the small objects, tools that cut
God’s
large plumelike panicles from the
hollow
reed, so it might sing.
The 2017 Luminaire Award for Best Poetry
THIRD PLACE WINNER
We are pleased to announce the third place winner for the 2017 Luminaire Award for Best Poetry, honoring the independent press’ best poems of the year. The winners are selected by an external panel that judges all pieces blindly and selects the full list of finalists. Alternating Current does not determine the final outcome for the judging; the external judges’ decisions are final. The third place winner receives a printed certificate, publication on Alternating Current’s award page, publication on The Coil, and printed publication in the triennial print award anthology with the selection indicated.
Omotara James is a British-born American poet and essayist. The daughter of Nigerian and Trinidadian immigrants, she currently resides in New York City. A 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow, she is the recipient of Slice Literary’s 2016 Bridging the Gap Award for Emerging Poets, as well as the Nancy P. Schnader Academy of American Poets Award. Her work has appeared in The Poetry Project, Winter Tangerine, Crab Fat Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue, Arkansas International, Newton Literary, and elsewhere. She has received scholarships from Cave Canem and the Home School. Online, you can find her at @omotarajames and at omotarajames.com.
