Why Not Me?

After Happy Hour nominated Even in the Woodpile for Best New Poets 2026. I know thousands of poems get nominated each year. And… I don't care. This time it was me.

I sought out the editors at AWP in Baltimore this year because they'd just published Woodpile. Though I don't think we're supposed to play favorites, this piece is, nonetheless, one of mine. They were exactly who you hope is on the other end of a Submittable queue.

The email from "The Big In-Charge" Jess came in the two-week stretch between my dad's death date and my birthday. Anyone who reads my work knows that means it arrived at the very beginning of my second year without my dad. Grief on one end, joy on the other. Or maybe not ends at all — just the same thing, turning over.

Here's the part I keep turning over: Even in the Woodpile is set on Magnolia Avenue. This year, at my aunt's house for the holidays, I wrote a poem about her magnolia tree as I sat on the couch looking out her living room window. I didn't plan it (I very rarely do). And with the weather this year, I couldn't have. When I got home, there was the email from Jess, telling me my poem about Magnolia Ave had earned a nomination. Life imitating art imitating life.

Anyone else get some nomination news this week?

<3