KB Brookins wins 2021 Saguaro Poetry Prize

 

Ire’ne Lara Silva selected How to Identify Yourself with a Wound by Austin poet KB Brookins as the winner of the 2021 Saguaro Poetry Prize. They receive $1200 and publication by Kallisto Gaia Press.

KB is a Black queer genderless poet, educator, organizer, and student affairs professional. They have earned many fellowships and publications, most notably from Lambda Literary, African American Leadership Institute – Austin, Cincinnati Review, Cincinnati Review, and Equality Texas. They are the author of HOW TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF WITH A WOUND (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022), winner of the 2020 Saguaro Poetry Prize. Catch them talking sweetness and other (non)human things online at @earthtokb.

The contest drew 192 entries. There will be no runner-up this year although two of the finalists are under consideration for publication.

Here’s a selection included in the collection:

& all it amounted to was laps around the sun

The mornings in low light lining the hairline on your stomach.

The half-bitten skin on my fingers teaching your edges how

to grow. The touch on my leg when my teeth grinds became audible,

the breath slipping somewhere between your lips & mine. All of it

was poetry to me. All ellipses along the trail with the garden

that eventually becomes the sidewalk. We walked that path

many times. We sung The Supremes & more on 3-hour rides

to the city I called home & back. All of it culminated into

the fleeting shadow of your car. All the midday tremors terrored

the ground you stomped on before you reached the front door.

On nights when I see the moon still wrapped with your name, I stick

my pillows in the middle of my thoughts & wake with your clothes

still there. How selfish of the universe to not let us be; how silly

every lap around the sun has felt since.