We’re excited to announce the winner of our 19th Annual Book Prize—Isaiah Hines’ null landing!
Thank you to everyone who submitted to our 19th Annual Book Prize. We received upwards of 200 manuscripts - all of which were daring, engaging, and a joy to read. However, we can only publish one and, this year, that one is null landing by poet Isaiah Hines.
This year’s judge, Sam Ace, had the following to say about null landing -
“‘A life constituted by vertigo, by sheer spatiality, generates a zone of alteration. An opacity / that refuses to exist only in relation to time. Our love gathers, / performs the collaborative beauty of critical edge-work.’ The poems in this collection reverberate with history, reference and embodiment. Words range and jump across the page, and are interspersed with drawings, charts, and symbols. The poet has created a work of complex multi-dimensionality, much like a dance or live performance. It's not surprising that the poet asks of the reader ‘Have you considered the poetics of mathematics? of quantum physics?’ As revealed through the considerable liner notes, the poet has not only considered these things, but works in relation to artists, performers, and thinkers whose lives, past and current, intersect in layered rather than linear time.”
We can’t wait to show you all the wonderful work Isaiah is doing. His collection is as visual as it is linguistic, as cerebral as it is deeply felt. Help us welcome Isaiah Hines to the Slope family!
Isaiah A. Hines is a poet and student from Burlington, Vermont. Their writing has appeared in Engaging Black Poetics, a blog series by Nightboat Books and their performance work has been hosted by JAG Productions. They are currently completing a degree in Ethnic Studies while assisting with instruction in the Adult Education Program at Brooklyn Public Library. Their debut collection of poetry, null landing is forthcoming from Slope Editions.
Our finalists for the 19th Annual Book Prize:
Echoes, Erika Kielsgard
The Empty Kingdom, Sara Akant
Bloodline, Ansley Clark
Freak Lip: An Epistolary, Julia Cohen
Girl Country, Ansley Moon
Esau, Dan Rosenberg
108 Olivia, Maria Flaccavento
Hecho, Kell Nelson
Discordions, Whitney Kerutis
Him or Her or Whatever, Tyler Friend
Majnun, Makmak Faunlagui
Read about the finalists, and find short excerpts from their work, here!