This is a video of Clayton Michaels' "drylung" read by the author from his chapbook Watermark ( watermarkpoems.com ), the winner of the 2010 qarrtsiluni chapbook contest.
The collection has already drawn rave reviews. Ken Lamberton, judge of this year's contest, said:
"It's this kind of poetry that I find most gratifying; the kind that uses just the right salient concrete images to illicit an emotional response...Furthermore, the surprising juxtaposition of many images gives the poetry a wonderfully controlled surreal and mesmerizing quality—which to me not only holds the manuscript together but raises it to a level above the other submissions."
Pamela Johnson Parker, last year's winner, said what she found, in addition to the "superbly succinct" language in these poems, was "that something extra--call it gravitas, call it cohesion--that makes a chapbook a work of art as well as a work of literature."
Watermark will be published both online and in print, at the end of August. Please visit watermarkpoems.com for more information.
