My Pushcart-Prize Nominated Poem

As a working writer, I often reap seeds that were sown months and maybe years ago. This is simultaneously a frustrating and reassuring experience. It is frustrating because it is easy to want results fast once you’ve put in the effort. It is reassuring because, during slow periods, you can have faith that results may be about to show.

I’m in a slow period, somewhat finding myself licking my wounds from life… well, life-ing. But at the same time, I am not. I’ve been leading some wonderful workshops. I am also writing a play for children. I’ll be able to talk about it in a couple of months. Hint: the play will not be shown in the US. The slowness is more of a mind thing (and sometimes a financial thing). But that’s another story for another post.

I first wrote the second part of my Pushcart-nominated poem in January 2023 during one of my bi-yearly writing challenges. It was one of those poems that I re-visited every now and then. However, I didn’t connect with it enough to start sending it out. During a workshop about editing, I attended online, and we were asked to find a poem from our ‘discard’ pile. We were instructed to work on it. During that session, I selected what would be the second part of my poem. I tried to understand what wasn’t working and why it made me uncomfortable in some ways. I concluded that the poem felt like a consequence of an event, and it needed a front-end boost to reveal itself. As such, I needed to write the poem that was hiding beneath the poem.

The poem that came out of that exercise troubled me (of course) in a different way. It felt like it contained some cliches. Except for its unconventional format, it wasn’t saying anything new. And yet, it made complete sense, following my experience of the event. Could my experience be both valid and written over and over? I thought about it and concluded that yes, cliches exist because of our experiences. Sometimes our stories are ones that millions of others have gone through. This happens often despite the common knowledge.

It occurred to me that my poem contains nothing new. Monsters, narcissists, and abusers tend to have several things in common. That was it. [Apropos, note how much internal work goes into the poem beyond the page and why I need more naps.] I sent it off to a suitable call—the International Human Rights Art Movement. It was accepted and eventually published in a book called The Feminine Voice of Malta.

I am overjoyed about the nomination. You can’t apply for it. The editors of the books/websites/journals we’re published in make those decisions. Therefore, it was a complete and utter surprise. I couldn’t speak for a few minutes there. Is it a big deal to be nominated? Controversial, but most of us agree that it is.

Read more about the prize here. Here. And here. In the meantime, I leave you with this quote and a recording that I made for Wednesday Night Poets, a long-standing open mic led by Kai Coggin.

Maybe writers should celebrate a nomination simply because it makes them feel heard, and maybe as a result of feeling heard, their writing will blossom in new, important ways.
– Dana Shavin

View the recording

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