We are happy to congratulate Barbara Sabol of Akron, OH for winning Sheila-Na-Gig Editions' Second Annual Full-Length Poetry Manuscript Prize for her work Imagine a Town. The poems in Imagine A Town reveal how a confederacy of places--a hometown, adopted city, a neighborhood--conspires to shape identity, especially when one's sense of self butts up against the values and expectations embraced by that place. These narratives convey how a girl's long view is foreshortened by smokestacks, slim resources, and the rough Alleghenies circling her blue-collar existence. Self-discovery also manifests through a reckoning of events outside the kitchen window, and in the wider world. Conversely, distance from the speaker's origins gently tightens the grasp of that place as she reconciles inevitable losses and regrets exacted by her departure. Memories of coming-of-age in a time of milkmen and trolley cars prompt a visitation to a hometown that's taken up residence in the poet's imagination as she journeys through place and time. Also infusing these poems is the tension of a constructed suburban world imposed on the natural world, such that the sight of a buck in a neighbor's yard startles a renewed connection with nature, and an awareness of deeper losses. The concept of home, a longing to belong, and the risks and rewards of carving an outsider existence lie at the beating heart of this collection.
Barbara Sabol is the author of the poetry collection, Solitary Spin (Main Street Rag Publishing), and two chapbooks, The Distance Between Blues (Finishing Line Press) and Original Ruse (Accents Publishing) Her work has appeared widely in journals, most recently The Comstock Review, San Pedro River Review, Literary Accents, Akitsu, Presence, and in a number of anthologies. Barbara's awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and the Mary Jean Irion Poetry Prize. She has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. Barbara received an MFA from Spalding University. She contributes poetry book reviews for the Poetry Matters blog. Barbara is a speech therapist who lives in Akron, OH with her husband and wonder dogs.
Hayley Mitchell Haugen holds a Ph.D. in 20th Century American Literature from Ohio University and an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. She is currently an Associate Professor of English at Ohio University Southern, where she teaches courses in composition, American literature, and creative writing. Her chapbook What the Grimm Girl Looks Forward To appears from Finishing Line Press (2016), and poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Rattle, Slant, Spillway, Chiron Review, Verse Virtual and many other journals. Light & Shadow, Shadow & Light from Main Street Rag Publishing Company (2018) is her first full-length collection. She edits Sheila-Na-Gig online: https: //sheilanagigblog.com/ and Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. (105)
