Neck of the World (Swenson Poetry Award)

Neck of the World is the eleventh volume in the prestigious May Swenson Poetry Award series. In it, Daniel Rzicznek offers poems that, in quick angular language, capture the natural world and at the same time extend it into a surreal vision, sometimes dream-like, sometimes dark. Alice Quinn, judge for the 2007 Swenson Award, says this of Rzicznek’s work: “Throughout, the language pulsates, always vigorous, by turns knotty and crystalline. . . . In Neck of the World, we have a poet with a striking new vision--challenging, rewarding, and bold."

F. Daniel Rzicznek earned his BA from Kent State University and MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University. His chapbook of prose poems, Cloud Tablets, part of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series, appeared from Kent State University Press in 2006. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Boston Review, AGNI, The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, and numerous other literary journals. Currently, he teaches English composition at Bowling Green State University and lives with his wife in Bowling Green, Ohio. Neck of the World is his first book-length collection of poems.