2022 Sundog Poetry Book Award Winner
Fire Index by Bethany Breitland
Bethany Breitland was born in northern Indiana. Her people are cult members, truckers, doctors, child-mothers, and business tycoons. She has lived, studied, and taught on the West Coast, the South, and New England. Breitland earned her undergrad degree from Pepperdine University, and her MFA from Vermont College. As an educator and activist, she has worked for over 20 years concerning women’s rights and the LGBTQ community. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recipient of various poetry prizes, this is her first full length book of poems. She lives with her children and her partner outside of Burlington, Vermont.
Runners-Up
Such Singular Comfort, by Hannah Carpino
The Only World We Have, by Raymond Hudson
2022 Judges
First Readers: Sue Burton, Lucas Farrell, Meg Reynolds, Neil Shepard, and Diana Whitney.
Final Judge: Shanta Lee
Shanta Lee Gander
Shanta Lee is the author of GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak in Woke Tongues, winner of the 2021 Vermont Book Award and the 2020 Diode Press full-length book prize. Her forthcoming collection, Black Metamorphoses (Etruscan Press, 2023), is what Lee describes as a 2000+ year old phone line opened to Ovid as well as an interrogation of the Greek mythos while creating her own new language in this work. She was the 2020 recipient of the Arthur Williams Award for Meritorious Service to the Arts as well as the 2020 gubernatorial appointee to the Vermont Humanities Council’s board of directors. Lee has an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, an MFA from the University of Hartford, and an undergraduate degree in Women, Gender, and Sexuality from Trinity College. To learn more about her visual art and written work, visit: Shantaleegander.com
2022 Book Award Finalists
Winner: Bethan Breitland, Fire Index
Runner-up: Hannah Carpino, Such Singular Comfort
Runner-up: Raymond Hudson, The Only World We Have
Finalist: Michael Carter, The Drive Away
Finalist: Sheri Sherman Cohen, Questions
Finalist: Kristin D’Agostino, Come to the Table!
Finalist: Ann Fisher, Splintered Moments
Finalist: Darren Higgins, Audubon's Gun
Finalist: Mary Elder Jacobsen, Stonechat
Finalist: Taylor Mardis Katz, Honeymeadow
Finalist: Abby Paige, The Undefended Border
Finalist: Scudder Parker, Our Temporary Place
Finalist: Bianca Amira Zanella, Untitled