2013 NightBallet Pushcart Prize Nominations for The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses XXXIX

NightBallet Press announces, with great pride and excitement, the six nominees for The Pushcart Prize XXXIX Best of the Small Presses:

J. E. Stanley—“Random Facts About Halley’s Comet”—from Selected Regions of the Moon
Christopher Franke—“Knot Final Words”—from As the Caffeine Kicks In
James Valvis—“My Mother’s Pills”—from What Exactly Is a Valvis?
Lyn Lifshin—“Chora Church Daze”—from Tangled as the Alphabet—The Istanbul Poems
Chansonette Buck—“test pattern”—from talisman
Alex Gildzen—“Sea Salt on Green Pepper”—from Blossoms—a collection of poems (1955 to 2013)in celebration of the poet's 70th birthday

Congratulations to the nominees!  As was the case the past two years, the decision about who to nominate was an incredibly difficult one.  This editor struggled with making the final choices right up to the deadline of "postmarked by December 1st".  There were so many outstanding poems from so many superb manuscripts this past season we found it to be almost impossible to narrow down the chaps and the poems to only six nominations.  But in keeping with the NBP tradition that it's important to recognize achievement and promote excellence even if we can't be all-encompassing, we have once again participated in the nomination process.

I sincerely wish I could have nominated a poem from every book published by NBP this past year.  Each one of the NightBallet Press poets deserves to be recognized.  You are all winners IMHO.  I am extremely honored and humbled to have had the opportunity to publish a book for you.

For those of you unfamiliar with the process, the Pushcart Prize nominations will be reviewed by the Pushcart editors and the final selections will be made by April of 2014.  At that time, the small presses selected will be notified.  If NBP doesn't hear from them by the end of April, we'll know our nominees won't be reprinted in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses XXXIX in November.
You can read more and check out the Pushcart website here.

Once again, please join the NightBallet Press family in congratulating these six outstanding poets!