{"id":33932,"date":"2016-06-05T08:27:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T14:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=33932"},"modified":"2019-01-09T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T16:56:14","slug":"2016-15-bytes-book-awards-poetry-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/2016-15-bytes-book-awards-poetry-finalists\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 15 Bytes Book Awards: Poetry Finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/bookawards1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-28688\" src=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/bookawards1.jpg\" alt=\"bookawards1\" width=\"200\" height=\"218\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThe 4th Annual 15 Bytes Book Awards is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2016 Poetry Award. Finalists were determined \u00a0by 15 Bytes\u2019 staff and guest judges based on three criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Quality of Writing\/Artistry<\/li>\n<li>Provides Insight into Utah landscape and\/or culture and\/or author has a connection to Utah (i.e., is or was a Utahn)<\/li>\n<li>Has the indefinable quality that makes a book special and unforgettable<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This year\u2019s finalists include the following in no particular order:<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RobCarneyArticle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-31770\" src=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RobCarneyArticle.jpg\" alt=\"RobCarneyArticle\" width=\"216\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RobCarneyArticle.jpg 216w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RobCarneyArticle-144x144.jpg 144w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RobCarneyArticle-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/RobCarneyArticle-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\" \/><\/a><strong>88 MAPS: Poems\u00a0<em>(Lost Horse Press, 2015)<\/em>, by Rob Carney<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rob Carney\u2019s \u00a0<em>88 Maps<\/em> offers a deliciously skewed worldview with laugh-out-loud lines that walk an unsteady slackline between the ridiculous and the sublime. Originally from Washington State, Carney is currently a professor of English at Utah Valley University, and a regular blogger at the online journal Terrain.org. Much of Carney\u2019s poetry-of-place is set in the Pacific Northwest, but he has also embraced the Utah landscape, although sometimes with a residual longing for greenness:\u00a0 \u201cSeems like every weekend in the summer here, someone wants to take you down to Moab,\u201d He writes, \u201cYou go there and hang out and marvel at nature and beauty.\u00a0 Like it\u2019s your job.\u201d The joke is, marveling at nature and beauty actually is Carney\u2019s job.\u00a0 His poems frequently involve mythologized encounters with the natural world, a place where someone might fish a peaceable grizzly bear out of the open sea, or wake up in bed holding a stringer of dream-fish, or where Utah legislators would need to buy a magic talisman to ward off imaginary wolves.\u00a0 In \u201cThe Church of the Stars and the Moon,\u201d Carney writes, \u201cIf angels are real, then an angel might be an owl.\u201d The poet imagines stocking his yard with pet shop mice in hopes of attracting a celestial raptor.\u00a0 Likewise, contemplating real estate he writes, \u201cIf there\u2019s added value in a ceiling fan,\/ then there must be value in a hawk.\u201d\u00a0 Behind the whimsy lies a vision for the re-enchantment of the world.<\/p>\n<p><em>To read the 15 Bytes review by Amy Brunvand of 88 Maps, click <a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/index.php\/wolves-that-lope-into-your-dreams-rob-carneys-88-maps\/\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Nancy_Takacs_Author_Photo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-32807\" src=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Nancy_Takacs_Author_Photo-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Nancy_Takacs_Author_Photo\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Nancy_Takacs_Author_Photo-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Nancy_Takacs_Author_Photo.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>BLUE PATINA <em>(Blue Begonia Press, 2015)<\/em>, by Nancy Takacs<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In Nancy Takacs\u2019 <em>Blue Patina<\/em> the natural world is deeply embedded in her language. Human existence coincides with the earth\u2019s natural rhythms to create a spatial and temporal topography\u2014what is routine in nature becomes ritual beneath the speaker\u2019s observant eye. The first poem acts as a \u201cproem\u201d or preliminary commentary on what we will encounter: a myriad of observations that contain an undertone of wonder found only by those who have wandered far enough to the edge of a Utah forest or into the center of a foxglove blossom to see what others can\u2019t or won\u2019t notice. Several poems provide a sense of place\u2014namely the rural area of Price, Utah, near where the poet resides. The vastness of the landscape as described in the poem \u201cUtah Map\u201d is contrasted against specific landmarks such as \u201can American flag\/ time and wind ate except\/ for a few withered stars\u201d drilled into Balance Rock by \u201ca woman from the town of Elmo,\u201d or an Anasazi granary near Escalante. Other poems are written as a series of calls and responses, the answers lyrical and strange. In one line a botanical word describes best the multiplicity of sight and voices existing throughout the book\u2014rhizome: \u201cI want\u2026[to] know under the surface\/how long the trail of rhizome\/can be, for one blossom.\u201d Yet, despite the hint of a complex source, the emergence of a linguistic landscape seems effortless. Thus, the gift of these poems: sight on the ground or in the sky\u2014patient, observant, sensory, precise, and always, always exploring.<\/p>\n<p><em>To read the 15 Bytes review by Danielle Dubrasky of Blue Patina, click <a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/index.php\/rituals-and-routines-nancy-takacs-blue-patina\/\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wade-Bentley.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-33169\" src=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wade-Bentley-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Wade Bentley\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wade-Bentley-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wade-Bentley-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wade-Bentley-900x1350.jpg 900w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Wade-Bentley.jpg 2042w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>WHAT IS MINE <em>(Aldrich Press, 2015)<\/em>, by C. Wade Bentley<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A couple hundred years ago, a very wise man prefaced a collection of his own poetry, writing, &#8220;The principle object, then, proposed in these Poems, was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.&#8221;\u00a0 The poems that have been collected in C. Wade Bentley&#8217;s <em>What is Mine<\/em>, sparkle for this very reason.\u00a0 Bentley&#8217;s discrete eye for tiny worlds that exist within the moment, his thoughtful meditations on the smallest movements, gestures, and implications show his readers that, in this remarkable existence of ours, the sum of\u00a0accumulated minutes\u00a0can be\u00a0greater than the span of a lifetime.\u00a0 With grace and linguistic dexterity, Bentley has captured, on the page, a\u00a0hundred seemingly ordinary incidents, but has done so in a luminescent\u00a0language, reminding\u00a0us that we can frequently find the greatest\u00a0significance in some of life&#8217;s subtlest and most transient\u00a0experiences.<\/p>\n<p><em>To read samples of Bentley&#8217;s poems featured in 15 Bytes&#8217; Sunday Blog Read, click <a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/index.php\/sunday-blog-read-wade-bentley\/\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>The winner of the award will be announced in July. Readings by all 3 finalists will be held this summer at a date and location TBD.<\/p>\n<p>15 Bytes and its publisher Artists of Utah thanks everyone who nominated a book for this award and for their support of the literary arts in the Beehive State.<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations to the finalists!<\/p>\n<p>(To see the finalists for fiction, click <a href=\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/index.php\/2016-15-bytes-book-awards-finalists\/\">here<\/a>. Art book finalists will be announced soon).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 4th Annual 15 Bytes Book Awards is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2016 Poetry Award. Finalists were determined \u00a0by 15 Bytes\u2019 staff and guest judges based on three criteria: Quality of Writing\/Artistry Provides Insight into Utah landscape and\/or culture and\/or author has a connection to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":33944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3230,69,35,2513],"tags":[1749,2931,2930,2293,2865],"class_list":["post-33932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-awards","category-daily-bytes","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first","tag-15-bytes-book-award","tag-88-maps","tag-blue-patina","tag-poetry","tag-what-is-mine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/fictionfinalists.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 01:31:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33932"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33961,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33932\/revisions\/33961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}