Arlington, VA—August 21, 2024
Gival Press is pleased to announce that Jendi Reiter of Northampton, Massachusetts has won the 23rd Annual Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award-2024 for the poem titled Vita Sackville-West Wins the Golden Wedding Award at the Cummington Fair, chosen anonymously by the judge, Madeline B. Kramer. The award includes a $500.00 cash prize, and the poem will be published both on the Gival Press website and in ArLiJo, its online journal.
Vita Sackville-West Wins the Golden Wedding Award
at the Cummington Fair
An optimistic alto covers Gentle on My Mind
in the bandshell by the chicken barn.
Her calves chunk-chunk in floral-stitched boots.
Is the idea of a woman less demanding than her pussy?
Twinned oxen yoked to concrete
blocks pull through dust
to cheers. Desire anything
because it's in front of you,
soap, mortgages, and dyed quartz flowers
sold from white wooden stalls
at the bottom of the hill. Ideas don't tire,
rub themselves to rash, or bleed like roast beef dinner
that's promised as a prize over the loudspeaker
to the best couple fifty-plus years wed.
Man and woman is understood
by the burlap-faced leaders of the two-step, gently
resting their chins on their wives' tucked curls.
Slow, slow. The alto swings
long molasses hair back from her cheeky face
singing that not-like-other-girls song.
The oxen win a ribbon. The boy who hits
the bell with the hammer wins a ticket to do it again.
His mother sticks her face into a cream puff
the way Vita would have
tongued Virginia Woolf's cunt. To be pleasant
memory, to be covered in art,
don't cry at leavings. Blame
is a trash barrel of single-use knives.
Ideas are insatiable. Vita and Harold died
one anniversary short of golden,
she with her tea cakes, he with his Persian boys.
And Virginia, when she weighed down her pockets
with tickets for the final carousel,
what vows held her up so long?
Copyright © 2024 by Jendi Reiter.
About the Author
Jendi Reiter is the author of the novels Origin Story (2024) and Two Natures (2016), both from Saddle Road Press; five poetry books and chapbooks, most recently Made Man (Little Red Tree, 2022); and the story collection An Incomplete List of My Wishes (Sunshot Press/New Millennium Writings, 2016). Origin Story was a finalist for the Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Prize and Two Natures won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary Fiction. They are the editor of the writing resource site WinningWriters.com.
Photo by Ezra Autumn Wilde.
Finalists
Why the Sunrise is Trans
by Jendi Reiter of Northampton, MA
The Golden Shovel
by Vanessa Haley of Wilmington, DE
Quarantine Season: I Still Love You, But
by Brent Schaffer of Anchorage, AK
Fear
by Elliott Kurta of Charlotte, NC
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