The Push in the Pushcart Prize
We who submit work to publishers, agents, magazines and literary journals know the odds. Nearly everything comes back with – generally – a polite decline that often includes the phrase, not for us. Resilient writers have learned to expect these refusals. We just check off the failed submission and go back to our desks.
In most bookstores, poetry titles occupy a “niche,” with most volumes from the poets we studied in school. However, there’s often a shelf where small and independent presses publish regional, upcoming and unknown poets. That’s likely because of the Pushcart Prize. In 1972, discouraged by the lack of promotion that publishers gave to authors, a group of writers marched up Fifth Avenue selling their books from pushcarts. It was a demonstration that spurred the development of the Pushcart Press.
Each year the Press selects the best poetry, essays, and short fiction from the small presses of that year. Editors at these publications submit up to six entries from works they have published. To get a Pushcart Prize is a big deal, an American literary prize that strengthens the impact of an author’s work. So too, the Pushcart Prize nomination.
I received two nominations. The first, in 2017, came from the editors of Connecticut River Review for “Triptych,” a memoir-tinged poem of scenes living in a religious order while young. The second nomination appeared in a surprising email. Alice Persons, editor and publisher of Moon Pie Press in Maine, nominated “Lime Trees in Yorkshire,” recalling the locals boast about bees whose hives “leak honey lime scented and pale green.” That poem, alternating tercets and couplets, appeared in my 2023 collection, Tangled. For each nomination I was pleased and strongly encouraged. Why? Because a nomination means that editors review the full range of what they’ve published during the year, selecting what they judge worthy of competitive value.
Writers want to be read. We also want our work to be distinctive, memorable, and honest. An author has both revision and editing to consider before publication. Small presses often provide more help than large, commercial houses. Alice Persons, who has published poetry since 2003, worked with me diligently as we went through the manuscript, often accepting revisions done at the last nervous stretch before publication. She provided patient and generous support. I asked more of Alice than I should have.
Since that first book sale from carts on Fifth Avenue, fifty years have passed. Before 1972 there were few small independent publishers. Now, according to Poets & Writers March/April article “Trends,” there are thousands of small presses. Each one opens pathways to hopeful and serious writers. We need the option of independent presses They serve readers as well as writers, giving us choices beyond the obvious direction of the market. Thank you, Moon Pie Press.
