Carey Taylor’s poem “Birthday Fires” is the winner of the 2022 Neahkahnie Mountain Poetry Prize sponsored by the Hoffman Center for Arts in Manzanita, Oregon. Judge Lana Hechtman Ayers had this to say about Carey’s poem:
“Birthday Fires” is a marvel of imagery and complexity in 9 couplets. The fires are birth, creativity, life. The poem reminds us that even as hardships and sorrows, sap joy, we can still celebrate and make our own light, as in the final captivating image of the poem “fiery candelabras/tilted on our heads.”
You can read Carey’s poem on the Hoffman Center for the Arts webpage.
Carey Taylor is the author of The Lure of Impermanence (Cirque Press 2018).