Former Taos Summer Writers' Conference graduate assistant, Nick DePascal is the winner of the first
West End Press Poetry Prize. His book,
Before You Become Improbable is just out from West End Press/University of New Mexico Press.
Of the book, Sasha Pimentel says, "
Before You Become Improbable is rich with the artifacts we are left with just before, or in the wake of, absence. It is a book which opens its windows, the floral curtains bunched and billowing, and on the stained wood floors we find finger bones and tufts of hair, or a dead crow with 'feathers erect like goosebumps on the skin'--all invitation to intimacy and history. Equally love poem and elegy, equally an exploration of the artist's life and a frank reflection on marriage, each line falls delicately, though the words and things which make them are hard and sharp. I love the 'stiff fingers' which 'pull the tongue' of this book, each 'bit by bit.' Like Dickinson, Nick DePascal is a poet's poet, a lover's poet."
Nick will be reading at
Bookworks in Albuquerque on Friday, September 19th at 7PM. Congratulations Nick! We can't wait to get a copy.
Nick DePascal lives in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife and son. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in RHINO, Sugar House Review, The Emerson Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Laurel Review, Aesthetix, ditch, and more. His essays and criticism have appeared in BoldType, The Rumpus, Pleiades, Rain Taxi, and Tucson Weekly, among others.