The Lichtenberg Figures , winner of the Hayden Carruth Award, is an unconventional sonnet sequence that interrogates the relationship between language and memory, violence and form. “Lichtenberg figures” are fern-like electrical patterns that can appear on (and quickly fade from) the bodies of people struck by lightning. Throughout this playful and elegiac debut—with its flashes of autobiography, intellection, comedy, and critique—the vocabulary of...
· Hayden Carruth Award has developed into one of the most prestigious awards for emerging poets · Manuscript enthusiastically selected from over 1200 manuscripts. · Reading 1200 anonymous poetry manuscripts can be a mind-numbing experience, but Olstein’s manuscript shined through at level of reading, and some of the many notes scrawled on her manuscript from the readers include: o YES! o Stunning poems o Generous o Reaches out and grabs the reader o Engaging poetic logic o Lovely arc...
