{"id":170,"date":"2018-01-23T10:23:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T16:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/howlingbird\/?p=170"},"modified":"2018-01-23T10:25:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T16:25:43","slug":"katelynn-hibbard-wins-2018-howling-bird-press-poetry-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.augsburg.edu\/howlingbird\/2018\/01\/23\/katelynn-hibbard-wins-2018-howling-bird-press-poetry-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"KateLynn Hibbard Wins 2018 Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

Howling Bird Press has awarded the 2018 poetry prize to Simples<\/em> by KateLynn Hibbard of St. Paul, Minnesota. The press will publish the book in November 2018, and Hibbard receives a $1,000 prize. Hibbard\u2019s work was chosen in a national competition among more than one-hundred submissions.<\/p>\n

Hibbard based Simples<\/em> on extensive research into the history of women\u2019s experiences on the American prairie during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.\u00a0Simples<\/em>\u00a0uses free verse and poetic form and persona to examine the lives of settlers and indigenous women against the backdrop of the Great Plains, with close attention to flora and fauna as well as the goods and materials of daily life. This unblinking look at a historical moment examines hardships both endured and inflicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to get in touch with the fact that women\u2019s voices and women\u2019s experiences in this period of history and really in all periods of history have not been voiced as much as I think they should be,\u201d Hibbard says. In\u00a0Simples,\u00a0<\/em>she invites readers to experience the historical struggles of women in a way that is much more accessible than a textbook account.<\/p>\n

KateLynn Hibbard\u2019s first book of poems, Sleeping Upside Down<\/em>, won the Gerald Cable Book Award and was published by Silverfish Review Press in March 2006. Her second book, Sweet Weight<\/em>, came from Tiger Bark Press in 2012. She edited the anthology When We Become Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwestern Experience<\/em> for Squares and Rebels Press. Hibbard is a professor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where she teaches creative writing, composition, and women\u2019s studies. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon and her MA in Women\u2019s History from the University of Madison. Her awards include the Gerald Cable Book Award, the Astraea Foundation\u2019s Lesbian Writing Finalist Award, a McKnight Artist Fellowship in Poetry, two Minnesota State Arts Board Initiative Grants, a Jerome Foundation Travel Grant, and residencies at Hedgebrook and the Cornucopia Arts Council.<\/p>\n

Augsburg University\u2019s student-run Howling Bird Press issues a nationwide\u00a0call for submissions\u00a0on an annual basis.\u00a0Prior to awarding the 2018 Howling Bird Prize to Hibbard, Howling Bird\u2019s editorial board reviewed over 130 manuscripts submitted by writers at all levels of expertise, from beginning poets to well-established authors. Each manuscript\u00a0was fully read and carefully considered, and the editorial board engaged in extensive discussion about the submissions with Creative Writing faculty members who are also published authors before selecting the winner. Simples<\/em> was one of five finalists, and the others are:<\/p>\n