Clockhouse Pushcart Prize Nominations

Clockhouse is thrilled to announce nominations from Volume Seven, 2019
for this year’s Pushcart Prize.

Fiction:

D.E. Hardy, “Silk City, 1913”

Poetry:

Alice B. Fogel, “Event Horizon”

Ju-Hyun Park, “Appendix”

Claudia Owusu, “The Night Nigeria and Argentina Play the World Cup”

In D.E. Hardy’s “Silk City, 1913”, the prose is rich and layered, thick with dream and history. Hardy begins in a turn-of-the century silk factory. “The too-wide windows flood the room with bald light. Skin yellows to blue. Every cranny is bright. Every corner naked. The dignity of shadows denied.” A young woman labors in the factory. She is desperate. Her work is difficult and consuming. In “Silk City, 1913” Hardy negotiates the complexities of labor, race, gender, and the daily struggle of immigrants in a stunning story that is especially relevant  today.

Alice B. Fogel’s “Event Horizon” bends time and possibility in surprising and exquisite imagery as she interpolates factual curiosities. “Clouds can cool to near/absolute zero.” Later Fogel describes “In a lab scientists slowed light’s speed to that of the wheels/of a bike            then stopped it    held it/ let it go again.” Each phrase achieves unexpected breadth, moments that linger far past the end of the poem.

“Appendix” by Ju-Hyun Park interrogates expectations and images of race, mortality, and the meaning of humanity by leaping from the chill of  “soldier’s eyes at point blank…” to  “a contract. a/ treaty. a conviction. an armistice.” Each image is interrupted by the next, confounding and disturbing, a stitch in the side that won’t go away.   

Claudia Owusu’s “The Night Nigeria and Argentina Play the World Cup” is a celebration that exemplifies national unity  and pride. For one night the country rejoices “…so the cheers carry on like a / praise break   then lingers as if waiting for the second coming or /something close enough to mark Black bodies as holy(.)”  The sentiment is carried from citizen to citizen, from home, to bar, to streetcorner, an elation that eclipses boundaries.

Claudia, Ju-Hyun, D.E. and Alice, best of luck and many thanks for sharing your work with Clockhouse.

Copies of Volume Seven may be ordered on the Clockhouse website: http://www.clockhouse.net. Excerpts from these selections may be read on our website as well.

Submissions for Clockhouse Volume Eight close on December 15, 2019. Visit our website for submission guidelines. We look forward to reading your work.

With thanks from our Publisher, Lucy Turner, and the entire Clockhouse staff,

Brenda Beardsley
Editorial Director
Clockhouse