The Madeleine Poems

by Paul Legault

Selected by Ann Lauterbach
To be published by Omnidawn in September 2010

Author photo: Billy Merrell

Paul Legault was born in Ontario and raised in Tennessee. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia and a B.F.A. in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California. His poems have been published in Denver Quarterly, FIELD, Pleiades, and other journals. Currently, he is working on an English-to-English translation of the complete works of Emily Dickinson, part of which has been published as a chapbook, The Emily Dickinson Reader, vol. 1 (Try and Make, 2009). Paul lives with his husband, Orion Jenkins, in Brooklyn, NY where he works at the Academy of American Poets.

Here are the five finalists, selected by Ann Lauterbach:

(Listed in alphabetical order by the poets’ last names. There is no ranking order for our finalists)

Friend of Mies Van der Rohe, by James Belflower. He lives in Albany, NY, and currently is attending Suny Albany for a PhD.

Not Here, Not Dead, by Nik DeDominic. He lives in New Orleans, LA and received his MFA from the University of Alabama.

The Division of Labor, by Dot Devota. She lived abroad this summer in Beirut, Lebanon.

The Animist, by Jean-Paul Pequeur. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and teaches at the Pratt Institute.

Antique Sun, by Zach Savich. He lives in Northampton, MA, and attends the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Rae Armantrout will judge the 2010 Omnidawn Poetry Contest. We will be accepting electronic and postal submissions: 3/1/10 to 6/30/10. More information about this contest will be available in the coming months.