Lisa Hase-Jackson’s Insomnia in Another Town was published this spring by Clemson University Press as winner of the Converse MFA alumni Prize for Poetry. Claire Bateman, the contest judge, writes in part about Lisa’s “significant courage with grace notes of buoyancy.” Lisa’s poems navigate, among other things, mother and daughter relationships (speakers as mothers and speakers as daughters.)…

She. Her brown long hair And her dress, purple. Fairy wear. Shes a girl With glitter on her cheeks. And she walks the beach under the moon and sings in Greek to the old Gods to whom she belongs. Shes a pirate and a gypsy. And a beauty. She is a goddess. Her beauty is…

She. Her brown long hair And her dress, purple. Fairy wear. Shes a girl With glitter on her cheeks. And she walks the beach under the moon and sings in Greek to the old Gods to whom she belongs. Shes a pirate and a gypsy. And a beauty. She is a goddess. Her beauty is…

I will like to live an afterglow of smiles when life is done like an echo whispering softly down an empty hall. When it rains, it rains with vengeance and when the harmattan strikes, you can’t smile naturally without bleeding. Upon my head is a freight heavier than a fermented cassava that makes me stagger…