Erica Reid’s MS Wins the Donald Justice Poetry Prize

On behalf of the West Chester University Poetry Center, Autumn House is pleased to announce that Erica Reid’s manuscript, Ghost Man on Second, has been chosen as the winner of the 2023 Donald Justice Poetry Prize judged by Mark Jarman! Of the collection, Jarman says,

“Ghost Man on Second gives us grief and endurance, loss and joy, transmuted by the play of verse and imagination into poetry. Its thematic concerns deal with an absent father, suggested by the book’s title, the troubles and determination of a young mother alone, and how these conditions have affected their child. Dilemmas, hurts, yearnings, and elusive retrievals are magically changed by the poet’s sophisticated technical skill into living poems, works of art that invite reading and rereading.”

Erica Reid lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. She earned her MFA at Western Colorado University and serves as assistant editor at THINK Journal. Recently her poetry has been nominated for Best New Poets and a Pushcart Prize, won the Yellowwood Poetry Prize and the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest (Modern Sonnets category), and was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. Erica’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Rattle, Birmingham Poetry Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Able Muse, and more.

Autumn House will publish Erica’s collection in our Spring 2024 season. Please join us in congratulating Erica!

NB: The Donald Justice Prize is made possible through the generosity of the Iris N. Spencer Poetry Awards created by Kean W. Spencer.