Ruth Lilly Finalist

 For those of you who know what a Ruth Lilly Fellowship means in the world of letters, you already know how hard it is to wrap my mind around this one. Here's a description from the Poetry Foundation website:

Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Series

 Jamaal is now the editor of the Organic Weapon Arts chapbook series and will be judging a competition open to submissions from July 15-August 15. Go here for submission guidelines.

Callaloo and Bread Loaf

 I'm proud to announce that this year I was accepted into the Callaloo Writers Workshop and also received a work-study scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers conference. For more info on Callaloo, click here. For Bread Loaf, here.

Pushcart Nomination

The chances of me snagging this honor are pretty slim in my humble opinion so I'm currently basking in the nomination. Read more about the prize here and check out the poem that was nominated here.

The God Engine Turns

Hey, fam. Many of you know my chapbook "The God Engine" was accepted for publication by Pudding House Press last fall. I'm proud to announce that the books have arrived and a launch party is scheduled for Thursday April, 9th 2009 at 6:30pm. I'm looking forward to sharing this milestone with all of you.



Pudding House editor Jennifer Bosveld on "The God Engine"

These poems are not—not a single one of them—about boys playing war. They are instead about where war begins, where training begins and is simultaneously. We train children at toddler ages then let them make their battlefields in the empty lots, playgrounds, and every space around them.