The editors of Gunpowder Press are thrilled to announce that Todd Copeland’s Like All Light was selected by Lynne Thompson as winner of the 2021 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize.
Of this collection, Lynne Thompson writes:
From the opening lines of Like All Light and throughout the collection, Todd Copeland wraps these poems in elegiac language both lyrical and haunting. His flood of memories—real and imagined—will remain with the reader long after the reading is done. Take your time; it’s well worth the journey.
Todd Copeland’s other works include the poetry chapbook The Book as Knife (Ravenna Press, 2021) and the narrative nonfiction book The Immortal Ten (Baylor University Press, 2006). His poems have appeared in The Journal, Southern Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lake Effect, Christianity & Literature, and Sugar House Review, among other publications, and his essays have been published in such journals as Literary Imagination, JNT: Journal of Narrative Theory, and Media, War & Conflict. He holds degrees in English from Baylor University (BA), The University of Georgia (MA), and Texas A&M University (PhD). A native of Ohio, he lives in Waco, Texas.
The editors look forward to publishing Like All Light and thank our judge Lynne Thompson for her choice. We also recognize the following finalists:
- These Waters by John Belk
- Design by Theresa Burns
- Gatherer’s Alphabet by Susan Kelly-Dewitt
- Three Hundred Streets of Venice California by Tom Laichas
- Aisle 228 by Sandra Marchetti
- Before the Forest Burns by Leslie Monsour
- Easy Victims to the Charitable Deceptions of Nostalgia by Emily Schulten
- Feast of Light by Emily Tuszynka
- A Primer of Interference by Suzanne Wise
Judge Lynne Thompson is the Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and the author of Beg No Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, and Fretwork selected by Jane Hirshfield for the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. Thompson’s recent work appears or is forthcoming in Rust & Moth, Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, and 2020 Best American Poetry, among others. Thompson is Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College and serves on the Boards of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
