fiction and poetry contest

A Wisconsin Book Festival reading featuring the winners of the Wisconsin People & Ideas 2018 Fiction & Poetry Contest hosted by editor Jason A. Smith

I came across a dead porcupine sitting on its bellylooking asleep—his only sign of injury a crookedand bloody nose—and thought perhaps I’d get a poemout of it—this corpse I nearly stumbled over

In dim lightGrandma sits at her tableshaving fat and fleshfrom the pig’s skullswick swick swickher knife slicesthrough bristled skinpast cartilage and brain

We trudge through last year’s corn stubble in a wayward, straggling line,drunken with the hour and the cold. It’s April, 4 AM, the air metallic in our noses.We stoop low, clamber awkwardly into plywood boxes slouching in slush,