Books :: Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry

Next month, readers can look forward to the publication of Novena by Jacques J. Rancourt, winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry. The poems are formed after the novena, a nine-day Catholic prayer seeking intercession from the Virgin Mary (recast as a drag queen in this collection). Rancourt invites “prayer not to symbols of dogmatic perfection but to those who are outcast or maligned, LGBTQ people, people in prison, people who resist, people who suffer and whose suffering has not been redeemed.”

Advance praise for Novena can be found at the Pleaides Press website, where copies can also be preordered. The Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry is currently open for submissions.