My second book of poems, Hawk Parable, won the 2017 Akron Poetry Prize (forthcoming in 2019)! I’m beyond honored that Oliver de la Paz chose my manuscript for this award. I’m so excited to be working with Mary Biddinger and Amy Freels at the University of Akron Press and have my poems join the beautiful books in the Akron Series in Poetry. I’m incredibly grateful to all of the people in my life who have cheered me on, read my work, come to my readings, and listened to me talk about these poems, and I’m thankful to all of the editors who have supported individual poems from this manuscript. I’m so excited this book will be in the world and honored by Oliver de la Paz’s statement:
In Hawk Parable, by Tyler Mills, the intricacies of what is seen and what is felt are scars in the body of a bomb survivor or even legacies of guilt. Exposure in the white-hot flashpoints of the atomic age are lessons applicable to now and urgently call us to take heed and notice that “The shadow is an airplane” and that “Vapor is a value.” The story of the hunter flying high above the earth is a lesson, also, about the prey and how the exchange between seeing and seen can spell unimaginable horror. The poet traverses the terrain of familial taboo, peering into the past and interrogating what is reflected there in beautiful and painful lyricism. – Oliver de la Paz
You can read the full press release here.
Tyler Mills 