On behalf of Green Linden Press, I am excited to congratulate JoAnne McFarland for winning the fourth annual Wishing Jewel Prize! Green Linden Press will publish American Graphic in December. Named for an essay in Anne Carson’s Plainwater, the Prize awards $1000 and publication for a manuscript that challenges expectations of what a book of poems can be and demonstrates anew the rich potentials of lyric language.
With candor and insight, American Graphic confronts personal and cultural pasts. Juxtaposing historical documents—recipes from the first cookbook published by a Black woman in the States, reward posters for people fleeing enslavement—with intimate moments from the present, the book's magic is to bend time so we see that the past’s rivers flow through us into the future. Spare yet lyrical in its language, American Graphic is a concentrate of feeling and vision.
JoAnne McFarland is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. She is the Artistic Director of Artpoetica Project Space in Gowanus, Brooklyn, which exhibits works that focus on the intersection of language and visual representation. Her poetry collections include A Domestic Lookbook and Pullman, both recently published by Grid Books, Identifying the Body and the digital album Tracks of My Tears, both published by the Word Works, and Acid Rain, published by Willow Books. JoAnne has artwork in the permanent collections of the Cooper/Hewitt Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Department of State, among many others. She has had fellowships at the BARD Graduate Center Library, KALA Art Institute, the National Arts Club, Cave Canem, Van Alen Institute, and the Painting Center. JoAnne's artwork is represented by Accola Griefen Fine Art. www.joannemcfarland.com
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