Master (The Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry)

A stunning debut but I’m biased. Let this blurb from Rio Cortez, the poet/author who selected Master as the winning entry, speak for itself:The language in Simon Shieh's Master lingers, haunts, and absorbs the reader from the very beginning. To say that it's one of the best debuts I've encountered, would be an understatement. With lines that are shorn, surprising, and true—Master examines power. And more: brutality, the self, as well shorn—it sees through the midline. These poems humble and startle. More than one line knocked around in my head for days, still. Lines like:To spite me, he hid the moonin the shadow of a jackrabbit, the deepest cratersin its eyes, When I beg him to show me the nightsky, he slices its body open in front of me, spillsits insides onto the wooden table.Master is chilling. And extraordinary. And I’m grateful for its presence in the world.