2021 Pinch Literary Awards

“Push past the charm of street trams and boxy Trabants, through the smog and cigarette old city air to where she’s passed up pastry and coffee to stroll in peace.”

“Sitting propped against pillows, cradling his dark heavy head, I begin, in a sort of sing-song voice, to list off everyone I can think of in our lives, everyone who loves him.”

“I can view magnified a thousand times. / When my daughter asks why we shelter in, / I tell her it’s because dinosaurs sleep”

Sara Biggs Chaney and Michael Chaney teach at Dartmouth College. Michael is a Professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing and Sara is a Lecturer in the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric and the Associate Coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Sara and Michael have published creative non-fiction in Hotel Amerika and Sycamore Review. Their visual poetry has recently appeared in Redivider, Puerto Del Sol, and Quarterly West.

Contributors: Sahana Ahmed, Faiza Anum, Christopher Seiji Berardino, Amanda Bloom, Christiana Castillo, Sara Biggs & Michael Chaney, Yuan Changming, Steven Espada Dawson, Nate Duke, Austin Eichelberger, Nicola Geddes, Banah Ghadbanah, Mirri Glasson-Darling, Rayji de Guia, Christine E. Hamm, Luther Hampton, Dennis Hinrichsen, Rochelle Hurt, Justin Jannise, Mike Jenkins, Alice Kaltman, Cory Liang, Tracey Lien, Whitney Lorenze, Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Jose Luis Pablo, Miriam Navarro Prieto, Taiyo Okamoto, Kasey Peters, Fraser Radford, John Saad, Jane Satterfield, Taylor Schaefer, Chang Shih Yen, Ojo Taiye, Elizabeth Theriot, zach de venecia, Abigail Wotton, Bessie F. Zaldívar

“Closer, I see she holds a pitchfork buried in the body of an enormous rattlesnake writhing incomprehensibly down four wooden steps as its tail draws fast and meaningless symbols in the dirt.”

“She belongs to a Wine-of-the-Month Club. Her nail polish never chips, not even while washing dishes, which her husband always does anyway. If she knew, she would probably deem me unfit to babysit—as if I’d actually squeeze him until his ribs cracked like delicious little breadsticks.”

John A. Nieves has poems forthcoming or recently published in journals such as: North American Review, Crazyhorse, Southern Review, Harvard Review and Massachusetts Review. He won the Indiana Review Poetry Contest and his first book, Curio, won the Elixir Press Annual Poetry Award Judge’s Prize. He is associate professor of English at Salisbury University and an editor of The Shore Poetry. He received his M.A. from University of South Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

“I should tell you a few truths— we had been drinking, we had synthesized what other black inks we’d etch onto our skins, we were saying, “​protect your magic,” ​ or other things about healing and bodies. We were scantily-clad, bikini tops for shirts, and reeking of a freedom fruit that spoils only in black girl pH.” 

Kito Fortune is one of the best poets in the world. He unleashes rhymes, wordplay, metaphors and dynamic performance, as he invites you into his world through poetry. Although he grew up in Los Angeles, his family is originally from Guyana. He was a member of the poetry slam team at Da Poetry Lounge for three years in a row.  Also in 2018 Kito finished in the top twenty of the Individual World Poetry slam. He was the slam champion at Da Poetry Lounge for two years straight. Kito enjoys sports, anime, and video games and his poetry is influenced by his melanin, and his Christianity.  Kito uses words to paint a vivid picture of his life.  

Interview by CooXooEii Black.

Tiana Clark has published the chapbook, Equilibrum, and a full book of poetry titled I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without The Blood. She has won numerous awards and has been published in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, and The Washington Post(just to name a few). A fellow Nashville native, I had the pleasure of watching her career flourish and expand over the years. We officially crossed paths at Sewanee School of Letters where she was my professor in the summer of 2019. We spoke about pantsuits, rage and isolation in the age of the pandemic.

Interview by Massey Armistead.

Photo by Crystal K. Martel

Contributors: Threa Almontaser, Mae Aur, Sarah Bates, Anthony Borruso, Jeff Carter, Servando CuMora, Moisés Delgado, Courtney Fowler, Asha Futterman, Mag Gabbert, Tex Gresham, Rory Hamovit, Ashley Hand, Jessica Hudson, Miah Jeffra, Corrine Jones, Giaae Kwon, Kate Lucas, Matt Muilenburg, Cindy Ostuni, San Pham, Cyndie Randall, Stephanie Rogers, Nick Schleicher, Kirk Schlueter, Cameron Shenassa, Maya Strauss, Melissa Studdard, DeShara Suggs-Joe, Danielle Williams, Christopher Wong, Lizabeth Yandel, Yurina Yoshikawa

Hûw Steer is writer, historian, and comedian from London who holds an MA in Ancient History specializing in the study of ancient science-fiction. His first novel, The Blackbird and the Ghost, was an SPFBO finalist in 2019 and Ad Luna, his second novel, released on July 4th of this year. His short stories have been published in The Future Fire and UCL’s Publisher’s Prize.

Interview by Kalib La Chapelle

“You should’ve seen me—my smooth white hips, / the way they slung cold around powder-slick metal, /  the way I whispered Hey there honey, you look so sad in the ears of men waxed with whiskey /  and a taste for mink and plaster.

2020 Contest Awards

“My girlfriend Sasha has been fired from her temp job for pressing her boobs against a glass conference room wall, 26 floors up. Our heater is broken, and so is our oven.”

“Back when she and I shared a body, I thought too much about all the things that could go wrong: an infection, a genetic mutation, a single cell dividing abnormally. I exercised, meditated, gave up coffee and took my vitamins, knowing that whatever was happening inside of me, inside of her, was largely beyond our control. At every doctor’s appointment, I braced for bad news. Thankfully, luckily, none came. “

“An enactment of the truth, proof that our skin will always revolt in such a way? Black girls, black women, are there, in those six seconds, silent, waiting, invisibly unleashed, always present and living, fighting to be alive.“

“The Robitussin takes a really long time to kick in so I am sober for an entire sermon. I keep waiting for some sort of interesting visual or sensory hallucination but there is just this guy with an acoustic guitar praising Jesus, and my girlfriend who is waiting until marriage to have sex. “