Dorset Update

Though I am very grateful for all my finger-crossing friends the past month or so while I was a Dorset finalist, I'm not really upset about the outcome, never really believing I could win. Here are the results, straight from the horse's mouth (Jeffrey Levine):

Winning manuscript: Dismal Rock, by Davis McCombs

Daivs McCombs' first book, Ultima Thule, was chosen by
W.S. Merwin as winner of the 1999 Yale Series of
Younger Poets, called "the finest Yale Poets selection
in years" by Publishers Weekly, and one of five
finalists for a National Book Critics Circle Award in
Poetry. Among many other honors, Davis has won Ruth
Lilly, Henry Hoyns, Wallace Stegner, and NEA
fellowships.

First Runner up: Sweet Darkness, by Greg Rappleye

Additional Runners up:
Shaggy Parasol, by Susan Gubernat
The Book of Sleep, by Eleanor Stanford
The Little Hour, by Kathleen Jesme
Red Door, by Donald Platt

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):
Biogeography, by Sandra Meek
Emphatic Numeral, by Molly Tenenbaum
The Transits of Saturn, by Leslie Ullman
The Lost Tin Myth, Lytton Smith

Thank you all for giving Tupelo Press such exquisite
work. It's hard, I know, to be philosophical about
coming so close, but I hope that you will temper that
disappointment with the knowledge that we would have
been just as delighted to publish any one of this
years' finalsts. Know also that among those who did
not "make" the finals this year were dozens of
manuscripts from poets of national and international
reputation, some with as many as a dozen books.

Maybe someday someone will publish my book....