Congratulations to Lee Peterson, whose poem, “Quartet for the End of Time” won the 2023 Poetry International Prize, judged by poet Alexandra Lytton Regalado.

The poem will be published in Poetry International. Here’s the link to the announcement. Alexandra Lytton Regalado writes of the poem:

If we are attuned to the world, you can find poetry everywhere. And in these difficult days, we have to work harder to hear the birdsong. This is a timely, elegantly crafted poem that invites us to consider how art is “in the listening.” “Quartet for the End of Time” deftly weaves quotes from a conversation between a musical critic and a writer as they discuss the classical music of Olivier Messaien, who composed his piece “Abyss of the Birds” at a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1941. The poem combines confident statements and gentle questioning to contemplate the place of silence, memory as home, and our will to survive.