2020 Winner of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry
by Ashley Toliver
Precise, taut, minimalist poems are Toliver's Yellow Wallpaper, using the thud and drone of language to evoke the suffocation of a marriage gone sour, sound bouncing back, and creating patterns that are an inhibiting force in themselves. There's a pulse to her work, one that harnesses the energy on the page to transcend binaries and boundaries of the self.
The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by Literary Arts, Inc. for the finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in the genres of Fiction, Poetry, Literary Nonfiction, Drama, and Young Readers Literature. Listed here are the winners in the Poetry category.