The Creative Writing Program is delighted to announce this year’s Virginia Rucker Walter Poetry Prize winner. Out of the 18 applicants, one winner was selected by alumni Paul Cunningham. Below, meet our winning poet and read Paul Cunningham's comments on the submission.

Emeth Borden with his poem "Possible Ekphrasis of My Dying Father"

About the work:
“Remember how the ‘real art’ / happens somewhere / between us and the piece?” Like Plath’s “The Bee Meeting” or Eliot’s “Burnt Norton,” this long and captivating poem explores a complex temporal intermediacy (“He is not the piece of art / that you were before”), and its compelling voices and concerns linger in the fragile threshold between life and death. Its dynamic narrative and halting syntax invites multiple readings. I was floored by this poem — I marveled at the poet’s attention to visuality and aura. Despite the use of “possible” in the poem’s title, there’s no question that “Possible Ekphrasis of My Dying Father” is a stunning ekphrastic poem. Here, the idea of a museum exhibition merges with the speaker-as-observer’s father’s hospital room. Medical doctors are juxtaposed with museum docents. In the surreal, dream-like space of this poem, museum placards might be confused for medical charts. In the hospital, a doctor/docent makes a remark about unfinished “paintings” and, suddenly, the poet’s addressee becomes just as compellingly plural as the speaker: “I’d been mesmerized by this / impossibility until you / caught my attention.” This brings me back to the difficult focal question of the poem: Where does real art happen? Early in this poet’s museum, the speaker-as-observer glimpses the word “ekphrasis.” Perhaps real poetry is seeing an “indispensable, unrestored” portrait and doing everything one can to translate its slurred “I love you.” Maybe it’s life itself as an “unfinished series.” One thing is certain: this is the work of a deeply philosophical poet with much to achieve.

Emeth Borden is a sophomore English and Comparative Literature major studying at UGA. He is particularly interested in poetry as a medium for expression and communication. A lover and researcher of contemporary and Modernist literature, he is principally fascinated by the universal impetus that compels human artistry and how that impetus has adapted across time and cultures. He is an avid writer and has completed compositions and research in the English and German languages. He hopes to pursue and receive a PHD in creative writing. His favorite poets are Whitman, Rumi, Cao Zhi, Langston Hughes, Mina Loy, Rilke, and Blake. To him, happiness is a warm puppy.