Gathering the Kindling: Naming Our Poetry Award

As stated on the Four Branches Press website, we intend to offer a small cash prize for one poem published in each issue, but do not require entry fees.

These facts reflect our editorial philosophy. The work of writing a poem has been done: we do not want to be paid for the honor of publishing it. We know how painful the work of writing can be, despite its joy.

In recognition of the profound nature of good poetry, we have given careful thought to the naming of the poetry award.

Allow me to slip into my personal voice. When I lived on a farm and used a woodstove to heat my house, I cut my own firewood, gathered my own kindling. In these earthbound activities, I found many metaphors for poetry.

Gathering the kindling was the most apt.

Bending to pick up the branches, holding them in my hands and knowing the life they represented, now scattered and detached from what had once nurtured them, I saw the ideas and thoughts and images of my own life.

Breaking them into a size for the stove, arranging them by length in the kindling box, I saw randomness becoming meaningful order, like the arrangement of words into the first rough body of a poem.

In the frigid dark of winter mornings I bent before the cold stove, my breath clouding in front of me, my fingers numb as I laid the kindling to build the fire. I struck the match. The kindling flared; as I held my hands to the warmth, I saw poetry come to full life, bringing light and vital heat into the lives of those who read it.

And so we have decided to name our our poetry prize for each issue the Kindling Award for Poetry.

We are still contemplating the name for our Fiction Award. When we know, so will you.