From UI News Services:
Elizabeth Hughey's Sunday Houses the Sunday House and American Spikenard by Sarah Vap, winners of the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize, are now available from the University of Iowa Press.
Iowa Poetry Prize judge Ira Sadoff commented, "Elizabeth Hughey's a master of metaphor and restraint. While she shares some of (Elizabeth) Bishop's powers of observation and often makes surprising connections with a playful wit reminiscent of Apollinaire, James Tate and Frank O'Hara, a reader will find striking originality and authority in 'Sunday Houses the Sunday House.'"
Sadoff calls Vap's poems "stunningly voiced, bristling with drive and energy. Her rich and inhabited landscapes thrive on her tough, relentlessly probing, questioning and wide-ranging diction. 'American Spikenard' is like one long poem, a poet's coming to terms with identity and history in a quest to be acknowledged for exactly who she is."