Master

2022 Winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, with an introduction from contest judge Terrance Hayes. National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes has provided an explosively supportive introduction, writing, “I felt this way reading Ocean Vuong’s debut, David Berman’s debut, the debuts of Kiki Petrosino and Jane Mead on Sarabande. This book feels like one of a kind.” Hayes’s support is tremendous, and we hope to book an event in New York with both poets together.

Emerging, yet accomplished poet. Simon Shieh has already accumulated the following awards and fellowships: 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow, 2nd Place in Narrative Magazine's 30 Below Contest 2020, 2020 Best New Poets Anthology feature, 2019 Disquiet International Literary Program scholarship recipient, 2019 Young China Watcher of the Year Award shortlist, Princeton in Asia Fellow at China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing (2015-17).

Extremely important and relatable subject matter surrounding toxic masculinity. Master tells the story of a boy's induction into masculinity through violence and subjugation, following the writer's struggle with masculinity from a small town in upstate New York to a boxing academy in Beijing. At the center is the unnamed and abusive “master” of the martial arts school. As Shieh writes, “These poems challenge masculinity narratives, and master narratives in general, by reaching toward vulnerability and beauty.”

Finely crafted poetry that will be appealing to any poetry lover. Again, Terrance Hayes writes, “More than an introduction to readers (who will recognize the lyricism that makes this a special debut in the very first poem), I want to write a fan letter to the maker of this very fine collection. Where does one learn such vivid depictions of mystery and memory? I thought of Frank Stanford’s vernacular surrealism, except this surrealism is as restrained as a Rottweiler holding butterflies in its mouth; a steady, steely muzzle holding delicate fluttering colors. The lucid and haunted tone is bound to the specter of the Master shifting between father and trickster, friend and foe. He is part father, part trickster, part shadow, part guide, part foe. The student grapples with the master, the slave grapples with the master; intimately, attentively, and carefully we grapple with the master.”