Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.

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Sept/Oct 2022 • Vol. XLIV No. 5 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize |

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Sophie Bernik is a creative writing major at Interlochen Arts Academy in Northern Michigan. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Red Wheelbarrow, Fledge, and Identity Theory. When not writing, Bernik enjoys hiking and swimming.

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For My Father, Who Lives Alone

By Madison Xu

Baba turns fifty alone / in the 6 x 8 box / of our iPad 3 / September on our breaths / seven years coming now / funny how memory / has a way of nebulizing / the hum of radio static / the way you learned English by listening to the Beatles’ / “Hey Jude” on repeat / now white noise / at age ten / we were two continents / sundered by ocean / no more than arbitrary geography / at age ten / I held dawn like a permission / tasted it skin by skin / a mouthful of

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