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Elk Lake, MI
By Caroline New
Elk Lake, MI” by Caroline New was awarded third place in the 2022 Love & Eros Prize, selected by Carl Phillips. We’re honored to share this beautiful poem.
“I admire the vast distances crossed here–from the lake with its threatened herd to the differently threatened rings around Saturn, from the immediacy of the speaker’s moment to Galileo’s time to the future 100 million years from now. Intimacy can be lonely in a world so vast. No wonder the speaker wants something small, tangible, and nameable: ‘To hold a face between my hands and call it golden.'” —Carl Phillips, guest judge
ELK LAKE, MI
for S—