Announcing Our 2019 Best of the Net Nominees

Happy Friday! As we near the end of one year of our magazine’s being back in (virtual) print, the Lantern Review team is delighted to announce that we have nominated the following two poems for Best of the Net 2019.

Photo of Shamala Gallagher (Portrait of the poet, with shoulder-length, dark-brown, gently windswept hair, dark-rimmed glasses, and a raspberry-colored top with a white floral print, smiling against a background of green leaves.)
Shamala Gallagher (Photo by Madeline Laguaite)

Shamala Gallagher, “Untitled (New Year’s Eve & a Death Tucked Inside)”
LR Issue 7.1 | March 2019

“It scared me when anyone loved anyone’s writing. For who then was left to love mine? And it is hard to write so punctuated by nights.”

Photo of W. Todd Kaneko (Portrait of the poet, wearing black, rectangular glasses, a brown collared shirt with white embroidery on the yoke buttoned over a black tee, and a goatee. Books on white shelves line the wall in the background).
W. Todd Kaneko (Photo by Tyler Steimle)

W. Todd Kaneko, “The Birds Know What They Mean”
LR Issue 7.2 | May 2019

“I say, Minidoka—
what the birds mean is that
there is no such thing
as safety, barely shelter.”

Shamala and Todd’s poems sing in the dark. They whisper quietly in the mind’s ear, masterfully and unflinchingly tuning image and syntax line by line. Their tightly crafted openings and endings deliver a powerful gut punch each time we read them, and we’re so grateful to have gotten the chance to publish these two beautiful pieces this year.

Congratulations, Shamala and Todd, and we wish you the very best of luck in the Best of the Net selection process!

LR News: Best of the Net 2011 Nominees

The Lantern Review editorial board is pleased to announce that we have selected two poems to nominate for Sundress Publications’ 2011 Best of the Net Anthology. They are, in order of appearance in our magazine:

“Northwest Poem” by W. Todd Kaneko

“Vestige” by Michelle Peñaloza

Both poems originally appeared in Lantern Review Issue 2 (Winter 2011).

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About the Nominated Poets

W. Todd Kaneko
W. Todd Kaneko

W. Todd Kaneko is not cool enough to be a rock star, not tall enough to be a professional wrestler, and not virtuous enough to be a super-hero.* His stories and poems can be seen in Puerto Del Sol, Crab Creek Review, Fairy Tale Review, Portland Review, Southeast Review, Blackbird, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from Kundiman and the Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop. He teaches in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with the writer Caitlin Horrocks.

*Editorial Disclaimer: Todd’s appraisal of himself; not ours.  We think he’s a lot cooler than he admits.

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Michelle Peñazola
Michelle Peñaloza (Photo: Janna Ireland)

Michelle Peñaloza grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Nashville Review, Lantern Review, Birmingham Poetry Review and Bellingham Review, among others. She received the 2011 Women Writers’ Literary Fellowship, awarded by Oregon Literary Arts, and currently serves as director of the Kidd Tutorials at the University of Oregon.

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Congratulations to Todd and Michelle.  We are honored to be represented by such fine work, and wish each of you the best of luck in the judging process!

LR News: Best of the Net 2010 Nominations

We are pleased to announce our nominations for Sundress Publications’ 2010 Best of the Net Anthology.  They are, in order of their appearance in our magazine:

“The Newlyweds,” translated by Hsiao-Shih (Raechel) Lee

“Sydney Notebook” by Subhashini Kaligotla

“Death poem exercise 64” by Asterio Enrico N. Gutierrez

“Contingency” by Luisa A. Igloria

All four poems were first published in Issue One of Lantern Review.

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About the Nominated Poets

Hsiao-Shih (Raechel) Lee

Hsiao-Shih (Raechel) Lee is from Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She received her MFA from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a PhD candidate in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford University.

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Subhashini Kaligotla

Subhashini Kaligotla’s poems have appeared in such journals as Crab Orchard Review, The Literary Review, New England Review, and Western Humanities Review, and in poetry collections in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  She is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program in poetry and the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship to India for literary translation.  Kaligotla lives in New York City, where she is a Ph.D. candidate in the history of art.

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Asterio Enrico N. Gutierrez

Asterio Enrico N. Gutierrez‘s fiction and poetry have appeared in Lantern Review, Asia Writes, TAYO, Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic, and the Sunday Times Magazine, among others. He lives in Manila, Philippines.

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Luisa A. Igloria

Originally from Baguio City, Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Juan Luna’s Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), which received the Ernest Sandeen Prize; Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005), and eight other books. She currently directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at  Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family, hand-binds books, and keeps her radar tuned for cool lizard sightings. www.luisaigloria.com.

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Congratulations to all four nominees.  We are proud to be represented by such a fine selection of work and wish each of you the best of luck during the judging process!