The Winner of the 2017 Metatron Prize is…

number one earth

by jasper avery

jasper avery’s number one earth joins previous winner’s of The Metatron Prize: Toronto-based Sofia Banzhaf for her manuscript Pony Castle and New York-based Sarah Jean Grimm for her manuscript Soft Focus. number one earth will be published in 2018.

number one earth is a conception of a(ny) past life, a mythical coherence and unity of self-image before the traumas of existing on this planet force us to cope, to nurse our wounds, to necessarily split our selves to survive. these traumas often centralize around gender and bodies, the ways we write body-ness onto ourselves and the ways this body-ness is read. number one earth is the life we inhabit before some piece of us is taken, broken, or hurt. number one earth mirrors the ways in which our deep wounds and our ways of healing them also become increasingly complex as we grow and learn, yet remains devoted to expressing tenderness towards self and world and demonstrates ones ability to rewrite our relationship with the world endlessly until it causes the smallest amount of pain possible.

jasper avery is a poet and musician from southern arizona, currently pursuing an MFA at Temple University. her work has appeared in fields magazine and & thriving, a collection of work by trans and gender nonconforming poets edited by Gloworm Press. Her first chapbook, ghost medicine, was published by Gloworm Press.

The 2017

Metatron Prize

Shortlist

Angie Sijun Lou
Makeout Marsh
Fiction

jasper avery
number one earth
Poetry

Kell Connor
Hell’s Bells
Poetry

Maya Martinez
When Natalie Cries
Prose

Natalia Hero
Hum
Fiction

Paola Capó-García
CLAP FOR ME THAT’S NOT ME
Poetry

Luis Neer
Genesis
Poetry

Pik-Shuen Fung
This Beach Would Be Perfect
Prose

Rebecca Bates
ideal conditions
Prose

Roz Naimi
In The Shadow Of The Cypress Tree
Poetry