Civil Twilight

Anique Sara Taylor's chapbook Civil Twilight is Winner of the 2022 Blue Light Poetry Prize. As the sun sinks 6˚ below the horizon at dawn or dusk, it's 5:30am/pm someplace in the world. In thirty shimmering poems (30 words/5 lines each), Civil Twilight probes borders of risk across a landscape of thunderstorms, quill-shaped mist, falcons that soar, the hope of regeneration, a compass to the center. Tightly hewn poems ring with rhythm and sound, follow ghosts who relentlessly weave through a journey of grief toward ecstasy. Spinning words seek to unhinge inner wounds among seashells and hostile mirrors, eagles and cardinals-to enter "the infinity between atoms," hear the invisible waltz. Even the regrets. The search for an inner silhouette becomes a quest for shards of truth, as she asks the simple question, "What will you take with you?"