A poem by Department of Turkish Literature PhD student Müesser Yeniay has been nominated for the 2016 Pushcart Prize anthology. Entitled “Geography of Darkness,” the poem appeared in Issue 13 (May 2014) of Shot Glass Journal, a US online publication devoted to short poetry, and was also published in Müesser’s most recent collection of poems, “Ben Olmadan Çöller Vardı.”
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize given by Pushcart Press that honors the best poetry, short fiction, essays and “literary whatnot” published by small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to six works they have featured. Anthologies of the works selected have been published annually since 1976. Joyce Carol Oates is among the writers who received recognition during the early stages of their careers through publication in Pushcart Prize anthologies.
Nominations for the 2016 edition of “The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses” series closed on December 1. Muse-Pie Press, which publishes Shot Glass Journal, selected Müesser’s poem as one of the six works that it submitted for the Pushcart Prize anthology.