We’re happy to announce “My Ancestors” by Ron Riekki as an Honorable Mention in our 2017 Poetry Contest! A special shout-out to our hard-working poetry staff for this round!

.                My Ancestors

My grandmother’s grandmother hid,
buried herself under handfuls of history,

and now I am discovering—through the thaw
of genocide—the glaciers of bravery

in my Arctic blood, my Jewish blood,
my Muslim blood, my multiracial story.

Ron Riekki‘s books include U.P.: a novel (Sewanee Writers Series and Great Michigan Read nominated), The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book from the Library of Michigan and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award/Grand Prize shortlist, Midwest Book Award, Foreword Book of the Year, and Next Generation Indie Book Award), Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes—Best Regional Fiction and Next Generation Indie Book Award—Short Story finalist), and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017).