Matthew Wimberley grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His chapbook Snake Mountain Almanac won the 2014 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Contest from Seven Kitchens Press. In addition, Wimberley was Third Place winner in Narrative’s Seventh Annual Poetry Contest, a finalist in the 2012 Narrative 30 Below Contest, and a winner of the 2015 William Matthews Prize. He received his MFA from New York University and worked with children at St. Mary’s Hospital as a Starworks Fellow. He lives in Brooklyn.


THIRD PLACE WINNER


From “All the Great Territories”

by Matthew Wimberley


On Trial in the Court of Oblivion

Then, you try to confess your crime
of turning the world into words
to the mosquitoes flickering in the dark—
“Don’t be an idiot,” they interrupt,
shuffling their wings against your face.
“If I may address the court,” you ask
the flies bobbing in a glass of milk
but they say nothing, like gods.

People on couch
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