Winner, 2023 Blue Light Poetry Prize

Michael Jemal was raised in Brooklyn, New York and now lives in the southern part of Rhode Island with his wife and son. He has studied with Stephen Dunn and B.J. Ward. He has been published in Rattle, New Delta Review, Hiram Poetry Review and in other publications.

"The poems in Michael Jemal's debut collection, It Began, deconstruct syntax, narrative, lyricism, metaphor, point of view, and just about every other prosodic device we usually assign to poetry. The result is a completely fresh diction and metaphorical sense that simply shows up for each poem to observe what might happen if language takes its hands off the handlebars, while still pedaling as fast as it can. "It began when I accidentally / stepped on your left foot / and you broke / into a million excuses," writes Jemal in "Prologue." There are no wrong notes in this all-to-brief chapbook. In the words of Miles Davis: "It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong." Every word, every line, every poem after the first anaphoric "It began..." is a corrective to mistakes often made by lesser poets of the 21st century. We can only hope that It Began is the first in a series of brilliant books."

- Terry Lucas, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Marin County, California

"A powerful debut collection of precise poems that ask questions without simple answers, Michael Jemal's The It Began Poems explores why we are who we have become. In each of Jemal's lines that often feel more like glimpses into a dozen magical realities, close relationships shift, perspectives alter, and our everyday expectations evolve-allowing us to linger within the pages, breathless, together."

- Michael Jon Khandelwal, The Muse Writers Center, Norfalk, Virginia

Winner, 2023 Blue Light Poetry Prize

- Terry Lucas, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Marin County, California

- Michael Jon Khandelwal, The Muse Writers Center, Norfalk, Virginia