[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/dogfishpoetry.mp3|titles= Delaware Public Media's Eli Chen interviews Dogfish Head Brewery Poetry Prize winner Lucian Mattison.]
Dogfish Head Brewery awarded its 12th Annual Poetry Prize at its Milton Brewery Saturday night.
To be eligible for the contest, submissions must come from a state within the Mid-Atlantic region and be a manuscript of poems between 48 and 78 pages long. The winner of the prize receives $500, two cases of Dogfish Head Beer, their poetry published by Broadkill River Press, and one night’s stay at the new Dogfish Head Inn in Lewes. Entrants don’t need to have to be already published.
The winner this year was Lucian Mattison, a MFA student in poetry at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. His entry was a collection of poems titled “Peregrine Nation,” which was strongly influenced by his Argentinian heritage.
“Every year, we’d go back to Argentina and visit my family. It was kind of like a home away from home because in the U.S. we never stayed in a place for more than four years. My father traveled a lot. Argentina was always constant, but at the same time, it was always away from me. but it was always away from me," said Mattison. "So the collection centers around that.”
Mattison plans to use his prize money to promote poetry readings on campus and fund his own reading tour. There were over 100 total submissions to this year’s contest, more than any year Dogfish Head has hosted this prize.
