Announcing the winner of the 2025 New Constructions Hybrid Book Contest
My Prayer a Slit Throat by Ellen Kombiyil
A lyric visual essay, composed of erasures, collages, and military ephemera, My Prayer a Slit Throat is a timely work engaged in “erasing the inheritance of war.” Using text from the Iliad, with its startling clarity and energy, tenderness and horror, the work explores the narratives that continue to shape our conceptions of war. My Prayer a Slit Throat clears new territory for dialogue. Congratulations to Ellen, her book will be published in Spring 2026!
Ellen Kombiyil is a visual artist, poet, and educator from the Bronx. Her latest poetry collection, Love as Invasive Species (Cornerstone 2024) is a tête-bêche exploring matrilineal inheritances. Find her at www.ellenkombiyil.com.
LEARNING TO USE BLACK
The rambling neverseen fuses
the revelation delivered by stars.
Implicit contradictions of simultaneities
in which even a casual imagery has its own logic,
the logic of the brush or the earth.
Violet cobweb fingers extend,
become a center.
The inclusive sense of rejection
creates an ejection:
a way of remaining.
Burns at dawn
the embers’ night song.
Each measure a measure
of language outside speech.
Primary inked sensations free the fingers
to obtain what is inevitable.
On the periphery of gray
the blue tendrils cling.
Self-referencing also references the other,
reminds us of homecomings
of which we weren't even aware,
of happenings beyond easy understanding.
Paralyzed motion trapped and caged:
a weave or a web,
not entrapment but containment.
Old sensations become new
Within their intimate layered boundaries.
Beneath the shallows
the octopus black of deep water.
Invading forms stop at the edge,
bring calm.
Expressions expose intentions,
give way to a particular elation.
Advanced speculation arises
from an abandonment of accommodation.
Roaring landward,
the Titan waves
shatter on the rocks.
Nausithous and Nausinous
swim happily alongside Calypso.
A swarm of colored events
tangled and random:
bees seeking the moon.
Pluralities overcome singularities,
fly forth: invincible.
The drifting spectrum
grapples for discovery.
Twisting but not twisted,
satisfied with itself
just because.
The final embrace:
color and its contradiction.
Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno
Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno is a poet, translator, painter and biographer. He is the author of more than 15 books. Night Suite, his newest book of poems, will be issued this fall from Daniels, Jensen Books.