In honor of our late founder, publisher and mentor, this year we’re offering the Joe W. Bratcher Prize for a full-length collection of poetry by an inspiring writer whose work is a reflection of the values Joe upheld.
As we celebrate Joe’s life, we also want to honor his devotion to social justice. From regularly marching in protest at the Texas State Capitol, to making donations to organizations that support women’s rights, trans folks,
survivors of abuse, and many underserved communities in Austin, Texas and the world. With the Joe W. Bratcher Prize, we want to amplify the kind of work that Joe was most passionate about—poetry by writers that pushes the boundaries of form, art and culture, poetry that is urgent in its subject matter, with a heart that beats for change.
As an homage to the winner of the very first Host Publications Chapbook Prize, we are honored to award the inaugural Joe W. Bratcher Prize to mónica teresa ortiz and their manuscript Book of Provocations. ortiz is a poet who Joe admired and respected deeply, and a poet who has inspired our vision and values here at Host Publications since the publication of autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist in 2019. We are so grateful to continue our work with mónica and carry the torch our dear mentor and late friend lit for us when he founded Host Publications 35 years ago.
Book of Provocations by mónica teresa ortiz
July 2024
mónica teresa ortiz is a poet, memory worker, and critic born, raised, and based in Texas. their works include Muted Blood (Black Radish 2018), autobiography of a semiromantic anarchist (Host Publications 2019), and Have You Ever Dreamed of Flamingos? (Garden Party Collective 2023). they hope to connect the grief and distortion brought about by our present and raise questions that range from what it means to be a poet inside empire to thinking about quantum pasts, presents, and futures while also conceptualizing how language, semiotics, and codes imagine and relate our bodies, to water, land, sky, and nonhuman life while in an existence that can be absurd, violent, and joyful. their work strives to reflect deep care for community, liberation struggles of our lifetime, anti colonialism, and local/global solidarity movements. they call for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.