Winner, Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

In this debut collection, Anna Lena Phillips Bell explores the foothills of the Eastern U.S., and the old-time Appalachian tunes and Piedmont blues she was raised to love. With formal dexterity--in ballads and sonnets, Sapphics and amphibrachs--the poems in Ornament traverse the permeable boundary between the body and the natural world.

"Ornament is a kind of tribute album. The poet, who is also a banjo player, pays tribute in many poems to the old-time music of the Carolinas, and like the music, her poems are marked by bursts of lyric beauty, deft storytelling, and haunting set pieces."--Geoffrey Brock, author of Voices Bright Flags and judge

Number Twenty-four: Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Anna Lena Phillips Bell's poems have appeared in the Southern Review, 32 Poems, and Poetry International. The recipient of an NC Arts Council Fellowship, she teaches at UNC Wilmington and is editor of Ecotone. She lives with her family near the Cape Fear River.