Awards
Book Awards
Tasting Flight (Madville Books, 2024)
Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Runner Up
Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize Top Five Finalist
Concrete Wolf Louis Award Honorable Mention
“Inside the Room, Outside the Night”
I was drawn to this rich meditation and to the way an ordinary night is made strange. Barks that “thump,” a”ventriloquist heart,” the “moon held up the ear” – these caught my own ear right away. Transformation, safety…and the “jail shell” of the body are this poem’s concerns. The use of numbers seemed a deliberate choice, to show the speaker trying to order and make sense of inner and outer life. I also liked how it proceeds by questions and makes me feel that a lot is at stake for the speaker. The ending is gorgeous and made me immediately go back and reread and think more deeply about female identity and safety.”
– Kim Addonizio, judge for the Jeff Marks poetry prize (december magazine, vol. 30.1)
Poetry Awards
“On Becoming A Woman” Frontier Poetry Roots & Roads Second Prize Winner
“Morning After a Vipassana Retreat” Reuben Rose Memorial First Prize Winner
“To Whom It May Concern” Writer’s Digest Honorable Mention
“View from My Home Office Window” Public Poetry Pandemic Poems Finalist
“Poetry Submission Guidelines” Writer’s Digest Third Prize Winner; Julia Darling Poetry Prize Runner Up (Judge:Natalia Treviño)
“Inside the Room, Outside the Night” Jeff Marks Prize Second Place Winner (Judge: Kim Addonizio)
“Safety Matches” Slippery Elm Poetry Prize Finalist
“Learning the Essentials” Hippocrates Poetry and Medicine Commendation
“Hamsah” Joe Gouveia Contest Honorable Mention (Judge: Marge Piercy)
“A Lesson in Fractions” Anna Davidson Rosenberg First Prize Winner
“Matisse Exhibit (Two-Dimentional) 580/Split Honorable Mention
“A Song of Songs” Frances Locke Memorial Award finalist
“The Carnation that Defied Simile” Reuben Rose Memorial Award First Prize Winner; Pushcart Prize Nomination
“Rain?” Bay Area Poets Coalition Contest Second Place
American Academy of Poets Honorable Mention
“Poetry Submission Guidelines”
I first saw “Poetry Submission Guidelines,” thinking they were misplaced in my packet, and I quickly realized I was in the hands of [a] very wise and skilled poet. I selected this poem…with a big thank you to the poet because it is much more than a poem describing painful and elusive language used to describe such guidelines, giving aspiring poets and readers aspiring to “get” poetry something honest, imaginative, and unforgettable. Much like Billy Collins’ poem, “Introduction to Poetry,” this poem helps readers see poems as alive, as beings capable of their own human dignity, capable also of envy, human need, reading to each other at night, and of “being students of blood and wind/ before they graduate to paper.” Sigh. It is hard to articulate the space between the poem and the poet, and this poem breathes life into that very tiny space.
– Natalia Treviño, judge for the Julia Darling poetry prize (Ocotillo Review, vol. 4.1)
Honors
Poetry Contest Judge Reuben Rose Memorial Prize
Poetry Contest Judge Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award
Koret Jewish Educator Scholarship
Ziegelman Full Merit Scholarship, RRC
Best Jewish Writing Selection (nonfiction)
Scholastic Arts Gold Key Teacher Award