Passage Prize Volume III: Guide to the Current Year

Passage Prize 03 is the final volume in Passage Publishing’s first of its kind arts and literature contest series. This volume is an art book quality anthology of the very best fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and visual art from the last two years of contest submissions. This final installment gathers prizewinning and selected work across all four disciplines, framed by an introduction that articulates the purpose and scope of the Passage Prize project from its inception to the long, arduous work that is now before us.

This volume covers an impressive range of artistic expression––far from the drab politics of the day––unlike anything in contemporary American Arts and Letters. The book moves from surreal and visionary fiction (Michael Button’s “English Bones” and Justin A.W. Blair’s “Apocalyptic Wiggers in the Shadow of the Electric Beast”) to hard-edged social observation (Arturo D. Leal’s “Aaron Bushnell’s America (or, A Poster’s Life),” from lean poetry (Mark Signorelli’s “The Navigator Falling”) to searching essays (Midwest Expat’s haunting encounter with occultic North African blood rituals in his travelogue “Hierophany”), all set alongside a wide open portfolio of visual artwork that gives the collection a three dimensional force. While still very much the product of an emerging cultural milieu––and all of the wild and nascent energy entailed by that––this volume also consists of highly skilled, highly technical work that speaks to the formation of a mature point of view that captures the mood and style of a singular era in American public life.

This is not a disposable annual. It is a beautifully produced record of contemporary imagination unbothered by the pieties or political provincialism of the age that spawned it. It is inspired by the notion that culture must be made again from the ground up. For readers who care about new art, new writing, and the shape of what comes next, Passage Prize 03 is an essential addition to your library.