Poetry. Winner of an MIPA award for Debut Poetry. Finalist for a Maine Literary Award. Michelle Lewis’ poetry collection ANIMUL/FLAME was selected by renowned poet Bob Hicok as the winner of the first annual Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize. Lewis uses language, both strange and familiar, to create an enchanted world full of shadows and poems that read like fables for the future. A raw, explicit, and personal book that conjures the dark, the mysterious, and the mythological. ANIMUL/FLAME is charged by an emotional integrity that yields exacting bite and insight. This is a marvelous debut.–Terrance Hayes