The University of Arkansas Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of The Daughter of Man by L. J. Sykso, a finalist for the Miller Williams Poetry Prize.
The Daughter of Man follows its unorthodox heroine as she transforms from “maiden” to “warrior”—then to “queen,” “maven,” and “crone”—against the backdrop of suburban America from the 1980s to today. In this bold reframing of the hero’s journey, L. J. Sysko serves up biting social commentary and humorous, unsparing self-critique while enlisting an eccentric cast that includes Betsy Ross as sex worker, Dolly Parton as raptor, and a bemused MILF exchanging gazes with a young man at a gas station. The paintings of the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, whose extraordinary achievements were overshadowed during her lifetime after she took her rapist to trial, also loom large in this multifaceted portrait of womanhood. With uncommon force, The Daughter of Man confronts misogyny and violence even as it bursts with nostalgia, lust, and poignant humor.
L. J. Sysko is the author of the chapbook Battledore. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. She lives in Delaware.
The Daughter of Man will be published in March 2023, as part of the Miller Williams Poetry Series, edited by Patricia Smith.
Every year, the University of Arkansas Press accepts submissions for the Miller Williams Poetry Series and from the books selected awards the $5,000 Miller Williams Poetry Prize in the following summer. For almost a quarter century the press has made this series the cornerstone of its work as a publisher of some of the country’s best new poetry. The series and prize are named for and operated to honor the cofounder and longtime director of the press, Miller Williams.
“I love poems that vivify and disturb,” says series editor Patrica Smith. “No matter what genre we write in, we’re all essentially storytellers — but it’s poets who toil most industriously, telling huge unwieldy stories within tight and gorgeously controlled confines, stories that are structurally and sonically adventurous, and it’s magic every time it happens. Simply put, when I read a poetry book, I want something to shift in my chest. I want my world to change.”