“It’s amazing when an anthology of different voices still manages to feel like a cohesive, breathing whole. These poems, together, are a choir, a song of hope and longing you will feel vibrating deep in your bones long after reading. “tell me everything you know / of tenderness” this book asks of its reader, and I am here, with my chest unlocked, ready to speak of it.” — Grant Chemidlin, author of What We Lost in the Swamp

“This collection reads like a secret, some whispered truth offered in hushed tone on the edges of a crowded room. It sticks with you that way, too. These poems, these raw and varied, diverse and vulnerable bits of ache, of joy, of sorrow, and mostly of beauty, burrow into your mind and keep the whisper going long after you’ve put it down. So much talent, I’ve never envied the judge of this contest less.” — Tyler Knott Gregson, author of Chasers of the Light