Fallow

Winner of the 2021 Trio Award: Megan Neville's The Fallow traverses the nature of birth and death, past and present. Her poetry is hands-on, enveloping the senses with metaphorical exploration of the body and humanity's " refusal to swallow" with "hands around/ their throats." Neville denounces societal expectations of sex, motherhood and the female body, while delving into a nation's seemingly endless cycle of trauma. The Fallow immerses us in Neville's inner struggle with the outdated and unchallenged social norms of this world. With an underhanded fierceness, Neville unfolds the formalities of living for us to digest line by line.