Ornament

Winner, Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

In this debut collection, Anna Lena Phillips Bell explores the foothills of the Eastern U.S., and the old-time Appalachian tunes and Piedmont blues she was raised to love. With formal dexterity—in ballads and sonnets, Sapphics and amphibrachs—the poems in Ornament traverse the permeable boundary between the body and the natural world.

“Ornament is a kind of tribute album. The poet, who is also a banjo player, pays tribute in many poems to the old-time ...