Dear God by Ethan Stebbins

Selected and Introduced by Kim Addonizio

Using the trope of god-as-absent-lover, or perhaps absent-lover-as-God, Dear God is an intimate, dizzyingly irreverent exploration of faith and desire, doubt and love, whose fourteen-line addresses call to mind Donne’s Holy Sonnets as well as the “terrible sonnets” of Hopkins.

—Kim Addonizio

Edition: 500 copies of the winning books were printed by the Prolific Group and designed by Gabriele Wilson, with covers by Jessica Nielsen.