Poetry. Winner of the Francis Jaffer Book Award, a first book prize honoring the memory of Bay Area poet, editor, and feminist Francis Jaffer. This year's prize was chosen by Barbara Guest, who has the following to say about CUSP: "Music, a story 'circular and multiplying' each portion of the poem 'according to its own great score' and 'light now raging' over each page. Cusp is a poem of exceptional sensibility and ardor." San Francisco resident Jocelyn Saidenberg is the publisher of Krupskaya Press, which specializes in experimental writing and which features a revolving board of editors. "the erstwhile manservant having come to what indifference. to what/ profound conviction of having lost the right track. his own track. her/ trajectory. plane trees. He offers non-pareils and we arm. we inflate"-from "This Side Up Again."

Jocelyn Saidenberg is the author of Dispossessed (Belladonna, 2007), Negativity (Atelos, 2006), Dusky (Belladonna, 2002), CUSP (Kelsey Street Press, 2001), and Mortal City (Parenthesis Writing Series, 1998). She is an editor and publisher of KRUPSKAYA Books, a small press publishing collective, and also works as a librarian at the San Francisco Public Library. Born in New York City, she currently lives in San Francisco.