The Miller Aud-cast | April 16, 2021

It has come to this, the internet: it’s time for Episode 14 of the Miller Aud-cast. This episode we are bringing you “Scribbles,” a notable entry in the 2020 Miller Audio Prize by Liz Parker Garcia.

Liz Parker Garcia is a biracial (Vietnamese and White) poet who holds an MFA from Hollins University. Each poem featured in “Scribbles” started out as a quick freehand sketch that Liz drew to help her engage creatively when she felt blocked by stress and fear during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The poems that flowed from this practice emerged in the same loose, free-flowing manner. They are like verbal scribbles. Learn more about Liz and her work at www.lizparkergarcia.com.

It has been just over a year since the pandemic altered the world we thought we knew, and began the long introduction to the world we actually live in. Garcia’s poems document the early period after the initial shelter in place order introduced us to forms of isolation that we’re still coping with, in addition to the threat of a highly infectious, mutating virus. Though the details are sometimes mundane, sometimes anguished, and punctuated by everyday sounds we often gloss over, Garcia achieves a kind of assertion of life that is replenishing. These poems feel and help us to feel deeply what is lost, and what returns.

Stay tuned for Miller Aud-cast lucky #15, coming soon. Take heed! Submissions are open now for the 2021 Miller Audio Prize. The deadline for entry is June 15, which will be here before you know it. Learn all about it at our website. Thanks also to the Missouri Review contest editor, Bailey Boyd, and to Patricia Miller, for her generous support for the Miller Audio Prize. Finally, TMR is open for submissions year-round, and we remain dedicated to discovering and publishing the best contemporary writing in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Be heard. Give us the opportunity to discover you: subscribe or submit your work today! Learn more at www.missourireview.com.