Week 22 Recap: milktooth Takes the Crown
milktooth bit into the bracket last week and emerged victorious. This cover captured the essence of the round, elevating an everyday milk carton into a cover design that encourages our eyes to drink every drop.
Week 22 Winner: milktooth by Jaime Burnet
Congrats to Jaime Burnet and the Vagrant Press team!
Week 23: Animals Again
Animals again? Why, yes, dear bracketeer. Because we are animals too. We belong in a zoo. Yes, my friend, you too.
- Butter by Asako Yuzuki, trans. Polly Barton (Ecco, Oct 29, 2024): Inspired by the real “Konkatsu Killer,” a journalist’s unlikely exchange with a gourmet cook and accused murderer simmers with obsession, food, and misogyny.
- Paper Crown by Heather Christle (Wesleyan University Press, Aug 5, 2025): Christle’s exuberant return to poetry after a decade, blending dreamlike imagination with tender, personal observation.
- National Animal by Derek Webster (Signal Editions, Sept 5, 2024): Civic-minded poems confronting history, politics, and our place in a cosmos alive with estranged birdsong.
- Pigs in Delirium by Jorge Carlos Fonseca, trans. Shook (Insert Press, May 27, 2025): A surreal, imagistic, and playful collection that reshaped Lusophone poetry with skepticism, difficulty, and dazzling invention.
Week 23 Lineup
Voting is open now through Sunday at 10pm ET.
Tap Here to VoteIn good company,
Will Pass
Book Jacket Bracket Guy