Jill McDonough has selected Vanessa Moody’s poem “Anniversary III” as the winner of the 2017 Peseroff Prize. She praised Moody's poem for its "ambition in both content and form,” saying the poem "presents a series of erasures and re-imaginings based on the first section, a medical diagnosis. These sections shift in and out of tight focus, enacting the intimacy, terror, and enormity of taking in difficult information, showing us how we seek to stay ourselves when our bodies’ betrayals take center stage.”
Anniversary III
Vanessa Moody
1.
Hi Vanessa
I received the MRI report of your MRI and MRA scan done yesterday. The residual trigeminal mass lesion is 3.2 x 2.9 x 1.9 cm in size. The MRA of the blood vessels showed normal carotid artery - no vascular compression. If they gave you a copy of the images, we can look at it. I suggest you have a follow up surgical consultation, either at the ---- Medical Center, or with the surgeons who previously operated on you.
I hope the Trileptal is helping with the trigeminal neuralgia pain.
2.
Hi Vanessa
yesterday
the lesion showed
no you
a copy
look at it
you or
who
you
the pain.
3.
I report and scan.
Done!
The mass size.
The blood.
Look:
You, I hope.
4.
Vanessa.
report your yesterday
residual blood
look at it.
follow
operate
on the helping
the pain
5.
I your
they you we it. I
you
who you.
I hope pain.
6.
done size up the surgeons
(surgical surgeons)
done copy the look
(suggest hope)
done blood the images
(medical pain)
7.
I received your mass
gave you the images
we can look up
at the ---- with you
8.
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest you have a follow up
surgical consultation
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest you have a follow up
surgical consultation
I suggest you have a follow up
surgical consultation
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest consultation
I suggest a follow up consultation
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest you have a follow up
I suggest you have a follow up
surgical consultation
I have
have you
you follow
follow up
up surgical
surgical surgical
suggest you
have you
surgical
surgical
Vanessa
9.
3.2 x 2.9 x 1.9
10.
Vanessa of the mass-is-normal
you of the images
we can.
(you have a center)
you is.
VANESSA MOODY is a Brazilian-American writer and artist living in New York. Her work appears in online and print publications, including Willow Springs and the upcoming Best New Poets 2017. Also a librettist, Vanessa's opera What Gets Kept premiered at the Kennedy Center in January. She earned her BA in English at Stanford University and her MFA in Poetry at NYU, where she was a Goldwater Fellow and undergraduate instructor. Vanessa works in children's publishing and is a proud Hufflepuff.