Announcing the winner of the 2025 Escarpment Prize for Poetry: After the Anthropocene by Jordan Wyberneit.

After the Anthropocene is a collection of poetry that immerses readers into a fantasy and a future, a mythos of systemic sentience and radical agency. Spanning linear time from inception of the universe to the Anthropocene, this work invites readers into the language and intellects of the non-human and the hominid. This work explores themes of identity, self-determination, sentiency, consent, agency, capitalism, entitlement, colonization, waste, and offers a perspective on humanness.

The 2025 inaugural Escarpment Prize for Poetry short list has been selected by the editors of Avalon Park Press. The collections include:

• Elhannon - Pierce Clifford Brown

• Silence & Salt - Genevieve Creedon

• Confessions of a Trump Supporter - David Lohrey

• Ice Flowers - Caroline Wellman

• After the Anthropocene - Jordan Wyberneit

The winner of the 2025 inaugural Forsberg Prize for Fiction is Future Perfect written by Matthew James Babcock.

The following titles have been selected for the shortlist by the editors of Avalon Park Press due to their outstanding narrative voice, compelling themes, and unique characters:

• Caverns

• Future Perfect

• Little Gifts