Update (September 2026)

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Dark Palace was awarded the Kármán Liminality Chapbook Prize in 2017 by Radiant Crown Publishing. The publisher subsequently restructured as Aurelia Leo Press. Aurelia Leo closed during COVID and did not publish Dark Palace. Its publisher, Olivia Raymond (aka Zelda Knight), now operates Crowne Books.

 

Dark Palace is now envisioned as part of a poetry chapbook triptych, alongside Sparrows Still Sing in the Morning and Growing Lemons in the Desert.

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About Dark Palace

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In DARK PALACE, a panorama of global violence reminds us of severed nerves, disconnected from war and violation. The traumas come in flashes: the bombed Buddhas of Bamiyan, the Iraq War, movie stars at secret parties, a passenger jet downed, Syria in ruins, refugee crises ... and the birth of the Dajjal.

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The shocks transport the poems into surreal mirror worlds. Whistleblowers and prostitutes speak light language in Nevada's deserts. Dreams of space landscapes promise deliverance. The poems push through the illusion of daily reality to liberation and a love, beyond knowing, and larger than truth.​

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