Walking the Dog's Shadow rose to the top of nearly eight hundred submissions to win the ninth annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Tony Hoagland, who served as final judge for the contest, writes, "Deborah Brown's poems remind me a little of the great Polish poet, Wistawa Szymborska. They both make thinking look easy...Brown's poems aren't just about a eureka moment; they taste of the whole journey. Walking the Dog's Shadow is a beautiful book, wise and sure of itself, fresh with wit and gravity, serious and true." Deborah Brown teaches literature and writing at the University of New Hampshire-Manchester.

Threaded with echoes of familial trauma-a sister's battle with cancer, a brother's struggles with depression-the lyric poems in The Human Half reveal an open-hearted speaker who finds solace in the beauties of celestial navigation, the flowers along the railroad tracks, and the brushwork of Vermeer and Van Gogh. Filled with quirks of perception, Deborah Brown holds space for wonder amidst of life's seasons of longing.