Each year, small presses are invited to nominate up to six works for consideration in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. It’s both an honor and a challenge to make those choices. This collection is full of work that moved us, surprised us, and stayed with us long after we finished reading.
After much thought and conversation, the following six poems from Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age will represent The Chaos Section Poetry Project for the 2026 Pushcart Prize (for works published in 2025):
misstra know-it-all — Matthew E. Henry
They’ll Say They Didn’t Know — Bartholomew Barker
Keep Going — Rachel Armes-McLaughlin
Emerging from the Penumbra — Merril D. Smith
What We Tend — Meridith Allison
The Gardener — Chris Chan
We’re deeply grateful to every poet who contributed to Record of Dissent. Editing this book reminded us how art can speak truth to power in many voices. There were many others just as deserving of recognition; narrowing it to six was no simple task. These selections simply represent the breadth of what this community created together.
Thank you to all of our contributors for the work, heart, and courage you put into your poems.
—The Chaos Section Poetry Project
The Chaos Section Poetry Project 
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