“Renga for an Absent Lover,” by Sheryl Mebane, won the 2012 Gemini Magazine Poetry Open and the $1,000 prize. A jazz musician, Sheryl is the author of the jazz novel Lady Bird. The second place prize of $100 went to Gerardo Mena for “A Nursing Home Boxer to a High School Volunteer” and Christina Lovin won the third place award for “11/11/11.”

Honorable mentions: “Depression Is My Happy Place,” by Jendi Reiter; “What the F***?” by Russ Dickerson, and “Morris’ Magic,” by Aurora M. Lewis.

Also in our March issue: moving short stories by Patty Somlo, Raud Kennedy and Sandra Seamans. Cover art: a cool painting of Bob Marley by Debra Hurd.

Congratulations to Gemini contributor Allison Whittenberg, whose vibrant poem, “52nd and Spruce,” was selected for the Best of the Net 2011 anthology now online from Sundress Publications. Allison’s poem originally appeared in the January 2011 issue of Gemini.

And congrats to Seamus Scanlon, winner of our 2011 Short Story Prize, for enthusiastic reviews of his play, “Dancing at Lunacy,” in the Huffington Post (“a powerful piece”), Back Stage, and elsewhere. The play premiered this month at the Cell Theatre in New York.

Gemini is open to submissions year round. Our Flash Fiction Contest, offering a grand prize of $1,000, runs through August 31, 2012. The entry fee is $4.