On October 15, 2025, Julie Elise Landry's poem "How to Learn about Lizards after a Phobia" was named as a finalist in the LMNL Arts 2025 Patty Friedmann Writing Contest associated with the Words & Music literary festival hosted by One Book One New Orleans.
Only five poets were named finalists out of a record number of submissions.
LMNL had not yet revealed the contest winner or runner up selected by contest judge Andy Young at the time of the announcement.
Landry's poem "How to Learn about Lizards after a Phobia" draws on her experiences with overcoming a lifelong lizard phobia and then becoming incredibly curious about the lizards that once plagued her. Set in an online world of digital research, the poem reckons with the invasive brown lizards (anolis sagrei) driving the native green lizards (anolis carolinensi) of New Orleans into the trees and with the speaker's lingering memories of her own fear.
"I have an entire drafted chapbook about lizards, about this phobia," Landry said. "Most of those poems are interrelated, so I hope to see them published together one day—but this poem, I think, stands quite on its own!"
Only five poets were named finalists out of a record number of submissions.
LMNL had not yet revealed the contest winner or runner up selected by contest judge Andy Young at the time of the announcement.
Landry's poem "How to Learn about Lizards after a Phobia" draws on her experiences with overcoming a lifelong lizard phobia and then becoming incredibly curious about the lizards that once plagued her. Set in an online world of digital research, the poem reckons with the invasive brown lizards (anolis sagrei) driving the native green lizards (anolis carolinensi) of New Orleans into the trees and with the speaker's lingering memories of her own fear.
"I have an entire drafted chapbook about lizards, about this phobia," Landry said. "Most of those poems are interrelated, so I hope to see them published together one day—but this poem, I think, stands quite on its own!"
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