Poet Laureate of California Al Young's comments on why he chose Erica Goss as the winner of the 2007 Edwin Markham prize:

"For her graphic imagination and her instinct for matching feeling to image, I chose Erica Goss's poems. It is far easier to describe in language the push-pull and shove of emotional attraction than it is to locate and pinpoint the meaning of feeling in time and space. Put another way, this poet has a gift for putting into vivid word-pictures her passion for life as well as her grasp of its unfolding complexity."