The 2026 James Applewhite Poetry Prize contest received a record number of submissions – over 425 poems from 135 different poets. Final Judge Tyree Daye has selected “Landscape with Snow” by Becky Gould Gibson as this year’s Prize winner, describing his selection as “a poem that uses its form to express loss, but more importantly, what the speaker has gained. It is a poem in which the form and subject matter are dependent on one another.” He continues, “As writers and artists, I think it is essential to make our work with what we have access to. ‘Landscape with Snow’ makes the argument that language is not what we express, but how we express. What has been taken away is what has actually been given.” The poet will receive a $250 prize, a Pushcart nomination, and publication in the 2026 print issue of the North Carolina Literary Review.
Becky Gould Gibson lives in Chapel Hill and has lived in North Carolina since 1968. She taught literature and writing at Guilford College until her retirement. Her poems have appeared in journals, anthologies, and in eight collections, including, most recently Indelible, which received the 2018 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize (Broadkill River Press, 2018; reviewed in NCLR Online 2020) and Characters (Main Street Rag, 2026). Her previous honors include the North Carolina Poetry Society’s 2008 Brockman-Campbell Award.
Daye awarded second place to “My healing is” by Kimilee Norman, who grew up in Raleigh; third place to “A Grammar for the Skeleton” by Lee Zacharias, retired from over 30 years on the creative writing faculty at UNC Greensboro; and honorable mention to “To Do List before the Funeral: Demeter” by Tori Reynolds, a clinical psychologist who lives in Hillsborough. These poems will also be published in 2027.
The other finalists this year were “Spitting Image of Tupac 1994” by Asma Abike, “The Want Heart” by Malaika King Albrecht, “Sign” by Caleb Beissert, “Winged Horse” by Elisabeth Lewis Corley, “Heart Pine” by Scott Dickison, “Bob-White” by Bill Griffin,” “Swerve” by Roxanne Henderson, “queer pastoral I: frotting” by Mikey Jones, “What He Did to the Barbie” by Jeffrey-Michael Kane, “Dismal Theology” by Ian Carr McPherson, “Agoraphobia” by Eric L.B. Thompson, and “Kentucky Wonder Beans” by Robert M. Wallace.
We thank our NCLR poetry readers and Poetry Editor Amber Flora Thomas for all their hard work to choose finalists, and we’re grateful to all of the poets who shared their work with us. Thanks, too, to final judge Tyree Daye, Assistant Professor in English & Comparative Literature at UNC Chapel Hill, and author of a little bump in the earth (Copper Canyon Press, 2024), Cardinal (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), and River Hymns (American Poetry Review, 2017), winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. A Cave Canem fellow and a Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellow, Daye is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, a Kate Tufts Award finalist, and a 2021 Paterson Prize finalist.
This is the fifteenth year for the Applewhite Poetry Prize Contest, which is open to any North Carolina poet (resident or former resident) who is a subscriber to NCLR or a member of the NC Literary and Historical Association. Honoraria for the prize winner, honorees, judge, and any other poets whose poems are accepted for publication are provided by the Association and grant funding from the North Carolina Arts Council.
Produced since 1992 at East Carolina University and published by the University of North Carolina Press, the mission of NCLR is to preserve and promote North Carolina’s rich literary culture. NCLR introduces new and emerging writers; reintroduces forgotten authors; showcases work in literary criticism, interviews, book reviews, fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry; and reports on literary news stories. We complement the writing with the work of North Carolina artists and photographers.
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