Formerly the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Award (1977-1996)
This award is given annually for the book of poetry judged to be the best published by a North Carolinian in the preceding year.
| 2012 | Anthony S. Abbott | If Words Could Save Us |
| Joanna Catherine Scott | An Innocent in the House of the Dead | |
| Steve Lautermilch | Rim (Honorable Mention) | |
| 2011 | Peter Makuck | Long Lens: New and Selected Poems |
| 2010 | Rhett Iseman Trull | The Real Warnings |
| 2009 | Dannye Romine Powell | A Necklace of Bees |
| 2008 | Becky Gould Gibson | Need-Fire |
| 2007 | Susan Meyers | Keep and Give Away |
| 2006 | Joanna Catherine Scott | Fainting at the Uffizi |
| 2005 | Shelby Stephenson | Possum |
| 2004 | Julie Suk | The Dark Takes Aim |
| 2003 | Dannye Romine Powell | The Ecstasy of Regret |
| 2002 | Betty Adcock | Intervale: New and Selected Poems |
| 2001 | Robert Morgan | Topsoil Road |
| 2000 | Mary Kratt | Small Potatoes |
| 1999 | Kathryn Stripling Byer | Black Shawl |
| 1998 | James Applewhite | Daytime and Starlight |
| 1997 | Kathryn Kirkpatrick | The Body’s Horizon |
| 1996 | Deborah Pope | Mortal World |
| 1995 | Barbara Presnell | Snake Dreams |
| 1994 | Judy Goldman | Waiting to Know the End |
| 1993 | Michael Chitwood | Salt Works |
| 1992 | Stephen Smith | The Complete Bushnell Hamp Poems |
| 1991 | James Seay | The Light as They Found It |
| 1990 | James Applewhite | Lessons in Soaring |
| 1989 | Betty Adcock | Beholdings |
| Jim Wayne Miller | First Light | |
| 1988 | Peter Makuck | Pilgrims |
| 1987 | R.T. Smith | Birch-Light |
| 1986 | Charles Edward Eaton | The Work of the Wrench |
| 1985 | Elizabeth Sewel | Acquist |
| 1984 | Charles Edward Eaton | The Thing King |
| 1983 | Stephen Knauth | Night Fishing on Irish Buffalo Creek |
| 1982 | Archie R. Ammons | A Coast of Trees |
| 1981 | Fred Chappell | Earthsleep |
| 1980 | Kathryn Bright Gurkin | Terra Amata |
| Shelby Stephenson | Middle Creek Poems | |
| 1979 | Ann Deagon | There Is No Balm in Birmingham |
| 1978 | P.B. Newman | House on the Saco |
| 1977 | John Moses Pipkin | Half-After Love |