The Brockman-Campbell Award Winners
The winner for the 2025 Brockman-Campbell Book Award is Knowing (Press 53, 2024) by Mark Cox.
Judge Martin Mitchell had this to say about his selection: “What does Mark Cox know? He knows the hiss of a cigarette hitting holy water, the ‘bleeding oil’ and ‘wounded paint’ of a fast car. He knows, too, the furious joy and activity of parenthood, and the empty nester’s attendant solitude. In Knowing, Cox examines the inevitable regrets of a well-lived life and the poignant contentment of accepting its main lesson: that nothing lasts. He performs this examination with a voice both grounded and charged, streaked through with winking humor and quiet lyricism. This generous, big-hearted collection shows a writer grappling with mortality and reveling in the good, the bad, and the ugly of his former selves, and knowing (finally) that ‘Timing, after all, is all.’ I can’t recommend these poems enough.”
Two collections received honorable mentions:
Claudine R. Moreau: Demise of Pangaea (Main St. Rag)
“The scale of Claudine R. Moreau’s Demise of Pangaea is huge. We range from the granular ‘keyed-in code’ of our cells, to lovemaking and childbirth, all the way to the eventual extinction of our galaxy, with its ‘spiral-armed bones’ descending towards Earth. Moreau beautifully renders humanity’s physical and emotional ‘fossil record.’ A surprising and inventive work.”
AE Hines: Adam in the Garden (Charlotte Lit Press)
“A tender collection of poems about middle age and all that it encompasses: failures of the body, the sustained satisfaction of marriage and monogamy, the thrill and dread of raising a newborn child, and perhaps above all, a continual looking back on ‘all the men/I’ve been.’ In Adam in the Garden, Hines has created a memorable set of poems that refuse to take the shape of a single form or emotional note. He ranges beautifully.”
About the Winning Poet: Mark Cox has authored seven volumes of poetry, the latest being Knowing (2024) and Readiness (2018), both from Press 53. He has a 40-year history of publication in prominent magazines and his honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize and numerous fellowships. He currently chairs the Department of Creative Writing at UNC Wilmington, but will be retiring soon, after 39 years of teaching.
About the Judge: Martin Mitchellis a writer and musician living in Washington, DC. He works for the Library of Congress and holds an MFA in poetry from George Mason University. He served as Managing Editor of Poetry Daily for many years and was the Programs Manager for the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center. His writing has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Psaltery & Lyre, and elsewhere.
Thank you to everyone who entered this year’s contest.
About the Brockman-Campbell Award
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.
2024 – The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems 1990-2022 by Michael Hettich.Honorable Mention: Starfish Wash-Up by Katherine Soniat and The Best Material for the Artist in the World by Kenneth Chamlee.
2023 – Light at the Seam by Joseph Bathanti. Honorable Mention: Horse Not Zebra by Eric Nelson and Polishing the Glass Storm by Katherine Soniat.
2022 – White Lung by Kimberly O’Connor. Honorable Mention: Anything That Happens by Cheryl Wilder and Any Dumb Animal by AE Hines.
2021 – Sailing the Bright Stream: New & Selected Poems by Dave Manning. Honorable Mention: In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver by Dannye Romine Powell, and The Tyranny of Questions by Michael Gaspeny.
2020 – Wild Persistence by Patricia Hooper. Honorable Mention: Trawling the Silences by Kathryn Stripling Byer; Take Me With You Wherever You’re Going by Jessica Jacobs; and Recipe for Garum by Robert Letters.
2019 – Green Target by Tina Barr. Honorable Mention: Antipsalm by Wayne John;
Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse by Valerie Nieman; and Wild Horses by Pam Baggett.
2018 – Every Room in the Body by Kerri French. Honorable Mentions: strange
theatre by John Amen; Ornament by Anna Lena Phillips Bell; and The Brightest Rock
by Kelly Lenox.
2017 – The Ladder by Alan Michael Parker. Honorable Mention: The Door That Always Opens by Julie Funderburk and Bright Stranger by Katherine Soniat.
2016 – Domestic Garden by John Hoppenthaler. Honorable Mention: strange theater by John Amen; Astir by Kevin Boyle; and Salt Moon by Noel Crook.
2015 – Her Small Hands Were Not Beautiful by Kathryn Kirkpatrick. Honorable Mention: The Angel Dialogues by Anthony S. Abbott and Day of the Border Guards by Katherine E. Young.
2014 – Placeholder by Charlaine Cadreau and My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass by Susan Laughter Meyers.
2013 – Our Held Animal Breath by Kathryn Kirkpatrick.
2012 – If Words Could Save Us by Anthony S. Abbott and An Innocent in the House of the Dead by Joanna Catherine Scott (co-winners).
2011 – Long Lens: New and Selected Poems by Peter Makuck.
2010 – The Real Warnings by Rhett Iseman Trull.
2009 – A Necklace of Bees by Dannye Romine Powell.
2008 – Need-Fire by Becky Gould Gibson.
2007 – Keep and Give Away by Susan Meyers.
2006 – Fainting at the Uffizi by Joanna Catherine Scott.
2005 – Possum by Shelby Stephenson.
2004 – The Dark Takes Aim by Julie Suk.
2003 – The Ecstasy of Regret by Dannye Romine Powell.
2002 – Intervale: New and Selected Poems by Betty Adcock.
2001 – Topsoil Road by Robert Morgan.
2000 – Small Potatoes by Mary Kratt.
1999 – Black Shawl by Kathryn Stripling Byer.
1998 – Daylight and Starlight by James Applewhite.
1997 – The Body’s Horizon by Kathryn Kirkpatrick.
1996 – Mortal World by Deborah Pope.
1995 – Snake Dreams by Barbara Presnell.
1994 – Waiting to Know the End by Judy Goldman.
1993 – Salt Works by Michael Chitwood.
1992 – The Complete Bushnell Hamp Poems by Stephen Smith.
1991 – The Light as They Found It by James Seay.
1990 – Lessons in Soaring by James Applewhite.
1989 – Beholdings by Betty Adcock and First Light by Jim Wayne Miller.
1988 – Pilgrims by Peter Makuck.
1987 – Birch-Light by R. T. Smith.
1986 – The Work of the Wrench by Charles Edward Eaton.
1985 – Acquist by Elizabeth Sewel.
1984 – The Thing King by Charles Edward Eaton.
1983 – Night Fishing on Irish Buffalo Creek by Stephen Knauth.
1982 – A Coast of Trees by Archie R. Ammons.
1981 – Earthsleep by Fred Chappell.
1980 – Terra Amata by Kathryn Bright Gurkin and Middle Creek Poems by Shelby Stephenson.
1979 – There Is No Balm in Birmingham by Ann Deagon.
1978 – House on the Saco by P. B. Newman.
1977 – Half-After Love by John Moses Pipkin.