Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘NC Poetry Society’

Witness – Appalachia to Hatteras

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2026| 2 Comments »

IMG_7788

Wayah Bald on the horizon

 . 
[ 3 poems from the 2026 Gilbert-Chappell mentorships ]
 . 
✾  ✿  ❀  ❁
 . 
all selections are from the 2026 edition of
Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras
the annual anthology of the Gilbert Chappell Distinguished Poet Series
mentor program of the North Carolina Poetry Society
 . 
Weeping Willows
 . 
In a garden of weeping willows,
roots coil in secret below the patient gaze of stones,
and shadows thicken with stories unsaid and untended—
secrets no one can tell.
Yet, each leaf holds a history pressed thin by longing,
longing something forgotten—
leaves know more than anyone could ever know.
The weeping willows weren’t just there for show,
they were there for a story,
a story on how everything had gone wrong.
Once upon a time they weren’t weeping willows,
but just willows.
However, with all the history they held,
they wept.
hoping and praying they could just die,
hoping they would be forgotten
so no one would cause them more damage,
but every spring’s arrival
rattles against those hidden wounds,
making forgetting impossible.
They hide in winter, hoping no one will see,
but spring only draws attention,
when they are forced to be beautiful,
while at night they weep.
 . 
Cynthia Ward
Eastern Region Gilbert-Chappell student poet, Cynthia is a junior at West Columbus High School, where she is the school poet laureate. The Eastern Region Gilbert-Chappell Mentor is Gideon Young, Chapel Hill, NC.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Cross #12
 . 
A random cross was performed between parent 1
and parent 2. Figure 8.1 gives the results
of the cross. Use the table to answer the
following questions:
 . 
1. If the offspring’s genotype is a result
of independent assortment and crossing over,
is the offspring really just the sum of
probability and chance?
 . 
2. If the offspring express a recombinant
phenotype, what gives it inherent beauty?
 . 
3. If there are no alleles for morality,
why does the offspring feel an inherent sense of
right and wrong?
 . 
4. If parent 1 was heterozygous
dominant, and parent 2 homozygous
recessive, what is the offspring’s purpose in life?
 . 
5. If the offspring’s mos fundamental instinct
is to survive and reproduce, why does it care
about so much more?
 . 
6. If all there ever was and is is this world,
why isn’t the offspring satisfied by it?
 . 
Kendal Dixon
Kendal is a Central Region Gilbert-Chappell student poet. She graduated in 2026 from Southern Alamance High School. The Central Region Gilbert-Chappell Mentor is Joseph Mills, Winston-Salem, NC.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Why I Love Polka Dots
 . 
My mother is going out.
I don’t really know what this means,
I only know that
soon I will be left behind.
But she is here now,
I am here now,
and now
it is just the two of us.
I sit at the foot of the bed.
She, high priestess, poses in front of the mirror.
Girdle, garters, stockings,
lipstick, rouge, hairspray, jewelry.
The bumps of the old white bedspread
press mountains and valleys
into my sunburned summer thighs
as she twirls in front of me
in her favorite dress,
chocolate brown satiny silk
covered with
black velveteen polka dots
that shiver and pulse with a life
I don’t yet understand.
 . 
Mary Beth Stevens
An adult student of the Gilbert-Chappell Western Region, Mary Beth lives in the Blue Ridge mountains. She has written children’s books but only lately turned to poetry. The Western Region Gilbert-Chappell Mentor is Lee Stockdale, Asheville, NC.
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
The Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series originated in 2003 at the encouragement of Fred Chappell, North Carolina’s fifth Poet Laureate. Fred felt a mentorship program for students and young adults would further the North Carolina Poetry Society’s mission of encouraging the reading, writing, and enjoyment of poetry across the state. Through a generous endowment from the family of Marie Gilbert (herself a life member and supporter of NCPS), this mentorship series is permanently funded and has thrived for twenty-three years.
 . 
Three Distinguished Poets from Eastern, Central, and Western North Carolina each mentor a middle-school student, a high-school student, a college or university student, and an adult mentee within their respective regions. The current State Coordinator is Michael Dechane, and the Distinguished Poet Mentors for the 2025-26 season have been Gideon Young (East), Joseph Mills (Central), and Lee Stockdale (West).
 . 
Applications for the 2026-2027 program open September 1 – November 15. Find more information about the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series, including an application form, at the NC Poetry Society web site HERE
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Each student works with their mentor to write and edit a series of poems. In addition to public readings and presentations, GCDPS publishes an annual anthology with poetry by the students as well as the Mentors, Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras. Order your copy HERE
 . 

Cape Lookout

 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or more poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
 . 

Read Full Post »

NC Poetry Society Awards – Adults

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

[photo by Andre Tew — thanks!]

 . 
[ a sampling of winning poems by Gregory Lobas, Hannah Ringler, Chapman Hood Frazier, Scott Owens, Lora E. Hawkins  – May 16, 2026 at Weymouth Center ]
 . 
Moon Over Gaza
 . 
is not the moon over me.
I have had my supper,
 . 
and now I watch a swift scissor the air,
wings shaped like lunar crescents,
one rising, one setting
as it flips on its axis
in pursuit of its evening
meal, dusk-colored plumage
bleeding into a southern summer night.
 . 
Half a world away, my son
distributes food in a land
that is hard to love,
among people who do not love him,
a land where locusts no longer
swarm in a biblical effusion of life,
but flies amass through a prodigy
 . 
of death, and survivors teem
over palettes of aid boxes
driven to the edge of insect-
frenzy, children gleaning
lentils spilled into the dirt
like lots cast to see
who lives and who dies.
 . 
Soldiers of another stripe
fire machine guns
into the pre-dawn sky,
echoing across the landscape
like a call to prayer. A reminder
of the governance of the absolute.
 . 
Buildings bleed
into rubble. Rubble bleeds
into dust. Dust into hunger.
Hunger into gall clinging
to the back of the throat,
the body’s taste of sorrow.
 . 
And, above it all, the moon hangs
like one severed wing of a swift.
My son (I imagine him facing homeward)
would see it set into the barren hillocks
that lie humped beyond his camp
like so many sheet-covered bodies,
while I face east to watch it rise
over a grassy meadow alive
with the scratch of katydids,
the tilted crescent bleeding
its pale light over all the earth
 . 
Gregory Lobas
Poet Laureate Award
 . 
✾  ✾
 . 
 . 
Gregory Lobas’ book, Left of Center, won the 2022 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize. A 2026 Best of the Net nominee, his work can be found in New Ohio Review, Tar River Poetry, Cimarron Review, Vox Populi, Susurrus, and many other journals.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
tents hawking fireworks
these missiles, at least, only sound
and weeping stars
 . 
Hannah Ringler
Bloodroot Haiku Award; Honorable Mention
 . 
✾  ✾
 . 
 . 
Hannah Ringler is a poet, gardener, freelance editor, and preschool mom living in Durham, North Carolina. She composes poetry at red lights and standing at the kitchen sink. By night, she is the State Coordinator for the Poetry in Plain Sight Program of the North Carolina Poetry Society.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Our 50th Solstice
 . 
Our wedding rings two spirals in opposite directions.
Each defining the other, each apart together.
 . 
I first followed you through the back field, your hair golden
as broom straw in sunlight beneath a cloudless southside sky.
 . 
Even then I knew it was you I had to live with. Love at first sight
I had always thought a stupid myth I now had come to believe in.
 . 
On our first Thanksgiving, you crossed the Appalachians with your sister
to my apartment where we were first alone together.
 . 
The scent of heliotrope left on the pillow and sandalwood
on the braided leather bracelets we exchanged.
 . 
I followed the roadmap of your body from the green undulating waves
of the Outer Banks to the narrow cobblestone back streets of Rome.
 . 
Each child’s birth a seeded light of our ancestors, growing through us like
winter ivy or an ocean wave rising towards some inevitable shore.
 . 
I massaged your back in the dim-lit hospital room as you birthed our son
and steadied you as our daughter slipped into this world.
 . 
A slow learner, now after 50 years, I’ve finally realized that love is a seed of
mitochondrial light, something I carry from those who’ve come
 . 
before. It shines through this oculus of our lives, a commitment
that opens time’s spiral until a death parts us. This is the heart of solstice
 . 
beyond the known into the unknown. The time after as before
when we may find each other again in an afterlife not of our making.
 . 
Chapman Hood Frazier
Carol Bessent Hayman Poetry of Love; First Place
 . 
✾  ✾
 . 
 . 
Chapman Hood Frazier’s The Lost Books of the Bestiary was published in 2023. His work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Poetry Review, The South Carolina Review and other publications. Currently a Professor Emeritus from James Madison University, he lives in Rice, Virginia.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Churchyard Playground, Cokesbury SC
 . 
Beneath the trees the children play
surrounded by the swirl of leaves.
They waste another careless day
spending time doing as they please,
unafraid what things may fall away.
 . 
Please do not scold, please nothing say
of the loss that we feel today.
Such knowledge will fill no need
for those beneath the trees.
 . 
Leave them to it! Let them play!
Give them peace at least another day.
They do not need to know that though their days
go slow, they go. Don’t make them see
that days will come when they will be
still beneath the trees.
 . 
Scott Owens
Charles Edward Eaton Award, Sonnet or Traditional Form; Honorable Mention
 . 
✾  ✾
 . 
 . 
Poet Laureate of Hickory, North Carolina, Scott Owens is author of twenty-four poetry collections, recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Pushcart Prize Anthology, among others. He is Professor of Poetry at Lenoir Rhyne University, owns and operates Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse, and coordinates Poetry Hickory.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
 . 
In 11th grade
I am told
by Austin Roberts,
 . 
that according to physics,
there is no concept
of cold,
simply an
absence
of heat.
 . 
1,500 miles,
two decades,
and several
heartsmashings later,
 . 
my hand finds its way
under the covers to the small
of my husband’s bare back.
 . 
Oh, it’s cold
he says
scootching away.
Not cold,
I think, as an echo
of a half-remembered
thought.
 . 
My hands
just lack
the heat of you.
 . 
Lora E. Hawkins
In Defense of Science Award; Second Place
 . 
✾  ✾
 . 
 . 
Lora Hawkins is an assistant professor at Appalachian State. Most recently, her work has appeared in English Journal, Anthology of Kansas City Writers, In the Black and in the Red, Pinesong, Poets for Peace, and The Nature of Our Times. She holds credentials from Columbia, Brown, and Warren Wilson College.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
All selections are from PINESONG 2026, Volume 62, the annual anthology of the North Carolina Poetry Society. © 2026 NCPS.
 . 
 . 
The North Carolina Poetry Society is an inclusive, expansive community of writers, readers, teachers, and friends that spans the state’s 100 counties and extends throughout the United States. Its mission is to support, promote, and celebrate poetry. Thank you to the entire Board of NCPS – it takes all of you to bring these contests, gatherings, and publications into being. Special thanks to Sherry Thrasher, Pinesong Editor and Adult Contest Coordinator; Kim Lane, Student Contest Coordinator; Kevin Watson and Press 53, interior layout and cover design for Pinesong as well as sponsor of the Poet Laureate Contest; Kashiana Singh, NCPS President and behind-the-scenes magic elf who makes sure warp and weft are woven into beauty; Chad Knuth, program planner; and all the proof readers, copy editors, book schleppers, goody providers (I’m looking at you, Joan) and enthusiastic supporters of Awards Day each May.
 . 

[photo by Andre Tew]

 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
The North Carolina Poetry Society conducts twelve contest for adults each year. The submission period opens on December 1, with a deadline of February 1. Winners are invited to attend and read their poem at Sam Ragan Awards Day at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities (Southern Pines) each May. Check HERE for contest guidelines and details.
 . 
Winning poems are published in the anthology Pinesong. If you would like to purchase a copy ($10), or if you are a NCPS member and would like to request your complimentary copy, please contact Membership Vice President Joan Barasovska:  msjoan9@gmail.com.
 . 
The NCPS Adult Contests are:
 . 
Poet Laureate Award
Sponsored by Press 53; Final Judge: NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green. Open to poets currently residing in North Carolina.
 . 
Alice Osborn Award
Sponsored by Alice Osborn; Poems in any form, any style, written by adults for children 2 to 12 years of age.
 . 
Carol Bessent Hayman Poetry of Love Award
Endowed by David Manning; Any form, any style, on the theme of love.
 . 
Katherine Kennedy McIntyre Light Verse Award
Sponsored by Kashiana Singh; Light verse in any form, any style, including limericks
Mary Ruffin Poole American Heritage Award
Endowed by Pepper Worthington; Any form, any style, on the theme of American heritage, sibling-hood, or nature.
Poetry of Courage Award
Endowed by Ann Campanella; Any form, any style, on the theme of courage or crisis
 . 
Bruce Lader Poetry of Witness Award
Sponsored by Doug Stuber; Any form, any style, addressing contemporary events or issues
 . 
Jean Williams Poetry of Disability, Disease, and Healing Award
Endowed by Priscilla Webster-Williams; Any form, any style, on the theme of disability, disease, and healing.
 . 
Bloodroot Haiku Award
Sponsored by Bill Griffin; Contemporary English language haiku (untitled).
 . 
Charles Edward Eaton Award
Endowed by an anonymous friend of Charles Edward Eaton; Sonnet or other traditional form, maximum of 50 lines.
 . 
Robert Golden Award
Endowed by Nexus Poets and Linda Golden; Any form, any style.
 . 
In Defense of Science Poetry Award
Sponsored by Garrett Sharpe; Any form or style that engages with scientific ideas across all disciplines—climatology, oceanography, microbiology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, and beyond.
 . 
 . 
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
 . 
 .
 .
 . 
 . 
 . 
 . 
 .
 . 
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2025-07-10

Read Full Post »

NC Poetry Society Awards – Students

Posted in Imagery, tagged , , , , , on May 22, 2026| 2 Comments »

 . 
A sampling of winning poems by Sebastian Gyovai, Liz Maceda, 
Sasha Smith,  Akshita Gupta, Sophie Lankarani
May 16, 2026 at Weymouth Center
 . 
An Immigrant’s View
 . 
America, can I ring the Taco Bell?
America, my boots are giving me blisters.
America, do buffalos really have wings?
America, I need water, my throat is dry.
America, my phone says it’s an Apple, but it tastes like metal.
America, why are there witches and zombies at my door?
America, can Red Bull give me wings so I can fly back to my country?
America, who is All State and why are their hands so big?
America, can you dry the tears in my eyes?
America, the Capital One wants to see my wallet,
but America, there’s not much to see.
America, give me a home.
 . 
Sebastian Gyovai
First Place, Travis Tuck Jordan Award. Sebastian is a 5th grader at The Raleigh School, Raleigh, NC.
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Becoming
 . 
I am learning the language of mirrors,
How to look at myself without asking permission to exist,
 . 
The hallway light flickers, and for a second
I am made of seconds, I am everything people say I am.
 . 
But shadows move when the light changes.
So do I.
 . 
I carry questions in my pockets, folded like notes I never pass.
Who am I when no one is watching?
Who will I be when I stop pretending?
 . 
Some days, I speak in whispers.
Other days, my silence is louder
than the room I walk into.
 . 
I am becoming
Someone who takes up space.
Someone who doesn’t apologize for the shape of their voice.
 . 
One day,
I will step out of the echo of others’ words
and answer with my own.
 . 
Liz Maceda
Second Place, Mary Chilton Award. Liz is a 9th grader at Carrboro High School, Carrboro, NC.
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Math
 . 
I tire of this boring math
Of which to me seems really hath
No purpose nor beauty in my life
Yet fills long hours with strife
 . 
But when I try to advocate
They say “you’ll need this to create
The future of which you dream”
It only makes me want to scream
 . 
I dream not of complex equations
Nor of mathematical vocations
Though you may call it frivolity
I prefer an essay to an inequality
 . 
Long have I done well in school
It seems to me it should be cool
If I don’t take a little break
I’ll throw this laptop in a lake
 . 
A grade is just a useless number
Worry about trees being cut for lumber
I should think it’s more relevant
To learn how to save the elephant
 . 
Sasha Smith
Honorable Mention, Mary Chilton Award. Sasha is an 8th graders at R.D. and Euzelle Smith Middle School, Chapel Hill, NC.
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Blue Mother
 . 
She glows in the rising sun
Her waves crashing down
Cradling her children
 . 
No matter how big or small
She holds them all
Close to her heart
 . 
But when the blue is hidden
Behind all the trash
It gives me pause
 . 
Seeing the life
The beauty
Slowly drain from her
 . 
All the death and blackness
Surrounding her
Breaks something in my heart
 . 
But we can change
We can be good
We can show her the beauty of us
 . 
We can save the life
Save us
Save our mother
 . 
And I know
When we choose this
The Blue Mother will forgive us all
 . 
Akshita Gupta
Third Place, Joan Scott Memorial Environment Award. Kash is an 8th grader at Young Writers’ Institute, Cary, NC.
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Dear Iran After Wolpe
 . 
Even though I only once traced your streets with my own feet,
you wandered into my dreams anyway,
sliding in through my grandmother’s stories,
drifting out of the steam of her afternoon tea, searching for a place to land.
You slipped in from the clatter of spoons
against crystal tea glasses,
from the rustle of pistachios in a bowl,
from the smell of warm barbari bread.
You crawled across the living room rug
with its deep red blossoms, and settled in the hollow of my throat
like an unfinished sentence.
I thought you were gold, Tehran,
and pomegranate-red, bursting with juice,
spice merchants crushing saffron threads between their fingertips,
the air thick with sumac and smoke
and the hum of bargaining voices.
I dream of you, Tehran, I dream
every night with the ache of someone trying to read
a language she was never taught.
I search for you in the slope of my nose, the olive of my skin.
But I cannot come to you.
You stay sealed behind headlines and rumors,
across news screens and phone calls,
behind the constant warning, “Not now. It’s not safe.”
And so you live inside me instead
a place I carry like a hidden heirloom
glimmering in the dark.
A city I cannot visit but that pulls at me anyway, calling my name
like a prayer in a language I don’t understand
but somehow already know.
 . 
Sophie Lankarani
First Place, The Sherry Pruitt Award. Sophie is a Senior at The Asheville School, Asheville, NC
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
 . 
After the NC Poetry Society contestants read their winning poems, members of The Poetic Justice League shared readings by special request. These student poets from Carrboro High School are led by their creative writing instructor Raquel Harris. The flow of inspiration they bring is electric!
 . 

Gemella Marey

 . 
 . 

Ever Harris

 . 

Naomi Hirsch

 . 

Isabel “Liz” Carty

 . 
. 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
The North Carolina Poetry Society conducts five contest for students each year. The submission period opens on November 1, with a deadline of January 31. Winners are invited to attend and read their poem at Sam Ragan Awards Day at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities (Southern Pines) in May. Check HERE for guidelines and details.
 . 

Winning poems are published in the anthology Pinesong. If you would like to purchase a copy ($10), or if you are a NCPS member and would like to request your complimentary copy, please contact Membership Vice President Joan Barasovska: msjoan9@gmail.com.

The NCPS Student Contests are:

The Travis Tuck Jordan Award for students in Grades 3 – 5.

Endowed by Dorothy and Oscar Pederson
 . 
The Joan Scott Memorial Award for poems about the environment, students in Grades 5 – 9.
Endowed by contributions in memory of Joan Scott and by the Board of the NC Poetry Society.
 . 
The Mary Chilton Award for students in Grades 6 – 9.
Sponsored by Tori Reynolds
 . 
The Sherry Pruitt Award for students in Grades 10 – 12
Endowed by Gail Peck
 . 
The Undergraduate Award for students attending a North Carolina college or university or whose parents or guardians live in the state of North Carolina .
Endowed by the Judith C. Beale Bequest.
 . 
And THANK YOU especially to all the teachers and parents who encourage these young poets to continue to contemplate and create!
 . 
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . some Saturdays I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
 . 
 . 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »