Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series

 

Submissions are open! Final deadline is November 15, 2026.

To apply for the program, click here.  If you experience any difficulty applying, email here.

To read the latest news about our GDCPS poets and readings, click here. 

The Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series

This mentoring program links established poets in three regions of North Carolina with emerging poets, enabling them to develop and perfect their lyric craft.  Students in middle school, high school, and college, and adults not in school may apply to work with a Distinguished Poet during the winter months.  Our Distinguished Poets this year are: Regina Yvette Carter Garcia in the eastern region, Joe Mills in the central region, and Clint Bowman in the western region.  In spring of each year, the resulting poems are presented at group and individual readings at venues across the state.  An anthology of these poems entitled Witness: Appalachia to Hatteras is published by the North Carolina Poetry Society later in the year.  To read the brochure or apply for the program, click on the links below.  

Gilbert-Chappell Anthology

Origin of the Series

The Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series supports the mission of the North Carolina Poetry Society to foster the reading, writing, and enjoyment of poetry across the state.Three Distinguished Poets from the east, central, and west of North Carolina will mentor each a middle-school, a high-school, a college or university student, and an adult within their respective regions.

The GCDPS originated when the NCPS Board voted in 2003 to follow the advice of Fred Chappell, then North Carolina’s Poet Laureate.  He had written and advised the NCPS president about various approaches to take in furthering the NCPS mission of encouraging the reading, writing, and enjoyment of poetry.  The GCDPS plans evolved from that correspondence and earlier discussions by Board members.

The Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series offers a way for poets to give back to the North Carolina poetry community.  Past Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poets include Ann Deagon, Joseph Bathanti, John Hoppenthaler, Becky Gould Gibson, Lavonne Adams, and Catherine Carter, among others.

Introducing the 2026-27 Distinguished Poets

Regina Yvette Carter Garcia, Eastern Region

Regina YC Garcia is a Poet, Language Artist, English Professor, and Arts Advocate. Born in El Paso, Texas and raised in Greenville, NC, she received her BA in Speech Communication with a Concentration in the Oral Interpretation of Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MAEd with a focus in Adult Education and Masters Certificates in Community College Instruction and Multicultural and Transnational Literature from East Carolina University. She currently teaches at Pitt Community College (PCC), where she has served on their English Faculty since 1999. She is also the Poetry Editor for the Reedy Branch Review, PCC’s literary and visual arts journal. Garcia had authored two books: her chapbook,  The Firetalker’s Daughter (2023, Finishing Line Press) and her full-length collection, Whispers from the Multiverse (2025, Aquarius Press/Willow Books).  She is a DAR American Heritage Literary Award Winner (2021) who has been featured in publications such as North Carolina Literary Review, Walter Magazine, Main Street Rag and numerous journals, anthologies, documentaries, and musical compositions.

Joe Mills, Central Region

A professor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Joseph Mills holds an endowed chair, the Susan Burress Wall Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities, and has been honored with a UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. In April 2025, he published his ninth volume of poetry – The Holiday Cycle – with Press 53. His collection This Miraculous Turning was awarded the North Carolina Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry for its exploration of race and family. His other work includes the fiction collection Bleachers and numerous pieces of non-fiction and drama.

Clint Bowman, Western Region

Clint Bowman is a writer from Black Mountain, North Carolina, where he works full time as a recreation coordinator leading hikes, river cleanups, trail workdays and various other programs throughout the Swannanoa Valley. In his free time, Clint facilitates the Dark City Poets Society- a free community poetry group that he cofounded in 2020 through the Black Mountain Library. Clint’s debut full-length collection of poetry, If Lost, was published in 2024 by Loblolly Press. More of Clint’s work has appeared in The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, O. Henry Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, One Art, and Southlands, among others. Forthcoming work to be published in Appalachian Journal in 2027.

Click here for a list of counties and their regions, and how to apply.

Goal of the Series

The goal of the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series (GCDPS) is to support the mission of the North Carolina Poetry Society (NCPS), that being to foster the reading, writing, and enjoyment of poetry across the state, with the following priorities:

1. Increase outreach across the state
2. Involve students new to the North Carolina Poetry Society
3. Provide expert guidance to promising student poets
4. Increase skills of poets, both student and adult
5. Develop new venues for student poets and experienced poets to read together
6. Provide opportunities for student poets to read at local venues such as their local libraries
7. Develop mentoring relationships between student poets and experienced poets

Overview of the Series

Three Distinguished Poets, one each from the east, central, and west of North Carolina, will mentor a middle-school, a high-school, a college or university student, and an adult not currently enrolled in a school program within the respective regions (as defined, by counties, on the list at the end of these guidelines).  Home-school students will be eligible to participate.  Within these regions, each Distinguished Poet will present one reading with his or her students.  Each Student Poet will present one local reading of his or her own work in his or her local library, and the Distinguished Poet may attend these readings, as feasible.  

Distinguished Poets may also be invited to read at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, in Southern Pines, NC, as part of the Sam Ragan Writing Series on a Sunday afternoon.  Funding for this reading may come through the Weymouth Center.  If the coordinators of the Weymouth Series desire such an event, they will be responsible for contacting the poets and arranging the event.