The Brockman-Campbell Award Winners
The winner for the 2024 Brockman-Campbell Book Award is The Halo of Bees: New
and Selected Poems 1990-2022 (Press 53, 2023) by Michael Hettich.
Judge Eric Pankey had this to say about his selection: “What impresses me most about Michael Hettich’s The Halo of Bees: New and Selected Poems 1990-2022 (Press 53) are the poems’ radiance and clarity, their keen and patient attention, and the plain old gorgeousness of their music. Lovers of Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, and Theodore Roethke will find a kinship here. As well, I find a lively and quick mind here at work, not unlike contemporary Swiss poet, Philippe Jaccottet, who records fleeting moments that open onto a glimpse of the subtle and the sublime. This is an impressive and generous collection of poetry deserving much attention.”
Honorable mention was awarded to two collections: Starfish Wash-Up by Katherine Soniat (Etruscan Press, 2023) and The Best Material for the Artist in the World by Kenneth Chamlee (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023).
Michael Hettich’s most recent book of poetry, The Halo of Bees: New & Selected Poems, 1990-2022 was published in May, 2023 by Press 53. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in many journals and anthologies, and he has published more than a dozen books of poetry across four decades. His honors include several Individual Artist Fellowships from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, the Tampa Review Prize in Poetry, the David Martinson/Meadowhawk Prize, a Florida Book Award, the Lena M. Shull Book Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the inaugural Hudson-Fowler Prize from Slant magazine at the University of Central Arkansas. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Miami and taught for many years at Miami Dade College, where he was awarded an Endowed Teaching Chair. His website is michaelhettich.com.
Eric Pankey is the author of seventeen collections of poetry, most recently The History of the Siege, and a collection of essays. His work has been supported by two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and by a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Just retired, he taught for many years in the MFA programs at Washington University in St. Louis and George Mason University. A new collection of poems, Vanishments, is forthcoming this year.
Thank you to everyone who entered this year’s contest. Eric Pankey noted that the poetry community in North Carolina is a vibrant one!
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.
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.