Gilbert-Chappell Mentor Series

 

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: Gideon Young in the eastern region, Maria Rouphail in the central region, and Mildred Kiconco Barya 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.  

Submissions are closed for the 2024-25 season but will re-open on September 1, 2025.  Final deadline will be November 15, 2025.

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

Click here to read or print the GCDPS Brochure.

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

Gilbert-Chappell Anthology Available
The 2024 anthology of the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Series, entitled Witness: From Appalachia to Hatteras, is now available.  The volume includes work by emerging poets from 2023-24 as well as by the Distinguished Poets in the three regions of North Carolina.  Special thanks to Kelly Jones for his great efforts editing Witness.  

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 2024-25 Distinguished Poets

Gideon Young, Eastern Region

Gideon Young is a member of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective, the Carrboro Poets Council, and the Orange County Arts Commission advisory board. His debut haiku collection my hands full of light was published by Backbone Press (2021).  He is a co-author of One Window’s Light: A Collection of Haiku, published by Unicorn Press, 2017, winner of the Haiku Society of America Merit Award for Best Anthology. Gideon is a Fellow for A+ Schools of North Carolina, an editor for the North Carolina Writers’ Network, and a stay-at-home dad.  A former Title 1 Elementary School Teacher, Gideon was awarded a 2023 Arts in Education Artist Residency Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council. Discover more at www.gideonyoung.com.

Maria Rouphail, Central Region

Maria Rouphail, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer Emerita from North Carolina State University, where she taught courses in World Literature and served as an academic adviser to the English major.  She is Poetry Editor of Main Street Rag. Her third poetry collection, All the Way to China, was a finalist in both the University of Wisconsin Brittingham Poetry and the Blue Light Press competitions.  Her earlier collections are Apertures and Second Skin.  In 2022, Rouphail won the NCPS Poet Laureate competition.  In 2023, she was awarded in both the Randall Jarrell and the Prime Magazines contests. A six-time Pushcart nominee, she lives in Raleigh.

Mildred Kiconco Barya, Western Region

Mildred Kiconco Barya is a Ugandan poet, prose writer, and associate professor at UNC-Asheville.  She’s the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Animals of My Earth School released by Terrapin Books, 2023.  Her prose, hybrids, and poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Joyland, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.  She’s now working on a collection of creative nonfiction, and her essay, “Being Here in This Body”, won the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award and was published in the North Carolina Literary Review.  She coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café and blogs here: www.mildredbarya.com

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.