Shara McCallum selects Indelible by Becky Gould Gibson for Dogfish Head Poetry Prize

2018 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize winner announced. Becky Gould Gibson (above, left) with Sharon McCallum, judge (above, right). Photo by Linda Blaskey.

Becky Gould Gibson of Winston-Salem, NC has been named the winner of the 2018 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize for her manuscript, Indelible. Jean Greathouse, of Dogfish Head, presented the award Dec. 8th at a reception held at the Dogfish Inn in Lewes, DE. The award consisted of publication of Indelible by Broadkill River Press, 10 copies of the published manuscript, $500 in prize money, and two night’s stay at the Dogfish Inn.

Indelible tells the story of Lydia of Thyatira, a woman’s voice long vanished from history. JoAnn Balingit, Poet Laureate Emerita of Delaware, said of the book “ To tell this story in verse, Becky Gould Gibson dons masks—personae in Latin—to give an unnamed and exceptional woman in history her due….”

Before her prize was awarded, brief readings were given by Shara McCallum, this year’s final judge from Penn State University, State College, PA, and by Richard Peabody of Arlington, VA, editor of Paycock Press and Gargoyle magazine.

Gould Gibson taught English and Women’s Studies at Guilford College until her retirement in 2008. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. She has published seven previous poetry collections, three of which have won prizes: Aphrodite’s Daughter (2006 X. J. Kennedy Prize, Texas Review Press), Need-Fire (2005 Poetry Book Contest, Bright Hill Press), and Heading Home (2013 Lena Shull Book Contest, Main Street Rag Press).

After retirement, Gould Gibson was the Gilbert Chappell Distinguished Poet for the Central District of NC from 2009 to 2011, and was the 2008 recipient of North Carolina Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Award. She currently lives in Winston-Salem with her husband and their canary.

The Dogfish Head Poetry Prize will enter its 17th year in 2019 and was created by Sam Calagione, CEO of Dogfish Head and a literature major in college, and by Jamie Brown of Broadkill River Press. The contest is open to poets residing in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and the District of Columbia. Publication of the manuscript is supported by The Cape Gazette.

This year’s finalists, in no particular order, were: David Salner (MD) for “House to House”; Darren Morris (VA) for “The Light Before it Falls”; Clyde Kessler (VA) for “Distances”; Kathleen Taylor (MD) for “Bad Mother”; Amanda Galvan Huynh (NY) for “Mexican Bingo”; Morgan Blalock (VA) for “apophrades”; Larry Kelts (DE) for “Lost in the Lewis & Clark Water Park”; Jane Schulman (NY) for “Where Blue is Blue”: Carol Williams (PA) for “Unpacking for the Journey”; and Janet Joyner (NC) for “Wahee Neck.”

To order copies of “Indelible” go to the Broadkill River Press website: www.broadkillriverpress.com