Mark Smith-Soto has won this year's James Applewhite Poetry Prize

Congratulations to Mark Smith-Soto, winner of the 2012 James Applewhite Poetry Prize for his poem "Last Retreat to Topsail Beach." The winning poem and those of the finalists will be published in the North Carolina Literary Review (NCLR). Mark's poem was selected by poet James Applewhite from the work of six finalists chosen by NCLR Poetry Editor Jeffrey Franklin. Almost fifty poets submitted to the competition.

Here are the finalists:

• 2nd place: Laurence G. Avery’s poem “Only Yonaguska”
• Honorable mention: Grace Cloris Ocasio’s “Little Girlfriend”
• Other finalists:
• Richard Betz’s “Picking Blackberries on Yellow Mountain Road” 
• Samantha Lee Deal’s “North Carolina, This Will Be The Last Poem”
• Susan Laughter Meyers’s “Banding Hummingbirds” and “Beggar’s-Lice”

NCLR has further details at its website.