Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Poetry Chapbook Competition

2006 Competition Winner

Alex Grant of Chapel Hill is the winner of the 2006 Randall Jarrell/Harperprints Poetry Chapbook Competition sponsored by the N.C.Writers’ Network. His chapbook, "Chains & Mirrors," was selected from 58 entries by final judge, Marilyn Kallet, Professor of English and Hodges Chair for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Tennessee. Alex Grant is a native Scot who now divides his time between Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Since 2005, he has been a finalist for the Felix Pollak and Brittingham Book Prizes, The Discovery/The Nation Prize(twice) and The Sunken Garden Poetry Chapbook contest, was the winner of the Kakalak 2006 Carolina Poets Anthology contest, received honorable mentions for The Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize and The Arts & Letters Poetry Prize(twice,) and was nominated by Arts & Letters for Meridian's Best New Poets anthology in 2005 & 2006. His work has recently appeared or is upcoming in a wide variety of journals.

Kallet wrote, "[Grant’s] manuscript is consistently well-crafted, lyrical, vigorous and yet delicate. The diction is rich and unique; the cut to the lines is artful." Grant will receive a prize of $200, and his chapbook will be published during the summer by Harperprints of Henderson, NC. The NC Writers Network will arrange a reading for him in the fall in the Chapel Hill area.

Kallet also named four Honorable Mentions: Bill Griffin of Elkin for "Changing Woman"; Mammies Morgan of Wilmington for "Resuscitating the Dunes"; J.D. McGee, temporarily of Clermont, Florida, for "These Waters"; and Marty Silverthorne of Greenville for "Rewinding at 40."

In addition to Grant and the four honorable mentions named above, the other seven finalists were Jason Mott of Bolton for "Ariel’s," Douglas Smith of Greensboro for "The Order for the Burial of the Dead," Elisabeth Stagg of Durham for "Bodies of Knowledge," Bill Griffin of Elkin for "This Breath," Jessica Sampley of Asheville for "Tuscaloosa to Tupelo," Paul Jones of Chapel Hill for "Rule of Seven," and Rebecca Warren of Greensboro for "Winter Trees."