The Ashland Poetry Press is thrilled to announce that judge D.A. Powell has selected Michael Lavers’ “A Brief History of My Dictatorship” as the winner of the 2026 Richard Snyder Memorial Poetry Prize.
We received nearly 500 entries this year, and every manuscript was read with care, with excitement, and with genuine gratitude. This decision was immensely difficult at every stage, and we feel humbled by the work we read this spring and summer. The state of poetry in America is strong – devastatingly, complexly, and thrillingly. We’re grateful to inhabit our corner of the community.
To all who submitted: a huge thank you. You made our spring and summer extraordinarily difficult in the best possible way. So many of these manuscripts will soon be devastating books, and we’ll buy them with gratitude. Keep the faith.
We’d like to recognize our finalist and semi-finalist submissions as well.
2026 Richard Snyder Memorial Book Prize Finalists and Semi-Finalists included (listed alphabetically by author):
Finalists:
Tommy Archuleta, Bone Harvest
Fay Dillof, Invisible Waves of Heat
Kaily Dorfman, Turn
Ariel Machell, After Inferno, Snowfall on a Scarred Landscape
Ron Mohring, Line of Damage
Bryan Price, The Moth Temple Drone Collective
Joyce Schmid, Summer Day in the Block Universe
Russel Swensen, American Carnage
Brian Trimboli, Perdendo and Perdendosi
Semi-Finalists:
EricBaker, 목 | mok
Tony Barnstone, Fortress America
Rivka Clifton, A M A Z E
Gerard Coletta, Ghost Stories
Benjamin Dombroski, Let Fall
Helene Fisher, THE LONG “i”
Kevin Honold, Stupor Mundi
Ariel Joy So, MY GHOST
Avren Keating, The Occupied
Monique Lanier, all escape that is not you
Sophia Lauer, In Camera
Rebecca Lilly, Night Westerly
Stephanie McCarley Dugger, A Breath, Just After
Olga Mexina, Pillage
Andrew Nurkin, Any Minute
Christine Robbins, The Ghost Bees
Liz Robbins, Theme Park
Tamarah Rockwood, I, Actually
Kelly Rowe, Wind Telephone
Isaac Rowlingson, Out of the Cradle
Mary Salisbury, Set Sail
Jane Schapiro, The Warm Line
Lyndsey Weiner, Swimming Alone
Caroline Wellman, Where the River Ends and the Field Begins
Bradley Whitehurst, Post-Resurrection Appearances