Samuel Washington Allen Prize: Kirun Kapur
Kirun Kapur grew up in Hawaii and now lives along the banks of the Merrimac River. She is the author of three books of poetry: Women in the Waiting Room (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), a finalist for the National Poetry Series; Visiting Indira Gandhi’s Palmist (Elixir Press, 2015), which won the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize and the Antivenom Poetry Award; and the chapbook All the Rivers in Paradise (UChicago Arts, 2022). She serves as editor at the Beloit Poetry Journal and teaches at Amherst College, where she directs the creative writing program.
E.E. Cummings Prize: Wendy Drexler
Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her fourth collection, Harvest of What Remains received honorable mention for the Paul Nemser Prize and was published by Lily Poetry Review Books in February 2026. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Mid-American Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, The Hudson Review, The Sun, and The Threepenny Review, among others. She was awarded the 2025 E.E. Cummings prize from the New England Poetry Club. A recipient of the Juror’s Prize for Art on the Trails, Southborough, MA, in 2021, Wendy served as poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, from 2018-2023, as programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club from 2016–2024. She currently serves on the Club’s Advisory Board.
Diana Der Hovanessian Prize: Lloyd Schwartz
Lloyd Schwartz is the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston, the Poet Laureate of Somerville, Massachusetts, and the longtime classical music critic for NPR’s Fresh Air and the WBUR website. His seven books of poetry include He Tells His Mother What He’s Working On (Grolier Poetry Press), “Who’s on First? New and Selected Poems, Little Kisses, and Cairo Traffic (University of Chicago Press). For his poetry and translations, he’s been awarded the 2025 David Ferry and Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize, the 2026 New England Poetry Club’s Sam Cornish Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, and the Academy of American Poets. A widely-published Elizabeth Bishop scholar, he has edited three Bishop volumes, including the Library of America’s Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters. For his writing on music, he has earned three ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Amy Lowell Prize: Jason O’Toole
Jason O’Toole is Poet Laureate Emeritus of North Andover, MA. He serves on the advisory board of the New England Poetry Club, and as treasurer of the Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco. He is the winner of the 2025 Amy Lowell Prize and has been nominated for the Rhysling and the Pushcart Prize. He was the co-founder of the Anne Bradstreet Prize and serves as judge for the Tom Nattell Peace Poetry Prize and the Capital District Slam Poetry Festival in NY. Recent poems and prose have appeared in the anthology Love is for All of Us (Storey Publishing), as well as Ghost City Press, The Somerville Times, Phil Lit, Molecule: a tiny lit mag, and Deceleration News.
Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize: Therese Gleason
Therese Gleason (she/her/hers) is author of three poetry chapbooks: Hemicrania (Chestnut Review, 2024), winner of the 2025 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize from the New England Poetry Club; Matrilineal (Finishing Line, 2021), honorable mention, 2022 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize; and Libation (2006), co-winner, South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook Competition. Her poetry, flash, and essays appear in 32 Poems, Cincinnati Review, Indiana Review, New Ohio Review, Rattle–Poets Respond, and elsewhere. Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, she currently lives with her family in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Online: theresegleason.com).
Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize: Heather Treseler
Heather Treseler is author of Auguries & Divinations, which received the 2025 Massachusetts Book Award in poetry, the Sheila Margaret Motton Prize, and the May Sarton Poetry Prize, and two chapbooks, Hard Bargain and Parturition. Her work has received a Pushcart Prize, the W. B. Yeats Prize, Narrative magazine’s poetry prize, and the Editors’ Prize from The Missouri Review, and support from the Mass Cultural Council and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her poems appear in Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, The Irish Times, and Kenyon Review. Her essays appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, and in eight books about contemporary poetry. She is professor of English at Worcester State University and a scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center.
