The John Ridland Poetry Prize is awarded annually for an unpublished book-length manuscript of 48-100 pages. This prize is open to poets 55 years and older. The prize includes $500, publication by Gunpowder Press, and 10 author copies. Submissions for the John Ridland Poetry Prize are accepted annually from September 1-December 31. Due to our desire to respect international copyright, this prize is open to U.S. poets only.
Susan Gubernat’s Sugar on the Floor (2026)
Sugar on the Floor, by poet and librettist Susan Gubernat, is the winner of the 2026 John Ridland Poetry Prize, forthcoming from Gunpowder Press. Of the winning collection, publisher David Starkey writes:
At times I’m reminded of the enigmatic storytelling of Louise Glück, at others you can hear Susan Gubernat, as she puts it, “in the soup with Sexton and Plath.” But always her intelligence shines through, and her exquisite ear for music, along with her unparalleled gift for selecting just the right image, make each poem a deeply satisfying adventure. Sugar on the Floor shows this already accomplished poet scaling new heights: it’s a collection not to be missed.
Susan Gubernat is the author of The Zoo at Night which won the Raz-Shumaker poetry book prize (University of Nebraska Press), Analog House (Finishing Line Press), and Flesh, which won the Marianne Moore Prize (Helicon Nine Editions). Her poems have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle as well as the Anacapa Review, Cimarron Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gargoyle, The Hudson Review, Michigan Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, and other journals and anthologies. She wrote the libretto for the three-act opera “Korczak’s Orphans” with composer Adam Silverman. Their latest collaboration, the song cycle “Elegy for the Earth,” was recently released on the label New Focus Recordings. She has been awarded multiple residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Millay Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and received artist fellowships from the states of New Jersey and New York. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is Professor Emerita of English at California State University, East Bay, CA. Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, she now lives in San Francisco.
The editors also recognize the following finalists and semi-finalists, with appreciation for all the poets for the opportunity to consider their work:
Finalists:
Estuarine by John Isles
The Wounded King Takes a Knee by Ed McManis
Heart/Lands by Jennifer M. Phillips
Semi-Finalists:
Theology with Whales by Susan Cohen
Miracle Soap by Edison Dupree
In the Shade of Tall Women by Judy Ireland
Gathering Marbles by Tricia Knoll
Scientists Confirm by Jill McCabe Johnson
Crossing a Threshold Into the Marriage of Our Two Selves by Robin Michel
Humor Me by Richard Terrill
Andrea Carter’s Figeater (2025)
Poet Andrea Carter was selected as the winner of the John Ridland Poetry Prize for Figeater, now available from Gunpowder Press.
Gunpowder’s founding editor David Starkey writes:
“It’s hard to believe that this is Andrea Carter’s first book of poems, so assured are her lines, so searing her imagery. Her ear, too, registers the finest tonal shifts, creating a music that will not soon be forgotten by her readers. Carter’s poems give small things a well-earned grandeur, the way “gulls can lift / an ocean in their wings.” Gunpowder Press is delighted to bring the voice of this gifted poet to a wider audience.”
The editors also recognize the finalists and semifinalists below:
Runner Up:
The Way Back by James Harms
Finalists:
Miracle Soap by Edison Dupree
Story of a Pilgrim by Peter Grandbois
Lost Words by Elise Hempel
Spring Branch, River by Carolyn Miller
Semifinalists:
Look Twice by Linda Bamber
Orienteering by Michael Beebe
Wonder Body by Lisa Bellamy
Gathering Marbles by Tricia Knoll
Peripheral Outbreaks of Blue by Elizabeth Murawski
Late by Robert McDowell
My Papers by Barry Peters
In the Café of Mistaken Orders by David Pickering
The Ghosts of 16 Larkin Street by Linda Scheller
Inventing the Ladle by Patty Seyburn
Emigrant from an Imagined Country by James Wyshynski
Faraway Rain by Lisa Zimmerman
Joshua McKinney’s Sad Animal (2024)
The inaugural winner of the John Ridland Poetry Prize is Joshua McKinney of Sacramento, California, selected by the editors of Gunpowder Press for Sad Animal, now available from Gunpowder Press. Publisher David Starkey says of the winning collection:
There are moments of dark comedy in Sad Animal, as when the speaker sits through a dull, depressing English department meeting while trying to recall the lines of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and who else—see “The Funeral of Shelley”—would think to rhyme “Trelawney” with “the body” of the Romantic poet, lying “serene upon a pyre.” However, this is a serious book, with McKinney tenaciously memorializing the endless variety of life on Earth. Poems focusing on the natural world are an especially notable feature of Sad Animal. The poet keenly and imaginatively observes flora and fauna, without ever conflating the human perspective with that of its subjects. Indeed, it’s rare to find a book of poetry powered by such a remarkable intelligence that also revels so sensuously in sound and imagery. McKinney is no easy optimist, but while his heart may at times be “ravening” and “parched,” ultimately in these wise and graceful poems, it “leaps // into the air.”
Joshua is the author of four previous books of poetry. His work has appeared in such journals as Boulevard, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review, New American Writing, and many others. He is the recipient of The Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize, The University of Georgia Press Open Competition Prize, The Dickinson Prize, The Pavement Saw Chapbook Prize, and a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing. He is co-editor of the online ecopoetics zine, Clade Song.
The other finalists, in alphabetical order by poet’s last name, are as follows:
- Li Po, Li Hua, and the Sophist by Peter Bethanis
- Thanksgiving Dinner in a Rich Zip Code by Stephanie Brown
- Sprung Loose by Sarah Carleton
- Awake, Breathing by Albert Garcia
- Requiem in Wide Open Minor by Justin Hunt
- Standard of Care by Lynette Lamp
- The Art of Skipping Stones by James Scruton
- Preparing to Teach the Lesson by Barry Seller
John Ridland’s Inspiration
The Ridland Prize honors poet, professor, mentor, friend, and translator John Ridland, who continued to create meaningful and elegantly-crafted work throughout his life. John Ridland was born in London in 1933 to British parents. When he was two, his family immigrated to California where he has lived most of his life. Four years at Swarthmore College were followed by two in the United States Army in Puerto Rico. In 1956 he entered graduate studies at Berkeley where he met and married Muriel Thomas from New Zealand, a fellow graduate student. In 1964 he completed a PhD from Claremont Graduate University. Dr. Ridland taught English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for forty-three years, including three years based in Melbourne as director for the UC Education Abroad Program in Australia. His book publications include A Brahms Card Ballad (2007), first published in Hungarian translation (2004), Happy in an Ordinary Thing (2013), and a book-length translation of Petöfi’s John the Valiant (1999). With his essential collaborator, Dr. Peter Czipott, Dr. Ridland has translated several other Hungarian poets, including Sándor Márai’s The Withering World (Alma Classics, 2013) and Miklos Rádnoti’s All That Still Matters at All (New American Press, 2014). In 2014 Askew Publications issued his epic poem, A. Lincolniad.