The 2026 Poetry by the Sea Book Award was won by Hilary Biehl for Giants Crossing, selected by judge Rachel Hadas. Hilary was awarded a prize of $500 and read from the book in May at Poetry by the Sea 2026.
As we announce the winner, we do so with gratitude to Rachel Hadas for serving as the judge, as well as to all the poets whose enthusiasm made this contest possible. Thank you for submitting your fine work.
Please join us in congratulating the winner, as well the two finalists!
FIRST PRIZE: Giants Crossing by Hilary Biehl
Hilary Biehl’s poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, Able Muse, THINK, New Verse Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry collection, Giants Crossing, was published by Kelsay Books in 2025. She is a graduate of St. John’s College in Santa Fe and lives in New Mexico.
Within the sturdy confines of stanza, meter, and rhyme, structures so gracefully and confidently deployed that one almost forgets the crucial support they provide, Hilary Biehl’s poems range far and wide. We have art, fairy tales, fishing expeditions, weather, ghosts, a creepy boutique, and yes, giants. Prokofiev, Blake, Dickinson, Magritte, and Hart Crane are passing presences. But what stopped me on first reading and still stops me on subsequent readings isn’t Biehl’s technical command or cultural reach. Rather, it’s her characteristic tone – at once wry, candid, and speculative. Every single poem in
Giants Crossing opens a door of speculation or surmise; every poem furnishes food for thought. Don’t let the (welcome!) brevity of Biehl’s poems fool you. She’s not only an exacting craftsman but also an ambitious thinker whose mode happens to be lyric. I’m very interested to see what this young poet will give us next.
–Rachel Hadas, Judge
FINALISTS
Richard Halperin, All the Tattered Stars
Moira Egan, The Furies
Praise for All the Tattered Stars by Richard Halperin: Richard Halperin has said that he intends his poems to be read “as birds on a horizontal line. Everything perched lightly.” I was immediately struck by the sharply etched clarity of Halperin’s birds, poems which are evocative and concise and which always imply more than they spell out. Halperin’s a master of metonymy; a shawl draped over a chairback comes to signify bereavement. A deep well of feeling nourishes poems which refuse sentimentality. As befits his long career, Halperin’s poems both zero in and zoom out, lean forward and stand back. There’s wisdom in his long view, and hurt, and humor, and a wealth of memories. Above all, there’s the poet’s distinct and unmistakable voice.
–Rachel Hadas, Judge
Praise for The Furies by Moira Egan: Sonnets, villanelles, “anagrammes” – with effortless ease, Moira Egan uses a range of poetic forms for a range of purposes. Some of the poems in The Furies are indeed furious; others are funny or sarcastic or sad. All are endowed with a wealth of vivid imagery and biting wit; all come up close to the reader, look her in the eye, and address her personally. Whether Egan is correcting a familiar myth, revising a character or scene, or giving works of art a voice, her work always provides a fresh and intense take on what we may have assumed we already knew. Lush and vulnerable, edgy and imaginative, her accomplished poetry is unmistakably personal and always individual.
–Rachel Hadas, Judge
Thank you again to this year’s contest judge, Rachel Hadas, and to all the poets who helped make this year’s book contest a success!