OPA is pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 OPA National Poetry Month Contest:
First Place: “What the gods have sent or lost” by Randy Bynum
Second Place: “The Singer” by Nancy Flynn
Third Place: “The Old Pond” by Pepper Trail
Honorable Mentions:
“Always Returning to Dust” by Keli Osborn
“Collateral Gratitude” by Dan Kaufman
“Rocked” by Carol Barrett
Winning poems will be posted in the future on our website (https://oregonpoets.org), in the OPA newsletter, and on our OPA Facebook page. In addition, winning poems will be published in OPA’s annual anthology, Verseweavers. Though poems receiving an honorable mention are not published in Verseweavers, the name and poem title will be mentioned.
Many thanks to our judge this year: Sherri Levine, last year’s recipient of the OPA Patricia Ruth Banta Award. Of this year’s contest, she wrote: “I found judging this collection both a pleasure and a difficulty. A pleasure because there were so many fine poems—such great imagery, sounds, language— obstacles and inspirations, themes of death and grief, love and loss, and hope—always coming back to hope. It was so difficult because I had to choose from among these fine poems. I spent time at my desk watching the acrobatic squirrels jump from tree limbs to suet feeder. I took breaks walking in my neighborhood watching spring bloom. I’d stop and smell delicious scents of jasmine and lilac. The three winning poems and honorary mentions here are quiet, honest, and carefully observed, offering some solace, some peace, and hope. They are about honesty and human connection, something we are hungry for, something we are longing for in these difficult times.”