Lost Horse Press [2] has announced the winner of the 2009 Idaho Prize for Poetry [3]. Stephen Gibson of West Palm Beach was named the recipient of the one-thousand-dollar prize, which includes publication of his winning collection, Frescoes, by Lost Horse Press. Carolyne Wright [4] judged.

Gibson’s most recent book of poetry is Masaccio’s Expulsion, published in 2008, which won MARGIE/IntuiT House Press’s Robert E. Lee and Ruth I. Wilson Poetry Book Award [5], judged by Andrew Hudgins [6]. His debut collection, Rorschach Art, was published by Red Hen Press in 2001. Frescoes will be released in February of next year.

Two runners-up for the Idaho Prize were also named. They are John Brady for Thunder Shakes the Snake: The Poetry of Cheng Hui and Matthew Thorburn [7] for Every Possible Blue.

The longlisted finalists are John Bensko [8] for Fur Traders on the Missouri, Esther Lee [9] for little lung damage, James McKean for We Are the Bus, Peter Munro for Animal Kingdom, Richard Robbins [10] for Radioactive City, Catherine Staples for Still-Life Breathing, Joe Wilkins for Ragged Point Road, and Maya Jewell Zeller [11] for Rust Fish.

The book prize is given annually in August, and the next deadline for manuscript submissions is May 15, 2010.