David Rigsbee, a native of Durham and resident of Raleigh, has been selected by the Poetry Council of North Carolina to receive the Oscar Arnold Young Award for the best N.C. book of poetry published in 2010 for his collection “The Red Tower: New and Selected Poems,” published by New South Books.

Rigsbee is the author of 18 collections of poetry, including “The Pilot House,” which won the 2009 Black River Poetry Prize, and “School of the Americas,” which is due out from Black Lawrence Press in 2012.

Rigsbee, a professor of language and literature at Mount Olive College, is a graduate of UNC, contributing editor for The Cortland Review, and recipient of fellowships and prizes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology.

Rigsbee is one of 39 North Carolina poets selected as winners in this year’s eight Poetry Council contests, which include five adult categories and one contest each specifically for elementary, middle school and high school students.

Among the winners are noted N.C. poets Joseph Bathanti and Nancy Simpson, honorable mentions in the book contest for “Restoring Sacred Art” and “Living Above the Frost Line,” respectively; Michael Beadle, first place in the Light Verse Contest for “Because I Could Not Stop My Car”; and Sara Claytor, first place in the Gladys Owings Hughes Family Heritage Contest for her poem “Blood Sister.”

All winners will have their poems published in the Council’s annual awards anthology, Bay Leaves, which will debut at Poetry Day, on Oct. 1 in the Peeler Crystal Lounge on the campus of Catawba College in Salisbury. All winners will also be given the opportunity to read their poems aloud as part of Poetry Day. One additional category, the Performance Poetry category, will be judged live at Poetry Day. Entries for this category may be submitted until Sept. 18.

The Poetry Council, founded in 1949, as a self-supporting and all-volunteer nonprofit, strives to foster a deeper appreciation of poetry among the people of North Carolina by sponsoring these annual contests, facilitating Poetry Day, and publishing Bay Leaves.

A complete list of winners and more information on the Council and Poetry Day are available on the Council’s website at www.poetrycouncilofnc.wordpress.com.