Jeff Walt Wins the 2026 Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award

Jeff Walt of Palm Desert, CA wins the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award-2026, for his poem “Why I Like to Write Poems in Gay Bars.” Congratulations! Prize $500.00 and publication in Gival Press websites. His poem was chosen anonymously by judge Jeff Mann.

Winner of the Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award-2026

Why I Like to Write Poems in Gay Bars

Because this catty bunch perch like gargoyles at the end of the bar, old queens in eyeliner and caftans who heckle each other & hiss judgments:

“Don’t get your hopes up. I mean, look at you. I have standards,”

which land like blessings

when they finally turn their mascaraed eyes on me:

Toss him out--he's writing a song about us!

They order Rose Kennedy rounds in joyful communion. This bar their church.

Because the jukebox still bleeds Whitney, Madonna, Aretha—and the videos loop

go-go boys in glitter jock straps writhing for no one

in particular & everyone at once.

Because these old timers bring birthday cake & raise a glass

of wine every June to Judy Garland,

swearing they felt freedom in the gut

the night the first brick flew—Still do! 

All around the bar affirming

triple air snaps.

Because the svelte twinks arrive past noon

in neon tank tops, posing

for social media shots, flapping their wrists, their youth a glittering, smoky-eyed bit

of chic violence that makes me laugh and ache for my own sweet, vanished body.

Because sometimes a straight man wanders in—all cologne & confusion—leans close

in the bathroom stall to whisper

what he can’t say out in the brightness.

Because here, I am witness—to grief, to lust, to survival—all of us spilling our tea, dishing

on dead movie stars, raising glass after glass to the simple miracle of finding each other in all that rainbowed darkness.

Copyright © 2026 by Jeff Walt.

Photo © 2026 by Phil Farabough.

About the Author

Jeff Walt was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania among a community of coal miners, brick-layers, and railroad workers. His chapbook, Soot, was awarded co-winner of the Keystone Chapbook Prize and published in 2010 by Seven Kitchens Press. He’s been awarded writing residencies from The MacDowell Colony, The Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts, and Kalani Eco-village on the Big Island of Hawaii. His poems have appeared in journals such as Los Angeles Review, Alligator Juniper, Cimarron Review, The Sun, Connecticut Review, Inkwell, New Millennium Writings, The Good Men Project, Harpur Palate, Cream City Review, The Ledge, and Slipstream. Several poems from Soot were selected and scored by composer David Sisco and performed at Carnegie Hall on November 14, 2014. His book, Leave Smoke, was published on Oct. 1, 2019 by Gival Press and was awarded the 2020 Housatonic Book Award given by the Western Connecticut State University MFA Program “…to promote excellent writing, to identify authors who serve as professional role models for writing students….” Leave Smoke was awarded Runner-Up in Poetry in the 2020 San Francisco Book Festival annual competition honoring the best books of the spring. Also, Jeff is the Founder and Director of the Desert Rat Residency for Writers in Palm Desert, CA which sponsors The Desert Rat Poetry & Fiction Prize. Visit:  www.jeffwalt.com

About the Judge:

Jeff Mann has published six books of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash, A Romantic Mann, Rebels, and Redneck Bouquet; three collections of essays, Edge, Binding the God, and Endangered Species; a memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; six novels, Fog, Purgatory, Cub, Salvation, Country, and Insatiable; one graphic novel, Highland Moon; and four volumes of short fiction, A History of Barbed Wire, Desire and Devour, Consent, and The Sagas of Mann.  With Julia Watts, he co-editedLGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia.  The winner of two Lambda Literary Awards, he teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech.

Finalists:

"Terratogenesis," by SP Mulroy of New York, NY.

"Cartography," by Joe Carrithers of Brea, CA.

"on freedom," by Brendan Csaposs of Nairobi, Kenya.

"Pink," by Liz Bruce of Greensboro, NC.