Sam Barbee’s newest collection is titled Apertures of Voluptuous Force (2022, Redhawk Publishing). He has three previous poetry collections, including That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), which was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. He was awarded an "Emerging Artist's Grant" from the Winston-Salem Arts Council to publish his first collection Changes of Venue (1997, Mount Olive Press). He has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines in the US and abroad, and is a two-time Pushcart nominee. His poem "Phantom Pain" won First Prize in the Orchard Street Press Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Contest; and received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem "The Blood Watch."