SALISBURY — A Rowan-Cabarrus Community College (RCCC) English instructor, Robert Abbate, is a finalist for the distinguished James Hearst Poetry Award given by North American Review literary magazine.

Abbate’s poem, “Tishbite Pottery Fragments,” will be published in the March/April 2007 issue of North American Review, which is the publication’s annual National Poetry Month edition.

Abbate’s full-length poetry collection, “Reed Sweep,” was a finalist for the 2005 Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Award and the 2006 John Ciardi Award from BkMk Press. His poems have also appeared in local literary journals, such as Main Street Rag, Iodine, Sanskrit, Thrift and Kakalak.

Abbate has taught English composition and philosophy at RCCC for five years. He earned a master’s degree in education at the University of San Francisco. He also holds a master’s degree in English composition and rhetoric from UNC Charlotte. He, his wife, Sue, and their two daughters live in Concord.

The Hearst Poetry Award is named for James Hearst, a North American Review contributing editor and poetry professor at the University of Northern Iowa. He published many poems, stories, articles and books before his death in 1983. His 12 poetry collections include “Country Men,” “The Sun at Noon,” “Man and His Field,” “Limited View,” “Snake in the Strawberries” and the posthumously published “Selected Poems.”

The final judge for this year’s James Hearst Award is Ted Kooser, a poet and essayist, professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and most recently, U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006.