The book was chosen out of some 170 submissions by committee head Prof. Ariel Herschfeld, a literary critic and lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, alongside other notable committee members with multiple accomplishments in the field.
Secondary prizes were given to poets Adi Wolfson and Baco Serlui for their respective books In Body and Not Only and Trembleth for Fear of Thee.
The secondary prizes each came with NIS 10,000, while Appel took home NIS 50,000.
The award was named in memory of Nechama Rivlin, the late wife of President Reuven Rivlin.
Speaking on behalf of her family, the president's daughter Anat Rivlin said that this was how her mother wanted to use her position in the President's Residence: "To support and encourage artists, men and women."
Anat told the winners: "I feel that the committee’s choice of you, each one of you, would have made my mother very proud. And she would certainly have loved your poems and quoted them."