Griffin Poetry Prize

Lesley Strutt Poetry Contest
2025-08-10 00:00 (America/Toronto) | Online
The Lesley Strutt Poetry Contest is an award that provides a prize for the single best poem submitted to our judges. This contest is open to all poets (professional, emerging, and first-time) in Canada, and is run each summer in memory of poet and friend Lesley Strutt.
Submissions Guidelines
– This contest accepts poems in English, French and Innu-Aimun
– Open to all poets (professional, emerging, first-time, etc.)
– Submit one (1) poem per submission.
– Please submit poetry that is unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere.
– This annual contest has an entry fee of $5 per submission. If you are unable to pay the contest fee, please send email to admin@poets.ca
– Multiple submissions are accepted, but the entry fee of $5 applies to each individual submission.
– Eligible to Canadian poets, poets living and working in Canada, as well as Indigenous, Inuit and Métis poets who may not identify as Canadian but live in the region known colonially as Canada.

The life of Lesley Enid Strutt (March 10, 1953 – February 3, 2021) revolved around her loved ones, her community and on poetry. One of her last wishes was to help establish an Award that would celebrate all three well into the future. Born in Quebec, she eventually called the town of Merrickville, Ontario, home.
Lesley’s own poetry was widely published in literary magazines and chapbooks, and Inanna Press, who published her Young Adult novel, On the Edge, in 2019, will publish her full collection, Window Ledge, in 2021, but one of her main interests was to wake up poetry in others, to stimulate new writing, and to share the joys of reading or listening to poetry. Her enthusiasm for new writers through the years she was Associate Representative on The League of Canadian Poets led to the creation of Fresh Voices, a space on the League’s website for poems only by associate members.
Her passion for trees gave her the idea of asking the League representatives of all regions of Canada if they would edit a section of an anthology on trees, which would be sold as a fundraiser for The League of Canadian Poets, and Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees was born.
In her last weeks she worked with a team of poetry-loving volunteers in Merrickville who have since raised, and continue to raise, thousands of dollars to support this Award. In this way, everything and everyone she loved comes together in gratitude for those who make poetry, or who simply love it.

The Poetry in Translation Prize - Fitzcarraldo Editions
2025-08-15 23:59 (America/Toronto) | Online
The Poetry in Translation Prize is a biennial award for an outstanding poetry collection translated into English. The prize is open to living, published poets from around the world, writing in any language. The winning poet and translator receive an advance of $5,000, to be shared equally between poet and translator, followed by simultaneous publication in North America with New Directions, in the UK and Ireland with Fitzcarraldo Editions, and in Australia and New Zealand with Giramondo.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Please read these eligibility and entry rules carefully before submitting. Submission of an entry is taken as acceptance of the entry rules. For any queries not covered below, please write to info@fitzcarraldoeditions.com.
1. The prize is open to living, published poets around the world writing in any language except English.
2. Submissions should contain a sample of 15-25 translated poems, or 15-25 pages – whichever is greater. All submissions should be made by the translator. We will accept self-translated work and collaborative translations. Submissions will open on the 15 July.
3. Each submission should include a cover letter including a biographical note for both poet and translator, contact details and a brief outline of the full poetry collection. You are welcome to submit the poems in their original language in the original submission, and must also be able to provide these poems in their original language on request.
4. Submissions must be for a book of a minimum of 48 pages in English. With rare exceptions at the discretion of the judges, the finished book must not exceed 112 pages in English. The submission must be from a collection already published, or with an agreement to be published, in the original language.
5. The submission must be original and not AI-generated.
6. Entries that are incomplete, corrupted or submitted after the deadline will not be considered.
7. The entry must be the entrant’s own original creation and must not infringe upon the right or copyright of any person or entity.
8. Translators may only submit once per entry period.
9. When submitting, translators must have confirmation that the underlying rights holder has granted their written permission for both submission and hypothetical publication. This is a requirement for shortlisting and will be confirmed by the publishers at the shortlisting stage with a signed letter from the original rights holder.
10. The poet can have been published in English previously, but the submitted full-length book must not have been published before in the English language. Individual poems from the book can have been published in English with the understanding that no more than 25 per cent of the whole would have been previously published in translation. Details of prior publication in English must be given in the submission.
11. The prize encourages submissions of single-volume work, but welcomes pitches for selected poems. If submitting towards a collection of selected poems, please consider the book’s conceptual frame and coherence.
12. Poets and translators who have existing contracts for other texts, or who have previously held contracts with publishers, are eligible to enter.
13. The publishers will commission a full-length collection from the winning sample, which will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, New Directions and Giramondo as part of their poetry lists.
14. Submissions will open 15 July 2025 and close 15 August before midnight EST. Submissions will only be accepted via submittable.
15. A shortlist will be announced by November 2025, with the winner announced in January 2026 and published in 2027.
16. There are no age restrictions, and we welcome submissions from writers of all backgrounds.
17. All submissions should include page numbers.
18. Only submissions via the submissions portal (open from 15 July 2025) will be considered; entries by post will not be considered.
19. Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo and New Directions reserve the right to organise a meeting or phone call with all shortlisted translators and poets before the award of the prize.
20. Unsuccessful entrants will not be contacted.
21. No editorial feedback will be provided to unsuccessful entrants.
22. The decision of the judges is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the judging process.
23. Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo and New Directions will have the exclusive world English rights to publish the winning text.
24. Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo and New Directions reserve the right not to award the prize, or to make multiple offers of publication.
25. Only submissions which meet all Terms and Conditions will be considered.
26. By entering this competition, each entrant agrees to be bound by these Terms and Conditions.

The Foster Poetry Prize: 2025 Deadline
2025-08-20 08:00 - 2025-11-01 23:59 (America/Winnipeg)
Formerly known as the Young Buck Poetry Prize, the Foster Poetry Prize is a writing contest for emerging poets of any age. The prize is awarded to the author of the single best submitted poem, along with $1000 and publication in CV2. Three honourable mentions are also awarded, each with a cash prize and publication in CV2.
Participating poets can be any age, but must not have previously published a full-length book of poetry (chapbooks are fine). All entrants must be willing to provide proof of their publication history if requested.
See the winners from previous years here!

Full contest rules

— Participating poets can be any age, but must not have published a full-length book of poetry (chapbooks are fine). All entrants must be willing to provide proof of their publication history if requested.
— Open to Canadian and International poets.
— Entry fee: $35 (first entry, includes 1-year subscription), $20 (subsequent entries)
— Due to high international shipping costs, the subscription term for contest entrants residing in the US is 9 months (3 issues). For international residents, the subscription term is 3 months (1 issue).
— Early Bird Deadline: Enter by September 1st, 2025, and submit an extra poem at no additional charge.
— Deadline for all contest entries: November 1st, 2025 at 11:59pm central time.
— Your submission may consist of 1-2 poems, and is not to exceed 80 lines total. If you are submitting within the Early Bird Deadline and will be including a third poem, that poem can put you over the 80-line limit. However, the extra poem must not be longer than 28 lines.
— Stanza breaks DO NOT count as lines, nor do titles or subheadings.
— Do not identify yourself anywhere in your attachment. Enter your name and address information in the form provided in Submittable. In the space reserved for a cover letter please enter the title(s) of your piece(s) and line count.
— Your entry must be formatted on 8 1/2″ x 11″ using single spacing and a 12 point font (Times New Roman preferred).
— Entries must be sent in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format using Submittable. Please do not send your poem as a pdf.
— Winners of the 2025 Foster Poetry Prize will be notified by email and results will be available on the CV2 website in January 2026.
— Each piece must be original, unpublished, not submitted elsewhere for publication or broadcast, nor accepted elsewhere for publication or broadcast, nor entered simultaneously in any other contest or competition for which it is also eligible to win a prize.
— Winning pieces will be published in CV2 magazine, with authors paid for publication.

Contest prizes
The Foster Poetry Prize awards $1000 and publication in CV2 Magazine to the author of the winning poem. Second and third place winners and an honourable mention will receive publication in CV2 and $350, $250, and $150 respectively.

The 2025 Oxford Poetry Prize Deadline
2025-08-31 23:59 UTC | Submittable
Oxford Poetry awards the annual Oxford Poetry Prize for a single poem in the English language. The 2025 Prize opens on 1 May 2025. This year’s guest judge is Rebecca Tamás. The winner of the Oxford Poetry Prize receives £1,000, the runner-up £200, and third place £100. The winning poets are also offered publication in the print magazine. This year’s competition opens on 1 May 2025 and closes at midnight UTC on 31 August 2025.
About the 2025 Guest Judge
Rebecca Tamás is a poet, nonfiction writer, and critic. Her first full length poetry collection, WITCH (Penned in the Margins, 2019), was a Guardian, Times, Telegraph, White Review, Irish Times, Paris Review, and BBC Radio 4 Book of the Year, as well as a Paris Review Staff Pick and a Poetry Society Recommendation. Rebecca was a MacDowell Fellow, and recipient of the Sylvia Canfield Winn Fellowship for Environmental Writing. Her essay collection Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman (Makina, 2020) was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and she was joint editor, with Sarah Shin, of Spells: Occult Poetry for the 21st Century (Ignota, 2018; Silver Press, 2025). Rebecca works as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at City St George’s, University of London. Her second collection of poetry is forthcoming in 2026 with Fitzcarraldo.
How to submit
— Entries should consist of one poem per uploaded file. The only acceptable file format is pdf.
— Entries are accepted through Submittable only.
— Entrants have the option of submitting more than one poem as part of their submission (in separate files, as above). Each poem costs £10.
— There is no limit on the number of poems an individual can submit.
— Each poem must comprise no more than 50 lines. Blank lines, titles, subtitles, dedications, and epigraphs are not counted as lines.
— All submissions are read blind. Therefore, please do not include your name or any identifying information in the documents you upload. You should include this information only in the Title or Cover Letter field of the Submittable form.
— The Competition is open to writers living anywhere in the world.
— The poems submitted must be the entrant’s own original work and not have been previously published elsewhere, in print or online.
— A limited number of free entries are available to low-income writers. Email to enquire about free entry.
Terms and conditions
— The 2025 Oxford Poetry Prize is organised by Partus Press Ltd on behalf of the magazine Oxford Poetry.
— The competition is open to anyone age 18 or over on the date of their submission. Submission of a poem to the Oxford Poetry Prize constitutes the entrant’s acceptance of these terms and conditions. Entries that do not comply with these terms and conditions will be disqualified from the competition.
— Entries are welcome from 1 May 2025. The deadline for submitting entries is midnight utc on 31 August 2025. Work received after that date will not be considered.
— Entrants will be contacted with a response to their submission by the end of November 2025. All submissions will receive a response, though we cannot provide editorial feedback on unsuccessful entries. Winners and shortlisted entrants will be notified by email.
— No correspondence will be entered into regarding the judging process.
— The poem that receives first prize in the competition will be published in a print issue of Oxford Poetry. Oxford Poetry will have the exclusive right to publish the winning poem for four months from its first publication in the print magazine. After four months, the rights will revert to the author, who may publish the poem elsewhere with appropriate credit to Oxford Poetry, but Oxford Poetry will retain the non-exclusive right to publish the poem online and in print.
— The second- and third-prize winners will be offered publication in a print issue of Oxford Poetry.
— The first-place poet will receive a cash prize of £1,000. The runner-up will receive a cash prize of £200. The third-place poet will receive a cash prize of £100. All cash prizes will be paid out in full no later than 90 days after the public announcement of the judge’s decision. No individual entrant may receive more than one cash prize.
— Partus Press reserves the right not to award the prizes, or to reduce or split the prize money if, in its opinion, such an action is justified for any reason.
— All poems submitted must be written primarily in the English language. We cannot accept translations, unless you have translated your own work and the work in the original language has not previously been published in print or online in accordance with the terms outlined above.
— Each poem costs £10 to submit. The fee is not refundable, even if the submission is later withdrawn by the submitter.
— No changes or alterations can be made to poems once they have been entered into the competition.
— Partus Press Ltd cannot accept responsibility for any damage, loss, injury, or distress suffered by any person who has entered the competition.
— Partus Press Ltd reserves the right to cancel the competition, or to amend the terms and conditions of entry, if the press deems it necessary or to account for circumstances beyond its control (in which case a notice will be posted on the Oxford Poetry website). If the competition is cancelled, paid entry fees will be refunded.
— The entry must be the entrant’s own original work and must not infringe upon the copyright of any person or entity, nor may the entry have been generated, in whole or in part, by an artificial intelligence, chatbot, or other natural language processing software.
— Each poem must comprise no more than 50 lines. Blank lines, titles, subtitles, dedications, and epigraphs are not counted as lines.
— Current and former editors of Oxford Poetry, and family members of this year’s guest judge or of the magazine’s current editorial team, are not eligible to submit.
— These terms and conditions apply equally to paid entries and unpaid entries entered under the low-income scheme.
— In the event of a dispute regarding these terms and conditions, or any matter relating to the Oxford Poetry Prize, the decision of the organiser, Partus Press Ltd, shall be final.
— The competition rules will be governed by English law and any dispute will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

Frontier Poetry's Myths & Fables Prize Deadline
2025-09-07 23:59 (America/Toronto) | Online
In our continued celebration of imagination, storytelling, and the power of archetype, Frontier Poetry is thrilled to announce the Myths & Fables Prize. In her poem “Circe’s Power,” Louise Glück invokes the voice of the sorceress: “I never turned anyone into a pig. / Some people are pigs; I make them / look like pigs.” With chilling clarity, she peels back the veil of fantasy to reveal something deeply human—desire, illusion, transformation. These ancient tales, passed down through firelight and ink, still echo in our modern hearts.
We invite you to lend your voice to this lineage. The 2025 Myths & Fables Prize seeks poems that engage in mythological figures, cultural lore, personal legends, and reimagined fairytales. Whether you’re unearthing stories from your heritages, wrestling with gods and monsters, or crafting your own fables from the smoke of memory—send us work that is fearless, lyrical, and rich in poetic craft. We welcome traditional retellings and radical departures. Invented myths, fractured fairy tales, elegies for forgotten heroes, or whispered epics—let your poetry become the spell.

Frontier Poetry warmly encourages submission from poets of all identities, cultural backgrounds, and traditions. We are especially interested in work that explores underrepresented mythologies and stories not often given space in the Western literary canon.
Guest judge Jennifer Chang will select the winners. The first-place winner will receive $3000 and publication. The second- and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200, respectively, along with publication. All finalists will be considered for paid publication in New Voices.

Let the myths arise.
This contest opens July 1 to September 7, 2025

Further reading can be found here:
Circe’s Power by Louise Gluck
Fable for a Genome by Heather Green
The Uncursing of the Medusa by Ola Faleti
Refusing Eurydice by Ladan Osman
At Ithaca by Hilda Doolittle (H.D)
conjuring by Xiao Yue Shan
About the Guest Judge:
Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity, Some Say the Lark, and An Authentic Life, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Her other honors include the William Carlos Williams Award, the Levinson Prize from Poetry, and fellowships to the Elizabeth Murray Artists Residency, MacDowell, and Yaddo. She teaches at the University of Texas in Austin and is the poetry editor of New England Review.
What Chang Is Looking For:
“I admire most the poems that invite me to feel and think something new. Startling, yet precise language moves me. Whatever expands my imagination, suddenly alters the weather (emotional, meteorological), stops time, and/or brings me closer to a truth, I welcome. I am open to and curious about all aesthetics. I love the sentence and I love the line and I love when the two are in collusion. Poems are composed of fragments, and it is the poem that invokes what’s been left out or lost that can break me open in the best, most devastating way.”
Guidelines:
Submissions are open to all poets, regardless of publication history.
Send us only your best, polished work—unpublished poems only, please.
As part of our dedication to the pursuit of a more inclusive publishing world, we are offering a free submission window for poets from historically marginalized groups at the beginning of the contest until we reach our cap of fifty. NOTE: SUBMISSION CAP HAS BEEN MET.
Please do not include any identifying information in the body of your document.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We ask for no more than three poems (five pages) per submission. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. We have no particular aesthetic or formal requirements and consider all styles of poetry.
Each entry requires a submission fee of $20.
Multiple submissions (of up to three poems apiece) are allowed, but each requires a separate entry fee.
Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history and personal bio. Also include any content warnings in consideration of our reading staff.
Work generated by AI will be automatically disqualified.
Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing primarily in English. Some code-switching/meshing is very welcome.
Please do not submit work if you have a close relationship with the guest judge.
If you have any questions, please visit our FAQ page. If you don’t find the answer to your question, email us: contact (at ) frontierpoetry (dot) com.
The deadline is September 7th, 2025. We plan to announce winners and finalists in Fall 2025.
Editorial Feedback Option:
This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on your submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The $149 option will provide you with three letters from three different editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and all are astute and professional poets. Please allow eight to ten weeks after the contest closes to receive your feedback.

Note on What We Look For
We do not hold preference for any particular style or topic—we simply seek the best poems we can find. Send us work that is blister, that is color, that strikes hot the urge to live and be. For a sense of what we are looking for, read through our previously published poems or What We Look For. We warmly and sincerely invite all voices, and especially those that have been historically marginalized and silenced to submit work.
We also encourage you to submit your poetry for free to our New Voices, open year-round. We pay our emerging NV poets $50 per poem, published every Friday. New Voices is the beating heart of Frontier, and we hope to read your work soon. Thank you so much for supporting the community of new and emerging poets.

The Moth Poetry Prize 2025 - Judged by Ishion Hutchinson
2025-09-29 08:00 - 2025-12-31 17:00 (Europe/Dublin) | Online
The Moth Poetry Prize is one of the biggest prizes in the world for individual unpublished poems. The prize is open to anyone over 16, and each year attracts thousands of entries from new and established poets from over 50 countries worldwide.
1st PRIZE €6,000
3 RUNNER-UP PRIZES OF €1,000
8 COMMENDED PRIZES OF €250
The prize is judged anonymously by a single poet each year. Past judges include Claudia Rankine, Marie Howe, Deborah Landau, Daljit Nagra, Leontia Flynn, Billy Collins, Nick Laird, Warsan Shire, Hannah Sullivan, Fiona Benson and Nobel Laureate Louise Glück.
Past winners include Laurie Bolger, Lance Larsen, Aniqah Choudhri, Michael Lavers, Natalya Anderson, Lee Sharkey, Ann Gray (whose poem was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem) and Abigail Parry (who was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection).
The winner of The Moth Poetry Prize 2024 was American author Andrew Krivák.
‘Every writer knows what it’s like to be working alone in a room with words. And then you’re on a shortlist with fantastic poets like Naoise Gale and Anthony Lawrence and Shelley Stenhouse, all of whom know what that work and that aloneness is like. So, to be part of that, to be recognized by The Moth, and to be just one of the voices that make up their larger literary tradition, this all means a great deal to me.’ Andrew Krivák
Watch Andrew read his winning poem ‘Raccoon Baculum Good Luck Charm’
The Judge
Ishion Hutchinson, author of three poetry collections, is a recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, among others. He is Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University in New York and recently published his essay collection, Fugitive Tilts, which New York Magazine described as ‘thrilling’.
‘I wouldn’t say I had or have an affinity for poetry ‒ it confounded me, plagued me, yet I felt enlarged by it, for it widened the presence of all I knew and didn’t. It was love, simply, love that you have to approach the same way Faulkner said you have to approach Joyce’s Ulysses, like the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.’ Ishion Hutchinson
HOW TO ENTER
– The Prize is open to anyone (over 16) from anywhere in the world, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished.
– There is no line limit, and the poems can be on any subject.
– The entry fee is €16 per poem. You can ENTER ONLINE or send your poem(s) along with a cheque or postal order made payable to ‘The Moth Magazine Ltd.’ with an ENTRY FORM or a cover letter with your name and contact details and the title of your poem(s) attached to: The Moth, Ardan Grange, Milltown, Belturbet, Co. Cavan, Ireland H14 K768.
– If you are concerned about formatting online, please go through the online process and then email your poem as a Word attachment with your entry number directly to enquiries@themothmagazine.com.**
– Please remember to READ THE RULES of the competition before you enter.
– CLOSING DATE 31 DECEMBER 2025
– You will need to SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST if you wish to be notified of the results
– The shortlist will be announced in March 2026 and the four shortlisted poems will appear in the Irish Times online.
– The overall winner of €6,000 will be announced at a special award online in the spring of 2026.
– Call 00 353 (0)87 2657251 or email enquiries@themothmagazine.com for more details.
TESTIMONIALS
‘Judging The Moth Poetry Prize was a beautiful experience. I’ve come away changed ‒ inspired and hopeful.’ Warsan Shire
‘The great thing about winning with this poem is that I have actually submitted it to other competitions without success. Sometimes you have to give up on your favourites, but sometimes it is worth ignoring the feedback and sticking with your gut. I am glad I did with this poem.’ Damen O’Brien
‘What an incredible honour!’ Larsen said of winning The Moth Poetry Prize. ‘I love Wordsworth’s reminder that “the prison, into which we doom ourselves, no prison is.” As much as I love the solitude of writing, I also like to poke my head up once in a while to celebrate the communal dimensions of poetry and see that I may have a place at the table after all.’ Lance Larsen

The Moth Nature Writing Prize 2025
2025-09-30 23:59 (Europe/Dublin) | Online
The Moth Nature Writing Prize aims to encourage and celebrate the art of nature writing. It is awarded annually to unpublished pieces of prose or poetry which best combine exceptional literary merit with an exploration of the writers’ relationship with the natural world.
An entry consists of a single poem of any length (not a collection of poems) or a single piece of prose (fiction or non-fiction) of up to 4,000 words.
Each year a single judge is asked to choose winners from entries worldwide. Previous judges include Richard Mabey, Helen Macdonald, Max Porter, Kathleen Jamie and Cal Flyn.
The prize is open to anyone over the age of sixteen, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished.
THE PRIZES
1st prize €1,000 and a week at The Moth Retreat in Ireland
2nd prize €500
3rd prize €250
THE JUDGE
Multi-award-winning author and naturalist, Mark Cocker, will judge The Moth Nature Writing Prize 2025. Mark has written 13 books, including Crow Country, A Claxton Diary and One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts and the Story of Life on Earth. He co-founded several environmental organisations, including the Oriental Bird Club and New Networks for Nature, and has been a country diarist for The Guardian for the past 38 years.
‘Profound knowledge, uncanny ability to observe and heartliftingly exact prose.’ The Times
HOW TO ENTER
The Moth Nature Writing Prize is open to anyone over 16, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. There is a 4,000 maximum word limit (for prose and poetry).
The entry fee is €15 per entry (a single poem or piece of prose). You you can enter as many times as you like, along with €15 entry fee.
You can enter online or send your entry along with a cheque or postal order made payable to ‘The Moth Magazine Ltd.’ with an entry form or a cover letter with your name and contact details and the title of your piece attached to: The Moth, Ardan Grange, Milltown, Belturbet, Co. Cavan, Ireland H14 K768.
Please read the rules before you enter.
The Prize closes 30 September 2025.
The winning entries will appear in the Irish Times online.
You will need to subscribe to our mailing list if you wish to be notified of the results

The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize 2025 Deadline
2025-09-30 23:59 (America/New_York) | Online
Prize: $10,000 + Residency Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center
2025 Judge: Shane McCrae
General Guidelines
– Submissions are open July 1 – September 30.
– A fee of $28 must be paid at the time of submission.
– Open to any poet writing in English. Translations are not eligible.
– The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize is not a first book prize, though we welcome first books. The Prize is open to poets at any stage of their career.
– There are no formal restrictions for this prize; we welcome manuscripts of any style/form.
– Poems may have been published individually in magazines or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.
– Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify TRP immediately by withdrawing the manuscript via Submittable if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
– Current and former students and faculty of Sam Houston State University are not eligible.
– Family members and current or former students* of the final judge or TRP staff are not eligible.
– Current and former TRP authors are not eligible.
– Submitters must be 18+ years of age.
– Submissions are accepted through Submittable only.
– Winner will receive a $10,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 10 copies of the published book.
– Writers who studied with the final judge or TRP staff for a semester-length period are not eligible. Writers who studied with the final judge or TRP staff for two-week residencies, single workshops, or other instances less than a semester in length are eligible, provided the work submitted is previously unseen by TRP staff or the final judge.
Manuscript Guidelines
– Manuscripts must be between 50 and 100 pages in length.
– Please include a table of contents (if applicable), title page, and page numbers.
– Do not include an acknowledgments page.
– No more than one poem per page. (Multi-page poems are welcome.)
– Submissions are anonymous. Please remove any identifying information from the manuscript.
– Submit as a .pdf, .docx, or .doc file format.
– No revisions will be accepted once the manuscript is uploaded.
TRP’s X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center
Vermont Studio Center (VSC) and TRP: The University Press of SHSU (TRP) are pleased to announce a partnership to offer the TRP’s X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center. This fellowship offers a three-week residency, in the summer, to a recipient of the X. J. Kennedy Prize and includes a private studio space, a private room in shared lodging, access to the Visiting Artists & Writers Program, and all meals. The X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize Fellow at VSC will join an inclusive international community of artists and writers located in northern Vermont.
This contest honors award-winning poet X. J. Kennedy.

The Poetry Society 2025 National Poetry Competition
2025-10-31 00:00 (Europe/London) | Online
Judges: Denise Saul, Ian Duhig, Susannah Dickey
Prizes: First prize £5,000, second prize £3,000, third prize £2,000, commended prizes £500
Run by The Poetry Society since 1978, The National Poetry Competition is one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for an unpublished poem of up to 40 lines, open to all poets worldwide aged 18 or over
Closing date: 31 October 2025

Rules

We recommend all entrants read the rules carefully before entering. If you have any questions please see our Frequently Asked Questions page.
Rules: General

The competition is open to anyone aged 18 or over at the time of entering. International entries are welcome.
The closing date of the competition is midnight (GMT UK time), 31 October 2025.
There is no limit on the number of entries a single entrant can make. All entries will be considered anonymously by the judges.
Entries will not be returned, so please keep a copy.
Under no circumstances can alterations be made to poems once entered.
Online entries made via the website will receive automatic confirmation at the time of submission.
Telephone or email confirmation of receipt is not available. Poetry Society staff are unable to confirm the content of documents submitted online, so please ensure you send the correct version.
The competition organisers reserve the right to change the judging panel without notice and not to award prizes if, in the judges’ opinion, such an action is justified.
The judges read all the entries; their decision is final. Neither the judges nor Poetry Society staff will enter into any correspondence.
No current employee or Trustee of The Poetry Society is eligible to enter the National Poetry Competition.

Rules: Poems

All entries are judged anonymously and the poet’s name must not appear on the poem itself.
All poems must have a title and must not exceed 40 lines in length (excluding title). Entries can be on any subject.
Poems must be written in English.
Poems must be the entrant’s original work. AI-generated work is prohibited.
Entries must not have been published, self-published, published on a website or made public on social media, broadcast or featured among the winners in another competition before 31 March 2026.

Rules: Fees

The first poem submitted costs £8. Subsequent entries in the same submission cost £6 per poem. Poetry Society members (including those joining at time of submission) get one free second poem, with subsequent poems at £6.

Rules: Winners

Prizewinners will be notified by the end of February 2026 and invited to an awards event in spring 2026. All winners will be expected to provide a biography and photograph.
All entrants who provide a valid email address will be notified about the outcome of their entry by the end of March 2026.
The copyright of each poem remains with the author. However, authors of the winning poems, by entering the competition, grant The Poetry Society the right in perpetuity to publish and/or broadcast their poem. Use of the poems elsewhere for one year from March 2026 is subject to permission from The Poetry Society.

The Malahat Review's Open Season Awards 2025
2025-11-01 23:59 (America/Vancouver) | Online
Our annual Open Season Awards accepts entries in poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction.
The contest is open to Canadian and international writers anywhere in the world.
Deadline: 11:59pm (PST) on November 1, 2025
The winner in each genre will receive a prize of CAD$2,000 and be published in the magazine’s spring 2026 issue #234.
Entries accepted via Submittable only. (See below for instructions.)
Contest Judges
Manahil Bandukwala (poetry)
H. Felix Chau Bradley (fiction)
Shane Neilson (creative nonfiction)
Book Prizes
In addition to the three $2,000 prizes, we’re giving away book prizes to three lucky contest entrants! All you have to do is submit your work to the contest, and you’ll be automatically entered to win. After the deadline, we’ll pull three names from the list of entrants.
Guidelines
— poetry: up to 3 poems per entry (must be submitted in a single document), no individual poem more than 100 lines long, line count must be given for each poem.
— short fiction: 1 story per entry, 2,500 words max, word count must be given at the top of the first page.
— creative nonfiction: 1 piece per entry, 2,500 words max, word count must be given at the top of the first page.
All entries are judged anonymously. No identifying information is to be included on any poem, story, or nonfiction piece submitted.
— Multiple entries are allowed (at a reduced fee, if paid for at the same time as the initial entry: see Entry Fees and How to Submit below).
— Entrants may submit work in more than one genre (see Additional Entries below).

Entry Fees
— CAD$35 for each entry from Canada
— *Early Bird discount until Sep. 30: CAD$20
— CAD$45 for each entry from elsewhere
— *Early Bird discount until Sep. 30: CAD$30
— CAD$10 for each additional entry (any writer, any country)
— See How to Pay (below) for detailed instructions.
— Entrants receive a one-year print subscription to The Malahat Review for the initial entry only.
— Additional Entries: To receive the reduced entry fee(s) of CAD$10, any additional entries must be paid for at the same time as the first entry; such additional entries should be submitted on Submittable within 24 hours of the initial entry.
— Additional entries may be submitted in any genre (e.g., an initial entry in poetry may be accompanied by an additional entry or entries in poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction).
Eligible Entries
— No work simultaneously submitted elsewhere, already published, or already accepted for publication is eligible for consideration (even if only excerpted, or even if revised since original publication). We consider any appearance in print or online to be a publication, including newspapers, newsletters, magazines, anthologies, chapbooks, books, websites, blogs, social media, etc. This restriction applies regardless of the size of the print run or the extent of the circulation of previously published work.
— Failure to comply with these criteria for eligibility will immediately disqualify any entry, regardless of when the ineligiblity is discovered in the process of adjudication (submission, processing, screening, shortlisting, final judging
— The entry fee for a disqualified submission will not be refunded, and the entrant will still receive a one-year print subscription to the magazine.
Notification
— The winner in each genre will be notified by email.
— Other entrants will receive notifications of the shortlists and winners via Submittable messages.
— The shortlists and winners in each genre will be announced in January 2026 on our website, Instagram, and Facebook.
— The winners will be interviewed, and the interviews will be published on our website and in a spring edition of Malahat lite.
How to Pay (credit card)
— Go to our online store to pay your contest fee(s).
— Payment must be made online through our store before submitting, since you must include your ORDER# with your submission. We accept VISA, Mastercard, or American Express. No profile is needed in order to pay your entry fee on our store website—simply choose guest checkout.
— Online payments will not be accepted after the contest deadline (if you have any problems with such payment, please write to malahat[at]uvic.ca).
How to Pay (cheque or money order)

— If you are unable to pay by credit card, you can mail a cheque or money order made out to The Malahat Review in CAD$ or USD$ to: The Malahat Review, Clearihue Bldg, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700, Stn CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2, Canada.
— Instead of an order#, you must indicate “cheque” or “money order” as required on the submission form.
— Cheques or money orders must be mailed with a postmark date of no later than November 1, 2025.
How to Submit
— Only online submissions made through The Malahat Review‘s Open Season Awards portal on Submittable will be accepted.
— Acceptable file formats: Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF.
— A single entry is defined as 1 to 3 poems (uploaded in a single document, maximum 100 lines per poem), or 1 short story or 1 creative nonfiction piece (max 2,500 words in each case).
— You can make only one entry at a time on Submittable; to submit additional entries, whether at the reduced rate (paid for at the same time) or at a standard rate, simply follow the same process as with the initial submission (the ORDER # will be the same for additional entries paid for at the same time as the initial submission; it will be different for an entry or entries made at a later date, since these require the full fee).

The Fiddlehead’s 2025 Ralph Gustafson Prize for Best Poem
2025-12-01 23:59 (America/Vancouver) | Online
Good luck to all entrants. This year’s contest deadline is December 1, 2025 (postmarked for mailed entries and 11:59 pm Pacific Time for Submittable entries).
Douglas Walbourne-Gough
Douglas Walbourne-Gough is a poet and mixed/adopted status member of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation from Elmastukwek (the Bay of Islands), Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). His poetry and reviews have been published throughout Canada, and his poetry has garnered several awards and grants. His first collection, Crow Gulch, was published with Goose Lane Editions in 2019, has been nominated for several awards, and won the 2021 EJ Pratt Poetry Award. In 2024, his chapbook Colour Work was published with Anstruther Press and, later that year, he published his second collection, Island, also with Goose Lane Editions. Island centres around the Newfoundland Mi’kmaq experience in the wake of the Qalipu enrolment process, and was shortlisted for the 2025 J.M. Abraham Poetry Award. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing (UBC Okanagan) and a PhD in English/Creative Writing (UNB Fredericton).
T. Liem
T. Liem is the author of Slows: Twice (Coach House 2023), and Obits. (Coach House, 2018). Their writing has been published in Apogee, Plenitude, The Boston Review, Grain, Maisonneuve, Catapult, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. They live in Montreal / Tio’Tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territories.
Bertrand Bickersteth
Bertrand Bickersteth is the 2024-2025 Writer in Residence for Athabasca University. He is the author of the multi-award winning The Response of Weeds and the forthcoming Canadian Colored. His current project features the history of Black cowboys in western Canada. He lives in Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary) and teaches at Olds College, both in Treaty 7 Territory.
Contest General Rules and Information:
— Entries must be original and unpublished. No simultaneous submissions and no previously published (or accepted for publication) submissions. This means that an entry must not be under consideration elsewhere for publication, nor accepted elsewhere for publication, nor entered in any other contest. Work that has appeared on the internet (e.g., online magazines, blogs, or social media sites) is considered published for the purposes of this contest and is ineligible.
— In solidarity with authors whose work has been used to develop LLMs without permission or payment, The Fiddlehead will not publish submissions that have been AI-generated or have been developed using AI as a tool.
— An entry must be the original work of the person who is submitting it and the name and contact information provided must be the author’s. Contest entries should be submitted under the author’s real name. If you use a pseudonym for your published works, you will have a chance to inform the editor of this should your work be selected by the judges
— All entries must be submitted by mail or via Submittable. This year’s contest deadline is Decmeber 1, 2025 (postmarked for mailed entries and before 11:59 pm Pacific Time for Submittable entries). No faxed or emailed submissions are allowed.
— The Fiddlehead will not read work that is ableist, misogynistic, queer-phobic or racist.
— No revisions or changes may be made to an entry once you have submitted it. So please carefully check your entry before you enter it into the contest.
— Judging for the contest is anonymous. Do not put your name or contact information or other identifying information (e.g., publishing pseudonyms) anywhere on your actual entry. For mailed entries place your name and contact information on an accompanying cover page along with information about the submission requested below. For Submittable entries, there will be a place on the Submittable form for your name and contact information.
— One poetry entry is up to 3 poems; no more than 100 lines per poem, including blank lines. If a poem is longer than one page, please make sure that each page is numbered and has the poem’s title in the header. Each poem should start on a new page. Poems may be single spaced. For mailed entries the title and the number of lines for each poem should be noted on the cover page. For Submittable entries, the title and the number of lines for each poem should be noted in the Submittable form.
— The entry fee for your first entry depends on where you are living. If your address is in Canada, then the fee for first entry is $35 CAD. Additional entries after that first contest entry are $10 CAD. If you do not live in Canada, then the fee accounts for the exchange rate and is $50 CAD (approximately $40 USD) for the first entry and $10 CAD for additional entries.
— You must submit a first entry (and pay the first entry fee) before submitting an additional entry. If you submit an additional entry without first submitting that first entry, your entry may be disqualified, and the entry fee will not be returned.
— You will receive a one-year subscription to The Fiddlehead with your first entry. New subscriptions will start with the next issue published after the contest closes. Already a subscriber? — you’ll receive a one-year extension to your current subscription. Additional entries do not receive an additional subscription or subscription extension.
— The Fiddlehead occasionally swaps its subscription list with other literary organizations. If you don’t wish to be included in such exchanges, please state this on your entry’s cover page.
— The contest winner will be contacted directly (by either email or telephone) 2-3 months after the contest deadline. Other entrants will not be individually contacted about the results. Authors’ names and the titles of the works that make a shortlist of 10-15 will appear on The Fiddlehead website. The winner will be announced on the website and on The Fiddlehead social media spaces at a later date.
— The winning entry will be published in Issue 307 (Spring 2026) of The Fiddlehead and on the website. There is a publication payment in addition to the contest prize. The current publication payment rate is $65/page.
— The winner will be interviewed. The interview will be published on The Fiddlehead website when the issue featuring the winning piece is published.
— An entry will be disqualified (no matter at what stage in the contest process it is at), if it is discovered that an entry has violated the contest rule on simultaneous submissions, prior publication, or original authorship. The entry fee will not be reimbursed; however, the entrant will still receive the one-year subscription if the entry was an initial entry.
— An entry may be disqualified (no matter at what stage in the contest process it is at), if it is discovered that the author entered that entry as an additional entry and never submitted and paid for a first entry. The entry fee will be not be reimbursed; and if a subscription was started in error, it will immediately be cancelled.
For Submittable entries:
— You can only upload ONE file when entering via Submittable, (pdf, doc or .docx preferred; rtfs acceptable). Do not include a cover letter or bio as part of that file. Cover letters and bios will be deleted from any entry file.
Remember only use the additional entry category IF you have already submitted and paid for a first contest entry.
— For mailed entries: Please send mailed submission to:
The Fiddlehead
Campus House
11 Garland Ct
University of New Brunswick
PO Box 4400
Fredericton NB
E3B 5A3
Canada
Please make cheque payable to The Fiddlehead.

The Capilano Review’s Fall Writing Contest
2025-12-05 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Toronto) | Submittable
The Capilano Review is pleased to invite submissions to our Fall 2025 Writing Contest, “Connective | Uncontainable,” guest-judged by Hari Alluri. Submissions are open November 11 – December 12, 2025.
These are times—again, ongoing—in which so many of us are forced into existences and lives that harm us. And borders, their inherent falsity is why they are such overpoliced things: the binary of belonging must be constantly reinforced. And here a river overflows its banks constantly: every evaporated drop exceeds the category of the body it was named within. Alive means filled with so many desires to become uncontainable: modes of connective relationships that reach across, above, beneath.
Maybe we are in need of initiations, intimacies, and intonations that exceed their own categories. Maybe also remembrances of pasts, presents, and futures that rebel, invoking transformative relations to earth, each other, and spirit.
This call especially invites work that connects against expectations, that refuses the regulation of your identities / subject positions / experiences / writing itself, that connects beneath the surface of social, cultural, interpersonal and beyond-human relationships, that ascends towards possibilities beyond this world. If you’re infuriated by this call for work, maybe your work is calling you to send it in.

About the Judge
Hari Alluri (he/him/siya) is the author of three poetry collections and two chapbooks, co-editor of several anthologies, and project editor for recently authored and forthcoming collections. A former Writer-in-Residence at The Capilano Review and one of the current mentors for the League of Canadian Poets P.K. Page Mentorship Program, siya is a recipient of the Vera Manuel Award for Poetry and the Leonard A. Slade, Jr. Poetry Fellowship, as well as grants and fellowships from the BC Arts Council, Canada Council, National Film Board, and Writers’ Union of Canada, among others. Recent collaborations include Aray YAAR Collective, Burnaby Art Gallery, Centre A, The Digital Sala, Filipino Canadian Book Festival, Gulf Islands Poetry Festival, Indian Summer Festival, Vancouver Poetry House, Write, Create, Transform in Crete, and many more. You can connect with his work through anthologies, journals, online venues—most recently in I’ll Get Right On It: Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis (Fernwood Publishing), Wildness, and Poetry Pause—and more immersively in The Flayed City (Kaya Press), Our Echo of Sudden Mercy (Next Page Press), and Tabako on the Windowsill (Brick Books).

Contest Details
Submission period: November 11 – December 12, 2025
Submit your work via Submittable
Work must be original and previously unpublished
Submit up to 6 pages of poetry, prose, or other short experimental forms (PDF or Word formats only)
All entries will be considered anonymously. Please do not include your name or other identifying fields on your manuscript pages
Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere so that we can remove your entry from the contest
International entries are accepted
The winner will receive a $500 cash prize and publication in an upcoming print issue of The Capilano Review.

Submission Fees
$25 submission fee for all entries.
Submission fees include a complimentary one-year digital subscription to The Capilano Review.
The submission fee is waived for Indigenous entrants and those for whom the cost is a barrier. Please email contact@thecapilanoreview.com directly for alternate instructions to submit your work.

Ready to submit?
Upload your work via Submittable here.
The winner will be announced in January 2026.

Frontier Poetry — Family & Home Prize
2025-12-05 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Toronto) | Submittable
As the holiday season draws near, Frontier Poetry is delighted to announce the 2025 Family & Home Prize.

Family—whether chosen or given—shapes us in ways both tender and tumultuous. It can be a source of origin, belonging, community, and culture, while also holding heartbreak, loss, and complexity. During the holidays, these bonds often feel amplified: the absence of loved ones aches deeper, and their presence glows brighter—despite the occasional chaos. The annual argument before dinner. The uncanny regression that happens the moment we step through the door of our childhood home. The wild uncle with outdated views and too much eggnog.
We’re looking for poetry that pulls up a chair at your family table. The 2025 Family & Home Prize seeks poems that navigate the intimate terrain of family dynamics—rivalries, traditions, estrangements, reconciliations, grief, and love. Whether you’re honoring legacy or confronting trauma, send us work that is honest, unflinching, and crafted with poetic precision.
Frontier Poetry welcomes all interpretations of family. We proudly encourage submissions from poets of all identities, cultures, and backgrounds.
Guest judge Sean Hill will select the winners. The first-place winner will receive $3,000 and publication. The second- and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200, respectively, along with publication. All finalists will be considered for paid publication in New Voices.
This contest opens October 14th and closes December 14th.
Further reading for inspiration can be found here:
Dwayne | The Poetry Foundation
In the Hospital | The Poetry Foundation
My Own Private Patriarchy | The Poetry Foundation
Telemachus | Forward Arts Foundation
This is How to Make Barah | Honey Literary
fishing with dad |diode poetry journal

About the Guest Judge:
Sean Hill is the author of the forthcoming multi-genre collection, The Negroes Send Their Love
(Milkweed Editions, 2026), and two poetry collections, Dangerous Goods (Milkweed Editions,
2014), and Blood Ties & Brown Liquor (UGA Press, 2008). Hill has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, Stanford University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Hill’s poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals including Callaloo, New England Review, Orion, and Poetry, and in nearly three dozen anthologies. Hill has served as the director of the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference at Bemidji State University since 2012. Hill lives in southwestern Montana with his family and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Montana.

What Sean Hill Is Looking For:
It’s an honor to judge Frontier’s 2025 Family & Home Prize. A relationship to family and home are two of the many things we all share as human beings. I’m interested in poems that explore the families and homes we’re born to, the ones we choose, and the families that choose us. I remember first encountering Etheridge Knight’s “The Idea of Ancestry” and being moved by how the speaker nearly escaped addiction by going back home to visit family. I was in college then, only seventy miles from my own home, and I felt the poem intensely. Around that same time, I read Heaney’s “Digging,” Komunyakaa’s “My Father’s Love Letters,” and Rita Dove’s “Daystar,” and began to understand other ways of seeing family and home. Poets like Jericho Brown, Remica Bingham-Risher, Donika Kelly, and many others continue to help me think and feel through these themes. I’m excited for what I’ll recognize—or be newly introduced to—about “home” and “family” in your poems.

Guidelines:
Submissions are open to all poets, regardless of publication history.
Send us only your best, polished work—unpublished poems only, please.
As part of our dedication to the pursuit of a more inclusive publishing world, we are offering a free submission window for poets from historically marginalized groups at the beginning of the contest until we reach our cap of fifty.
Please do not include any identifying information in the body of your document.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We ask for no more than three poems (five pages) per submission. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. We have no particular aesthetic or formal requirements and consider all styles of poetry.
Each entry requires a submission fee of $20.
Multiple submissions (of up to three poems apiece) are allowed, but each requires a separate entry fee.
Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history and personal bio. Also include any content warnings in consideration of our reading staff.
Work generated by AI will be automatically disqualified.
Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing primarily in English. Some code-switching/meshing is very welcome.
Please do not submit work if you have a close relationship with the guest judge.
If you have any questions, please visit our FAQ page. If you don’t find the answer to your question, email us: contact (at ) frontierpoetry (dot) com.
The deadline is December 14, 2025. We plan to announce winners and finalists in Fall 2025.

Editorial Feedback Option:
This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on your submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The $149 option will provide you with three letters from three different editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and all are astute and professional poets. Please allow eight to ten weeks after the contest closes to receive your feedback.

The 2025 Love & Eros Prize — Palette Poetry
2025-12-07 00:00 (America/Toronto) | Submittable
This contest is open from October 6, 2025 – December 7, 2025.
Palette Poetry’s Love & Eros Prize is returning for its fourth run this fall! From October 6 to December 7, we welcome you to share your love poems that explore the many and varied iterations of love. From the romantic and platonic, to the sweet and queer—the reverential devotion and gut-wrenching longing. What emotions branch from love? How are we all touched by love, and what shape does it manifest as in your life?
This prize will be judged by 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin, who asks submitters to consider the following prompt:
“Eros is an expansive and mischievous personage—perfect to inspire poems! In the Ancient Greek world, Eros was ‘limb-loosening, bittersweet, pain inducing, merciless, sweet-tempered, all abounding, languishing, invincible, irresistible, graceful, tender,’ as Eleni Vomvyla of the University College of London’s Institute of Archeology writes in an exhibition review for the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. She also shares that he was perceived by the Greeks ‘in all his diversity: a divine figure, a human value and a daily practice.’ I am excited to read what Eros inspires in poets for this contest, a word that means to call forth witness. What kinds of eros exists in your life that is calling for witness?
“A fun fact from more recent times is that Eros is also the name of the first near-Earth asteroid, which was discovered in 1898 and is the only asteroid to be orbited by and landed on by a spacecraft. Eros the asteroid is part of the Amor group and orbits the sun every 643 days! To conclude, Eros-as-in-desire exists in so many dimensions of our lives; we are interdependent and bound together by the cosmic forces of gravity, natural forces of evolution, and perhaps divine forces of mystery. I am grateful to have the opportunity to encourage poets to embrace the multi-faceted, mysterious, orbital aspects of Eros.”
—Sun Yung Shin
Submissions are open from October 6, 2025 – December 7, 2025. Palette’s editors will choose the ten finalists and any honorable mentions that warrant extra attention. Our judge will then select the winner and runner-ups for publication. The winner will receive $3,000; second and third place will receive $300 and $200, respectively. Finalists may also be considered for publication.
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin is a Korean-born award-winning poet and writer based in Minneapolis on the Dakotah homeland. She is the author of five collections of poetry: Six Tones of Water co-written with Vi Khi Nao from Ricochet Editions and The Wet Hex and three other books from Coffee House Press. She is the editor of three anthologies of essays and the author of three picture books. Her prose book Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language will be published in May 2026 and her latest picture book Revolutions are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs will be released in November 2025. She is also co-adapting a young people’s edition of Asian American Histories of the United States by Cathy Ceniza Choy from Beacon Press.
Submission Guidelines: Please read carefully!
Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English—inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely written in English. At this time, Palette does not accept translated work unless you are also the author of the original poem.
Your submission must be no more than three poems and under ten pages. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. Please begin each poem on a new page and include each poem’s individual title.
We do accept multiple submissions (of one to three poems apiece), but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.
Writers from historically marginalized groups are invited to submit for free until we reach the fifty free entries budgeted for this particular contest. (This category is now closed.)
We accept simultaneous submissions—just please send us a note if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.
We are only accepting unpublished work. If your poem has been published elsewhere, even on a blog or on social media, it is not eligible.
DO NOT INCLUDE your name or identifying information in the document OR submission title box.
Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with your publication history, if any. This text box is where you can include your name and/or bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this cover letter is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on. To safeguard our reading staff, please include content warnings in the cover letter, if applicable, as well.
Review our FAQ page for frequently asked questions.
NOTE: If after submitting you notice an error in your submission, please message us rather than withdrawing and resubmitting your submission. We can open it to editing once so you can correct the error.
Palette Poetry does not accept AI-produced work.
Contest closes December 7, 2025. Submitters will be notified of their submission status within twelve weeks of the contest closing date.
Discounts for Submitters
As a way to show our appreciation, we would like to offer all submitters to this prize a $5 discount to our 2025 Winter Keynote! Join us on Thursday, the 4th of December at 7pm EST / 4pm PST for a virtual lecture and generative workshop lead by our Love & Eros guest judge, Sun Yung Shin. The discounted registration link will be included in your confirmation email for this prize.
As a thank you for your support for Palette, we’d like to offer a 10% off discount code on a writing class from The Writing Salon. Find a class and use the code included in the confirmation message at checkout.
Editorial Feedback Option
This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The three-letter option costs $149 and will provide you with six pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions, from three separate guest editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and are all incredibly astute poets.

Mslexia’s Women's Poetry Competition
2025-12-08 23:59 (Europe/London) | Online
Your Poems
This competition is open to unpublished poems of any length, on any subject. Your £10 entry fee allows you to submit up to three poems.
Prizes
1st: £2,000; 2nd: £500; 3rd: £250
Unpublished Poet Prize* is an additional award for the best unpublished poem by an unpublished poet: £250.
The four winners, plus sixteen additional finalists will have their poems published in the March 2026 issue of Mslexia.
Deadline
The deadline for all entries is 23.59GMT, 8 December 2025.
Results
Entrants will be notified of the outcome of their entry in February 2026.
The winner and finalists will be announced on 1 March 2026.
How to Enter
Add the entry fee to your basket and proceed through the checkout (you will be asked to set up, or sign in to you Mslexia account during the process). Once the order is completed you’ll be taken to a ‘Submit’ page where the entry form is located. You can submit at a later date by logging into your Mslexia online account and going to the ‘competitions’ tab.
*If you are an Unpublished Poet (i.e. you’ve never had a poem selected for publication, in print or online, by an editorial selection process) then you can enter our Unpublished Poet Prize. This is an additional prize awarded to poets who have yet to have their work published. Simply tick the box on the entry form when uploading your poems or, if submitting by post, mark your entry with a U, and your work will be entered into the award.
Please ensure that your name does not appear on the poems themselves.
Unsure of what we mean by Unpublished? Want more information on formatting and how to submit? Visit our Entry Instructions for a comprehensive guide. And be sure to read our Rules before submitting.

Emily Dickinson Award, judged by Suzanne Buffam
2025-12-15 00:00 (America/Toronto) | Submittable
For a short poem, no longer than 16 lines.
GUIDELINES
Awards are open to Poetry Society of America members for free. Become a member and enter all 7 awards for free.
The fee for non-members is $10 for this award.
Personal identification must not appear in the submission document anywhere, including the file name.
Only one entry per award.
You cannot submit the same poem to more than one award. The exception: Individual poems submitted to Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award or Robert H. Winner Award may be submitted to another PSA award.
The submission must not have been previously published or accepted for publication.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable; please withdraw the submission if the poem is accepted elsewhere for publication.
Submissions by more than one author are not eligible.
Translations are not eligible. All poems must be original and primarily in English.
A poem that has previously won a Poetry Society of America award cannot be resubmitted to any of the awards.
We cannot accept corrections after submission.
Submissions from Poetry Society employees, officers, advisory board committee members, or their immediate families are ineligible.
All submissions are judged anonymously.
JUDGE
Suzanne Buffam is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently A Pillow Book, which The New York Times named one of the best books of poetry of 2016. Her work has appeared in Harpers, the New York Review of Books, The New York Times, A Public Space, and elsewhere. She teaches poetry at the University of Chicago.
