The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize 2026

We’ll Be Open for our 9th Annual Contest on Feb 1, 2026

TWO winners receive publication of their chapbook
with worldwide distribution and the following:

Grand Prize Award: $750 plus 10 copies of their published chapbook
(chosen by contest judge for 2026: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

Editor’s Choice Award: $250 plus 10 copies of their published chapbook
(chosen by The Poetry Box founding editor: Shawn Aveningo Sanders)

In keeping with fair and ethical contest practices, all manuscripts remain anonymous throughout the reading & judging process for selection by Rosemerry, Shawn, and Robert,

(The Poetry Box^®may offer publication to a few finalists, dependent upon the number & quality of submissions.)

Only Open to Writers Residing in the United States.

This Year’s Judge

We are thrilled to announce that our judge for our 2026 chapbook contest is
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, prize-winning poet & author

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is a poet, teacher, speaker and writing facilitator who co-hosts Emerging Form, a podcast on creative process. Her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, is on the Ritual app. Her poems have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, PBS News Hour, O Magazine, Washington Post’s Book Club, and Carnegie Hall stage. Her collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize. Naked for Tea was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Her most recent collections are All the Honey and The Unfolding. In 2024, she became poet laureate for Evermore, helping others explore grief and love through poetry. Since 2006, she’s written a poem a day, sharing them on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils. Her three-word mantra: I’m still learning, and, if limited to one word: Adjust.

Learn more about Rosemerry at the following links:

Website: wordwoman.com • Daily poetry blog: A Hundred Falling Veils • Daily poetry app for your phone: The Poetic Path • Podcast on creative process: Emerging Form • Newest Books: The Unfolding, All the Honey • TEDx: The Art of Changing Metaphors • Poetry album Risking Love

Submission Period: Feb 1 – Mar 15, 2026

Winner Announced by: July 31, 2026

Publication Date: Winter, 2026/27

Submission Guidelines

We welcome work from both established and emerging writers alike. We invite all voices, and especially those that have been historically marginalized or under-heard to submit and partner with us. Every submission starts out in the same pile and is judged merely on its own merit, not the reputation of the writer. We enjoy poems of all styles: formal, free-verse, metered, non-rhyming, experimental, nostalgic, political, erotic, abstract, lyrical, etc. We don’t censor or shy away from ‘tough topics’, however we do draw the line at poetry that discriminates against our fellow humans. Please keep in mind that a chapbook should have some unifying thread and yet each poem should be strong enough to stand on its own merit.

The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize honors a collection of original poetry in English by a single author; translations are not eligible.
The grand prize winning poet will receive a $750 honorarium upon publication plus 10 copies of their book.
The editor’s choice winning poet will receive a $250 honorarium upon publication plus 10 copies of their book.
All three winning chapbooks will be professionally designed and published in Winter 2026/27 by The Poetry Box (at no cost to the poets), as a perfect-bound, paperback chapbook (6 x 9 inches in size).
In addition, the winning books and authors will be featured on the The Poetry Box website and an episode of The Poetry Box LIVE.
Entries must be submitted between February 1 – March 15, 2026. (Midnight, PST)
All entries should be made via Submittable. (No email or snail mail submissions.)
Manuscripts should be approximately 18 to 30 pages of poetry, submitted in one single document. (This is only an estimate as it’s hard to determine page count depending on individual length of poems. Finished chapbooks usually end up being 32-48 pages with front/back matter, so use your judgement. We’re flexible.)
Poets may enter more than one manuscript to the contest, but each submission must be a separate entry, each incurring its own fee.
Accepted file formats: WORD (.doc or docx), RTF (rich text format), or PDF (but you will need to provide a Word Document version if chosen as winner).
Please use a standard readable font in 12pt.
Each poem should start at the top of a new page.
Please do NOT include illustrations, photography or other artwork in your manuscript.
Poems should be single-spaced with double-spacing between stanzas.
The author’s name must not appear in the manuscript. Do NOT put your name on the entry. Manuscripts will be read and judged anonymously.
The title page should contain the proposed title of chapbook and a brief synopsis/description of the collection and/or theme of the body of work. Author contact information is to be collected separately via Submittable. (do not include on title page)
Please include a Table of Contents page listing the poems in order. (page numbers are optional)
Do NOT include your name, author bio, or any other identifying information in the manuscript.
Individual poems of the manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, journals, or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished. (Please provide acknowledgments page of previously published poems at the end of the manuscript if needed.)
Simultaneous submissions are permissible, but entrants are asked to please notify The Poetry Box immediately if a manuscript becomes accepted/committed elsewhere. This is best accomplished by using the “withdraw” feature on Submittable.
If you are a winner in our contest, please skip a year before entering the contest again. In other words, if you won the chapbook prize in 2025, you’ll be eligible to enter again in 2027.
The entry fee of $25.00 is payable through Submittable (our submission manager system). There are no refunds once you’ve submitted to the contest.
The winner will be announced by July 31, 2026.

NOTE: Submittable button not be active until submissions open on Feb 1, next year

Need help with using the Submittable submissions manager? Visit https://submittable.help/submitters

If you have any questions, you can contact the editor, Shawn Aveningo Sanders via Shawn@thePoetryBox.com.

We look forward to reading your work!