Details for our 2025 Contest coming soon
Three winners will receive publication of their chapbook
with worldwide distribution and the following:
Grand Prize Award: $500 plus 10 copies of their published chapbook
(chosen by contest judge for 2024: Donna Hilbert)
Editor’s Choice Award: $100 plus 10 copies of their published chapbook
(chosen by The Poetry Box founding editor: Shawn Aveningo Sanders)
Designer’s Choice Award: $100 plus 10 copies of their published chapbook
(chosen by The Poetry Box founding designer: Robert R. Sanders)
In keeping with fair and ethical contest practices, all manuscripts remain anonymous throughout the reading & judging process for selection by Donna, 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.
Congratulations to Our 2024 Winners & Finalists!
Past Winners
This Year’s Judge
We are thrilled to announce that our judge for our 2024 chapbook contest is
Donna Hilbert, Prize-Winning poet & author
Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Threnody, from Moon Tide Press, 2022. Earlier books include Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. She is a monthly contributing writer to Verse-Virtual. Work has appeared in Braided Way, Cultural Daily, Chiron Review, Gyroscope, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rattle, Zocalo Public Square, ONE ART, The Los Angeles Times, and numerous anthologies including The Poetry of Presence volumes I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, I Thought I Heard a Cardinal Sing, and featured on Writers on Writing, The Writer’s Almanac, and Lyric Life. She writes and leads private workshops in Southern California, where she makes her home. Learn more at www.donnahilbert.com
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 first place winning poet will receive a $500 honorarium upon publication plus 10 copies of the book.
- The winning chapbook will be published in Winter 2024/25 by The Poetry Box, as a perfect-bound, paperback chapbook (6 x 9 inches in size).
- In addition, the winning book and author will be featured on the The Poetry Box website.
- Entries must be submitted between February 1 – March 15, 2024. (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 file. (This is only an estimate as it’s hard to determine page count depending on individual length of poems. Finished chapbooks usually end of 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 (if you have illustrations with your poems).
- Please use a standard readable font in 12pt.
- Each poem should start at the top of new page.
- 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 win first place in our contest, please skip a year before entering the contest again. In other words, if you won the chapbook prize in 2023, you’ll be eligible to enter again in 2025.
- The entry fee of $25.00 is payable through Submittable (our submission manager system). If you’d also like to receive a copy of the winning chapbook when published, you can pay an extra $7 for a total fee of $32.
- The winner will be announced by July 31, 2024.
NOTE: Submittable button not active until submissions open on Feb 1st.
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!
