The 2024 Love & Eros Prize

closes April 7, 2024—submit today!



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We’re delighted to bring back the Love & Eros Prize for 2024, awarding $3,000 and publication! Love engulfs us, desire rules us. We encourage love poems beyond the confines of what’s traditionally “romantic.” Rather, we’re seeking unflinching examinations of our sharpest human sensations—those of desire, longing, devotion, and intimacy. All iterations of love are welcome—send us your bitter and your sweet, your queer, platonic, reverent, and devotional. 

The winner will be selected by our guest judge, John Lee Clark, author of How to Communicate (W. W. Norton & Company, 2023). John Lee Clark is a DeafBlind poet, essayist, translator, historian, and Protactile educator. His debut collection of poems, How to Communicate, won the 2023 Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest book is Touch the Future: A Manifesto in Essays, also from Norton. He makes his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the ASL Deaf artist Adrean Clark, their three kids, and two cats.

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. Second and third place will receive $300 and $200, respectively. 

submission guidelines: please read carefully!

  • Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing primarily in English. Code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
  • DO NOT INCLUDE your name or identifying information in the document OR submission title. If your name is on the submission or in the title, it will be declined unread.
  • We are only accepting previously unpublished work. If your poem has been published on a blog or on social media, it is not eligible for consideration.
  • We accept simultaneous submissions—just send us a note if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere (we want to say congrats!).
  • There is no page requirement, but your submission must be no more than three poems. Please submit all your poems in ONE document.
  • We do accept multiple submissions, but each submission (of up to three poems) will require the $20 reading fee.
  • Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history, if any. This field is where you can include your name and/or author bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this field is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on.
  • Writers from historically marginalized groups are invited to submit for free until we reach the fifty free entries budgeted for this particular contest.
  • Review our FAQ page for frequently asked questions for anything not addressed here.
  • Work generated by AI will be automatically disqualified.
  • Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will be automatically disqualified.
  • The contest closes on April 7, 2024.

included unique opportunities & discounts 

To thank you for your support for Palette, please take advantage of these unique opportunities: The Poetry School is offering every submitter a 20% off discount code (average of $28 value) to one of their online courses! Head to their platform, find a course you're interested in, and use the code included in our confirmation message at checkout. The Writing Salon is offering every submitter a 10% off discount code on a writing class. Find a class on their site and use the provided code. 

editorial feedback options 

The single-letter 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 feedback fee and are all incredibly astute and professional poets.



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