The Resistance & Resilience Prize

We warmly invite all poets to submit to the Resistance & Resilience Prize! For this contest, we are especially interested in reading poems that reflect upon, live within, wrestle with, uplift, or subvert themes of resistance and resilience. We are looking for poetry of pushback and of survival, poetry that troubles power and poetry that nurtures its readers and writers alike. Send us your very best! The winning poet will be awarded $3000, publication, and a brief interview in Palette Poetry. Second and third place will receive $300 and $200, respectively, as well as publication. The top ten finalists will be selected by Palette editors, and Guest Judge Nicole Sealey will then select the top three winners for the contest. 

Order Nicole Sealey’s latest collection, The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, here.

NICOLE SEALEY is the author of Ordinary Beast, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and PEN Open Book Award, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named. Her honors include a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a visiting professor at Boston University and teaches in the MFA Writers Workshop in Paris at New York University.

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.

• DO NOT INCLUDE your name or identifying information in the document OR submission title box. If your name is on the submission, in the file name, or in the title box, it will be automatically declined.

• We are only accepting unpublished work. If your poem has been published on a blog or on social media, it is not eligible.

• We accept simultaneous submissions—just please send us a note if your work is picked up elsewhere.

• There is no page requirement, but your submission must be no more than three poems. 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, but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.

• Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with your publication history, if any. This section is where you can include your name and/or bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this section is also where you can name which poem you'd like feedback on.

• 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.
• Contest closes on October 15, 2023.

Included Unique Opportunities and Discounts

As a thank you for your support for Palette, we'd like to offer these unique opportunities:

The Poetry School is offering every submitter a 20% off discount code (average $28 value) for one of their online courses. Head to their platform, find a course you're interested in, and use the code included in the confirmation message at checkout.

The Writing Salon is also offering every submitter a 10% off discount code on a writing class. 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.