The Rising Poet Prize
closes April 16, 2023
We warmly invite all new and emerging poets to submit to The Rising Poet Prize! We will only accept submissions from poets who have not yet published a full-length collection at the time of submission. The winning poet will be awarded $3000, publication, and a brief interview in Palette Poetry. Second and third place will receive $300 & $200, respectively, as well as publication. The top ten finalists will be selected by Palette editors, and Guest Judge Maggie Smith will then select the winner and two runners-up from among the ten finalists.
Preorder Smith's forthcoming memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, today!
Maggie Smith is the author of the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change, as well as Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, and Lamp of the Body. Smith’s poems and essays are widely published and anthologized, appearing in The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, and elsewhere. In 2016 her poem “Good Bones” went viral internationally, and Public Radio International called it “the official poem of 2016.” Smith’s next book, a memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, will be published by One Signal/Atria in April 2023.
Submission Guidelines: Please read carefully!
-
For this prize, we are only accepting unpublished work from new and emerging poets: poets without a full-length collection published at the time of submission. Poets with no publication history are especially encouraged to submit. Poets with only chapbooks published are eligible. Poets with self-published full-length collections are ineligible.
-
Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English—inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely 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We are only accepting unpublished work.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 is where you can include your name and/or bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this is also where you can name which poem you'd like feedback on.
-
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.
- NOTE: Free submissions are available for one week only for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) poets. Please see Submittable for more information. Free entries close on February 22, 2023, after which point we cannot provide additional fee waivers.
-
Contest closes on April 16, 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.
