The 2025 Palette Poetry Prize

This contest is open from July 21, 2025 – September 21, 2025.

As seasons shift and as our team grows and transitions, we at Palette invite you to submit your poetry to our 2025 Palette Poetry Prize! From July 21 to September 21, we are seeking poems that celebrate the community we have by meditating on the role of the poet in this pivotal moment in time. We invite you to consider our mission statement:

“When times are dark, the world often turns to poets for insight and for language reanimated. Palette Poetry is here to paint our small part of the world with truth through poetry, as imaginative, eviscerating, and provoking as truth can be.”

What does it mean to be a beacon of light when times are dark? What keeps you afloat amidst unsurety? How do we as poets paint the truth in a world oversaturated with information? Is there a truth you can offer to the public? A truth you can offer to your private self?

Submissions are open from July 21, 2025 – September 21, 2025. Winners will be selected by the Palette editors. The winner will be awarded $3,000 and publication, the first runner-up will receive $300 and publication, and the second runner-up will receive $200 and publication. Finalists may also be considered for publication.

Whether you are an established poet or have just picked up the pen yesterday, we welcome you to join us in this reflection exercise. Send us your most innovative and exciting poetry. Send us poems that are grounding. Send us your truth.

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. At this time, Palette does not accept translated work unless you are also the author of the original poem.
• Your submission must be no more than three poems and under ten pages. 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 (of one to three poems apiece), but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.
• We accept simultaneous submissions—just please send us a note if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.
• We are only accepting unpublished work. If your poem has been published elsewhere, even on a blog or on social media, it is not eligible.
• Writers from historically marginalized groups are invited to submit for free until we reach the fifty free entries budgeted for this particular contest.
• DO NOT INCLUDE your name or identifying information in the document OR submission title box.
• Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with your publication history, if any. This text box is where you can include your name and/or bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this cover letter is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on. To safeguard our reading staff, please include content warnings in the cover letter, if applicable, as well.
• 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.
• Palette Poetry does not accept AI-produced work.
• Contest closes September 21, 2025. Submitters will be notified of their submission status within twelve weeks of the contest closing date.