Thank you for your interest in The American Poetry Review! Please find submission guidelines under the categories below.
The prize of $3,000, with an introduction by the judge and distribution of the winning book by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium, will be awarded in 2026 with publication of the book in the same year. The author will receive a standard book publishing contract, with royalties paid in addition to the $3,000 prize. This year's final judge is poet Dorothea Lasky.
Dorothea Lasky is the author of six full-length collections of poetry and one book of prose, Animal (Wave Books). Her latest book of essays is the forthcoming MEMORY (Semiotext(e)). Her other books include ROME (Liveright/W.W. Norton), The Shining, Milk, Thunderbird, Black Life, and AWE, all from Wave Books. She was also the co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (McSweeney’s, 2013). Currently, she is an Associate Professor of Poetry at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where she directs the Poetry Concentration in the MFA program.
The prize is open to poets who have not published a book-length collection of poems with a registered ISBN. Poems previously published in journals or limited-edition chapbooks may be included in the manuscript, but the entire manuscript itself must not have been published as a book-length work. Translations are not eligible nor are works written by multiple authors. The editors of The American Poetry Review will screen manuscripts for the judge. APR complies with the CLMP Code of Ethics in the administration of this contest. The judge will select a manuscript in an anonymous review process and will not award the prize to any writer whose personal relationship to the judge poses a conflict of interest.
To be considered for the prize, submit a manuscript of 48 pages or more, single-spaced, paginated, with a table of contents and acknowledgments.
• Manuscripts must be received by October 1, 2025. The winning author and all other entrants will be notified by January 15, 2026.
• You may simultaneously submit your manuscript elsewhere, but please notify us immediately if it is accepted for publication. Submission of more than one manuscript is permissible; each must be entered separately.
• The winning author will have time to revise the manuscript after acceptance, but please send no revisions during the reading period.
The American Poetry Review is dedicated to reaching a worldwide audience with a diverse array of the best contemporary poetry and literary prose. APR also aims to expand the audience interested in poetry and literature, and to provide authors, especially poets, with a far-reaching forum in which to present their work.
Please do not send previously published material. Send no more than five poems per submission. We strive to respond to all submissions within six months.
Copyright: APR holds first serial rights for material that we publish. The copyright automatically reverts to the author upon publication. We do not require that material be copyrighted prior to submission.
We pay authors at a rate of $1 per line of poetry and $60 per APR page of prose.
The American Poetry Review is dedicated to reaching a worldwide audience with a diverse array of the best contemporary poetry and literary prose. APR also aims to expand the audience interested in poetry and literature, and to provide authors, especially poets, with a far-reaching forum in which to present their work.
Please do not send previously published material. We strive to respond to all submissions within six months.
Copyright: APR holds first serial rights for material that we publish. The copyright automatically reverts to the author upon publication. We do not require that material be copyrighted prior to submission.
We pay authors at a rate of $1 per line of poetry and $60 per APR page of prose.