Poetry International Prize

THE POETRY INTERNATIONAL PRIZE is one of two annual contests sponsored by Poetry International to award a cash prize of $1000 and publication for a single poem of any length. Submit up to 3 poems with a $15 entry fee. You may submit additional poems for a $3 reading fee per poem. All entries are considered for publication. Please refer to our contest guidelines for more information.

We regret that we can no longer accept hard-copy submissions, nor do we accept submissions through email. Please submit via Submittable. Contact us at poetryintl@gmail.com with questions or concerns.

Contest opens in spring and runs from April 1 to May 31. Winners are announced in the fall.

Congratulations to, Pamela Alexander, the winner of the Poetry International prize for 2025!

The winning poem, “Power,” was chosen by judge, Matthew Zapruder, and will appear in an upcoming issue of Poetry International.

Zapruder observes,

“This is one of those poems that seems at first, probably because of its tone, to be calmer than it is. But this mind is aware of the vastness that we ignore in order to function, and of the ways in which our own modern conveniences — fueled by the titular power — allow us our comforts. The purpose of this poem seems to be to reawaken us to our true position in the world. We are mere specks on the ginormous Canadian Shield. The caribou are out there, eating lichen, while we are inside with our music. We have forgotten how weird and provisional everything is, how strange it is that we can drive a car (“a machine of many horses”) under giant wires, monitored by thousands of satellites. What is unspoken yet evident is that this forgetting comes with a deep peril. This poem is therefore profoundly disturbing, in the most literal sense: it creates a necessary dis-ease in the reader. Wake up, says the poem. Get uneasy in our comfort. It’s the least we can do.”

About the winner:

Pamela Alexander is the author of four full-length poetry collections, including  Slow Fire  (Ausable/Copper Canyon). Earlier books won the Yale Younger Poet and Iowa Poetry Prizes, and her work has appeared in many periodicals and anthologies. In 2025 her chapbook Left won the Chad Walsh prize from the Beloit Poetry Journal. On the creative writing faculty at M.I.T. and  Oberlin College for many years, she served on the editorial board of FIELD magazine. Her honors include fellowships at the Fine Arts Work Center, MacDowell, and the Bunting Institute.

Past Winners

2024 “Scrub Pine” by John Okrent

Judge: Rick Barot

2023 “Quartet for the End of Time” by Lee Peterson

Judge: Alexandra Lytton Regalado

2022 “Pyrrhic Symphony” by Adam O. Davis

Judge: Kevin Prufer

2021 “Woolf’s Hair” by Eva Heisler and “Cheatsheet” by Armen Davoudian

Judge: Sandra Alcosser

2020 “The Opposite of Poetry” by Patrick James Errington

Judge: Blas Falconer

2019 “How Mushrooms Will Save the World” by Laura Budofsky Wisniewski

Judge: Sandra Alcosser

2018 “Asahd” by Amir Safi

Judge: Victoria Chang

2017 “Cutting for Sign” by Anders Carlson-Wee

Judge: Sherwin Bitsui

2016 “Last Family Visit to Tequesquitengo” by Elisa Díaz Castelo
Judge: Sam Taylor

2015 “There is No Denying the Naturalness” by Sally J. Johnson

Judge: Carol Frost

2014 “The Heat Is” by Vicky Santiesteban

Judge: Fady Judah

2013 “Migrations” by Mark Wagenaar

Judge: Valzhyna Mort

Finalists: Todd Fredson and Jennie Panchy.

2012 “Imagine Sisyphus Happy” by Nicole Sealey

Judge: Jericho Brown

2011 “Mud Lake” by Ellery J. Akers

Judge Steve Kowit

2010 “Helen’s Confession” by Rochelle Hurt

Judge: Bruce Boston

2009 “Midas” by Rebekah Stout

Judge: Sandra Alcosser

Finalists: Melissa Stein, Ann Struthers, Noreen Ayres, Sierra Nelson, and Michael Lee Phillips

2008 “Memory of Sugarcane-worker Off Duty” by Sasha Parmasad