Broken River Prize

The Broken River Prize is an annual poetry book contest from Platypus Press. Each year a different poet will judge the contest—2020’s judge is poet and teacher Kaveh Akbar.

Read the guidelines below and submit here.

You can purchase Hijito (by Carlos Andrés Gómez), 2018’s winner, selected by Eduardo C. Corral, here.

The 2019 Broken River Prize winner, as selected by Airea D. Matthews, was Cotton Silence by Ojo Taiye. (Book available Winter 2020.)

Details

  • Runs between May 1st and July 31st, 2020.
  • No submission fee.
  • For books between 35–50 pages in length (inc. section breaks).
  • Receive publication and $250/£200 prize money.
  • Finalists and winner will be announced late 2020.
  • Finalists will be considered for publication.
  • The contest is open internationally.
  • Additional guidelines below.

Kaveh Akbar’s poems appear in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His newest full-length volume of poetry, Pilgrim Bell, will be published by Graywolf and Chatto/Random House in 2021.

Guidelines

  • Please include a title page and acknowledgements section with your submission.
  • The manuscript does not need to be double-spaced unless intended to be reproduced that way.
  • You can include previously published poems; however, we would prefer that at least a third be unpublished.
  • We accept simultaneous submissions but please let us know if a submission has been accepted elsewhere.
  • All work should be attached in a single .docx or PDF file, and your email must include a third-person bio.
  • Please do not submit manuscripts that contain images, artwork, and/or erasure or found poetry.
  • The winner will receive ten (10) copies of the published book as well as the $250 prize money.