Poetry Contest Guidelines
The 2023 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize is now open!
The May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize is awarded for a book-length collection of poetry. The book must be previously unpublished as a whole. Poems within the collection that have appeared elsewhere are welcome. Should your collection win the contest we’ll ask for an acknowledgments page noting where each poem was previously published.
We welcome submissions from around the world. The only requirement is that the collection is written or translated into English. We also encourage past submitters to resubmit their work each year. Every year a different notable New England poet judges the contest. As an example, Zeina Hashem Beck was a finalist and went on to win the following year! We do not pre-screen manuscripts; the judge reads them all.
The poetry within the collection can be on any topic and in any poetic form.
- TITLE PAGE WITH NO NAME
- Please, no acknowledgments, biographical material, or dedication pages in the manuscript. We will gather your name and contact information through your Submittable account, the manuscripts uploaded must be without identifying information for a blind judging.
- Manuscripts must be typed and paginated, we are looking for collections that are roughly 50 to 80 pages in length. PDF or Word Doc.
- Translations and self-published books are not eligible. The manuscript must be the product of only one author.
- Any person who has studied poetry in a formal program with this year’s judge through a college, university, community program, residency, or private tutorial—within the last two years is not eligible to submit a manuscript to this contest.
- No illustrations, photographs or images should be included.
- The actual manuscript should include ONLY the following: TITLE PAGE (with no name), TABLE OF CONTENTS, POEMS.
- The winner will be announced by September 2023 publicly via press release, social media, and our website. We will notify the winner and finalists prior to the announcement, as well as email all contestants before publishing the results.
- Bauhan Publishing reserves the right to cancel the contest for any reason. In that unlikely event, all entry fees will be returned to contestants.
- GOOD LUCK!