Colorado Poetry Prize 2024 | Deadline: January 14, 2025

The Colorado Poetry Prize 2024 is currently open for submissions. Each year’s prizewinner receives a $2,500 honorarium and publication.

Colorado Poetry Prize 2024

The Colorado Prize for Poetry is an international poetry book manuscript contest established in 1995. Each year’s prizewinner receives a $2,500 honorarium and publication of his or her book by the Center for Literary Publishing.

Manuscripts will be accepted between October 1, 2024, and the postmark deadline of January 14, 2025 (note that we observe a five-day grace period for both paper and online submissions).

The winner will be announced by May 2025.

The winning book-length collection of poems will be published by the Center for Literary Publishing and distributed by the University Press of Colorado in the fall of 2025. The author receives a $2,500 honorarium.

Other Available Competitions 

1. One Teen Story Contest 2025 | Deadline: December 2, 2024
2. Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest | Deadline: April 1, 2025
3. Lyric Magazine College Poetry Contest 2024 | Deadline: December 31, 2024
4. Story Unlikely Annual Short Story Contest 2025 | Deadline: 
5. The Four Quartets Prize 2024 | Deadline: December 31, 2024
6. Tower Poetry Competition 2025 | Deadline: February 20, 2025
7. Gemini Magazine Poetry Open 2025 | Deadline: January 2, 2025
8. Tadpole Press Writing Contest 2024 | November 30, 2024
9. Happiful Poetry Prize 2025 | Deadline: November 30, 2025
10. Colorado Poetry Prize 2024 | Deadline: January 14, 2025
11. Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2024 | Deadline: November 30, 2024
12. Women's Poetry Competition 2024 | Deadline: December 9, 2024

Contest Procedures

When your manuscript arrives (if you submit by mail), it is logged into our Colorado Prize database by our office assistant. The top cover sheet (with your name and address) is removed and filed away until the contest is over. Identities of authors submitting their manuscripts online are not visible to any of the judges.

Once all the entries have been received--whether paper or electronic--and the authors’ identities removed, they are divided among six to eight (depending on the total number of entries received) outside preliminary judges; the Center does not use interns to judge for this contest. Each preliminary judge will select three to four manuscripts (depending on the number of preliminary judges we require), for a total of twenty to twenty-four finalists. If a judge recognizes the work of a colleague, student, or friend, he or she contacts the Center and that manuscript is sent to another judge.

The final judge then receives the finalists from which to select the winner. If the final judge wishes to see additional manuscripts from the preliminary judges, he or she may request them; the judge is not, however, permitted to request specific manuscripts. Friends, colleagues, and students (current or former) of the judge are not eligible to compete, and the judge agrees to refrain as well from selecting any manuscript that presents a conflict of interest (selecting, for example, a manuscript he or she has helped to develop)

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