Margaret Reid Poetry Contest

Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse

Welcome to the ninth annual Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. First prize is $3,000. A total of $5,550 in prizes will be awarded. Click here to read the winning poems from past contests.

Submission Period
Entries accepted November 15, 2011-June 30, 2012 (postmark dates)

What to Submit
Poetry in traditional verse forms. Your entry should be your own original work. You may submit the same poem simultaneously to this contest and to others, and you may submit poems that have been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights.

By traditional verse, we mean any poem that employs regular meter and/or rhyme, or is written in a recognized poetic form. This includes traditional Western forms such as ballads, sonnets, and blank verse, and Asian forms such as tanka and haiku.

For your reference, this Glossary of Poetic Terms describes many forms. You may also enjoy sites for traditional and exotic forms of poetry found on our resource pages.

Prizes and Publication
First prize: $3,000. Second prize: $1,000. Third prize: $400. Fourth prize: $250. There will also be six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. The top 10 entries will be published on the Winning Writers website (over one million page views per year) and announced in Tom Howard Contest News and the Winning Writers Newsletter, a combined audience of over 40,000 readers.

Entry Fee
The reading fee is $8 for every 25 lines you submit. If you submit a sonnet of 14 lines and a haiku of 3 lines, totaling 17 lines, the fee would be $8. If you submit two villanelles of 19 lines each, totaling 38 lines, the fee would be $16. Exclude your poem titles and any blank lines from your line count. There is no limit on the number of lines or number of poems you may submit. Please note: Generally entry fees are not refundable. However, if you believe you have an exceptional circumstance, please contact us within one year of your entry.

Deadline
June 30, 2012. Your entry must be postmarked or submitted online by this date.