Grayson Books Poetry Prize
Deadline: August 15, 2026
The 2026 Grayson Books Poetry Prize is now open to submissions. All poets writing in English may enter.
Electronic Submissions Only. Use our online submission manager to submit your 50-90 page manuscript.
The winner will be awarded a $1,000 prize, publication, and 10 copies. Reading fee: $26.
Please omit your name and contact information from your manuscript. Acknowledgments may be included with your submission but are not required. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable if we are notified immediately about an acceptance elsewhere. Multiple submissions are fine; each must be accompanied by an entry fee. We do not accept work that was created—entirely or partially—with AI software.
This year's judge is Bruce Cohen, who has published six volumes of poetry, most recently Botrytis (Cornerstone Press). His poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals, such as The Harvard Review, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Plume, and Poetry. He was recently awarded the James Olney Award from The Southern Review.
Michael Garrigan won the 2025 Grayson Books Poetry Prize for Ghost Hunting Glaciers, on sale now. Grayson Books also published the runner-up, Field Notes for Extinction by Mark Caskie.
Learn more at Grayson Books. Please enjoy this poem from Ghost Hunting Glaciers:
Dead Elk Smells Fire
in his sleep and snorts into his blanket
of moss
creating a cowlick of fur and needle
sap;
he walks to the ledge
and stands behind a rock,
stilled,
hoping for thunder,
looking for his father whose scent
always settles on every green
thing when it rains; it's getting harder
to remember, to notice,
to wait for fire to turn hardness to soft ash,
wondering if anyone still smells him
