The Connecticut Poetry Society Presents The Vivian Shipley Award
Deadline: September 30, 2026
With your best poem, you could win the $1,000 top prize in the Vivian Shipley contest hosted by the Connecticut Poetry Society (CPS). A second prize of $100 and a third prize of $50 will also be awarded. Winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
Vivian Shipley is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Connecticut State University. She received the Library of Congress’s Connecticut Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the Literary Community, and twice received the Connecticut Book Award for poetry. The most recent of her 12 poetry books, Archaeology of Days, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
2026 contest judge January Gill O'Neil is a professor at Salem State University and the author of four poetry collections published by CavanKerry Press: Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009). Glitter Road received the 2024 Poetry by the Sea Best Book Award and the Julia Ward Howe Prize and was a finalist for several honors, including the Massachusetts Book Award. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Nation, American Poetry Review, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series.
Please submit 1-3 original poems in a single file, without contact information. Only electronic submissions through Submittable will be accepted. There is a $15 reading fee per entry.
Submit here. Email contests.ctpoetry@gmail.com with questions.
