The 2026 Debut Chapbook Prize // Reduced Fee for Historically Marginalized Groups

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The 2026 Debut Chapbook Prize 

March 9, 2026 to May 10, 2026

Frontier Poetry is offering a reduced entry fee of $15 to any historically marginalized poets until we hit our cap of fifty. Please only use this submission form if you fit this category. 

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” — Franz Kafka

According to Flannery O’Connor, writing is an act of discovery—an unveiling of what remains unresolved, what has yet to be turned over. Victor Hugo once said there is a world trapped in each writer. Larger collections curate the memories, people, passions, and images that return to our writing again and again. Frontier Poetry is ready to invite your poetry—something not bent, not watered down. With this contest, we seek writing that honors your most merciless obsessions: your chapbook.

Frontier Poetry is excited to announce the Debut Chapbook Prize returns this spring! From March 9th through May 10th, 2026, the Frontier editorial team seeks poetry collections of no more than thirty pages that center a clearly envisioned and executed theme, motif, and/or throughline. We’re looking for your untold stories—chapbooks that break the rules in service of your work and voice. We warmly invite submissions from writers of all backgrounds.

Guest judge Patricia Smith will select one winner, who will receive a $2,000 prize and publication, earning 50% royalties, and twenty-five copies for the author to share and sell. The chapbook will be published by Discover New Art’s in-house publisher, Red Mare Press, with distribution through Bookshop.org, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble. Thousands of readers, editors, and magazines will also receive access to the chapbook through our newsletter. Our goal is to offer a catalytic stepping stone to help launch your poetic career.

The contest opens March 9th, 2026, and closes May 10th, 2026.

About Our Judge:

Patricia Smith is an inductee of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement, and a winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. She is the author of nine acclaimed books of poetry, including Unshuttered; Incendiary Art, finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the 2018 NAACP Image Award;Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets; andBlood Dazzler, a National Book Award finalist; and most recently,The Intentions of Thunder,the winner of the 2025 National Book Award for poetry. A Guggenheim Fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam, Smith is a creative writing professor in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and a former distinguished professor at the City University of New York. She lives in New Jersey with her husband.

What Our Judge is Looking For:

"I can't make room for ordinary. There's no room for crank-it-out, good-enough, put-the-good-stuff-up-front. I imagine a vibing wire running through the work, one that jolts and energizes me with no sign of letting go. I know it sounds like I want the pages peppered with pom-poms and LED lights, but that's not the case. I want a sign that the poet is still mightily turned on by the possibilities of their own work, that it still has the power to surprise and occasionally rattle the rafters. I want beauty and disturbance and irresistible story. Make me see something in a way I've never seen it."

Guidelines for Submission:

  • For this contest, we are specifically looking for poets with no prior chapbook, manuscript, or full-length collection of poetry published or forthcoming prior to this contest.
  • Writers from historically marginalized groups are welcome to submit for a reduced fee until we reach our cap of fifty. No additional fee reductions will be granted.
  • The manuscript should be fifteen to thirty pages of poems, not including front and back matter.
  • The manuscript should be unpublished as a whole, although individual poems may be previously published.
  • Do not include any identifying information in the manuscript itself or in the file name.
  • Please put any acknowledgements in the cover letter field of Submittable and not in the manuscript.
  • Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English. Inclusion of other languages, such as in code-switching/meshing, is welcome, as long as the poem is primarily in English.
  • Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please notify us immediately if the chapbook is accepted elsewhere.
  • Multiple submissions are allowed, but each manuscript must be submitted separately with the $25 reading fee.
  • Work generated by AI will be automatically disqualified.
  • Winners and finalists will be announced late summer of 2026.

Editorial Feedback Option:

Two options for feedback are available: Editorial Letter and Manuscript Consultation.

  • For practical feedback on a single poem from the collection, choose Editorial Letter (one to two pages of developmental feedback on a single poem in the submitted collection).
  • For an in-depth editorial service on the manuscript as a whole, choose Manuscript Consultation (ten to fifteen pages of feedback plus a phone or email consultation).

Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and are all astute, professional poets.

Testimonial for the Manuscript Consultation: “Meeting with a Frontier Poetry editor was well worth it. Poems need to be read out loud and to be heard by more than one person. And if that second listener is generous and curious and knows where to point to a better order and when a line needs torque or the junk pile, then there’s a chance for mere words, that mere air, to sound delicious.”

Frontier Poetry’s Chapbook Catalog:

You can read the winners of our previous chapbook contests here:

Testimonial for the Chapbook Process: “Working with Frontier to bring my debut chapbook to life was an absolute dream! It was an ideal collaboration. I felt fully supported in their commitment to my vision. The talent of the exterior and interior designers of the chapbook really brought it all together. Emelie and Michaela listened to my input, but their own creativity made the final product even better than I could have imagined. I deeply appreciate the whole team’s attention to detail and overall thoughtfulness. They emphasized my own artistic agency and voice. I will always treasure working with Frontier and the beautiful chapbook that was produced. They totally captured the spirit of my work, and I am forever grateful!” 

— Jessie Keary 

If you have any questions, please visit our FAQ page. If you don’t find the answer to your question, you can send an email to contact (at) frontierpoetry (dot) com. 

We use Submittable to accept and review our submissions.
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