The submission period for The Backwaters Press yearly poetry prize begins today, April 1, and ends May 1. Guidelines for the prize series can be found here. The judge for the 2021 contest is Huascar Medina, Poet Laureate of Kansas.

The Backwaters Prize in Poetry, an international poetry book competition initiated by The Backwaters Press in 1998, has produced award-winning books by some of America’s finest authors. Building upon an impressive backlist in poetry and prose that contributes to the cultural landscape of our state and region, one poetry manuscript is selected each year by a committee of preliminary judges and one final judge for inclusion in this series. The selected volume is published by the UNP.

The 2020 Backwaters Prize winner was Nathaniel Perry from southside Virginia. His winning collection, Long Rules: An Essay in Verse, will be published this fall.