First Things Poetry Contest

NVR readers might be interested in the inaugural First Things poetry contest “for a formally accomplished poem of up to forty lines.” There is no submission fee due to “the generous support of the Tim & Judy Rudderow Foundation.”

The winner will be presented with a prize of $2,000. A runner-up will receive $1,000. Both poems will be published in First Things. Poems must be previously unpublished and should not be under consideration elsewhere.   

Amit Majmudar will serve as judge along with First Things poetry editor Micah Mattix and First Things editor R. R. Reno. Majmudar is the author of four volumes of poetry and the former Poet Laureate of Ohio. His most recent collection is What He Did in Solitary, which was published by Knopf in 2020.

Here is the submission link. Submissions are due by June 30, 2024.

This announcement from Micah Mattix’s substack Prufrock has some useful info as well.

And here is a link to Amit Majmudar’s recent Odysseus poem in First Things, “Polutropos.” The poem opens with these lines:

Sing, O Muse, of the man of many reverses,
the man with a mind of many winding ways,
turned around and turned away from home
there on the open labyrinthine sea,