The Poetry Society of Virginia is proud to sponsor its annual book award with a $1,000 prize, plus an invitation to read at its Annual Spring Festival to be held in April 2027.
Submissions should be of a full-length collection of original poetry in English, published in North America in 2026 (the year prior to the year the award is given).
General contest guidelines:
1) Style, subject, and length requirements:
The book must be the work of a single author, at least 50 pages long, on any topic and in any poetry style. Manuscripts, videos, CDs, chapbooks, and self-published books are not eligible, nor are books that have already won an award. However, books that have won a pre-publication award by the publishing press remain eligible.
2) Books by friends, close colleagues, students or former students of the final judge are not eligible. (See below for information on this year’s judge.)
3) Submit three copies of the book and a completed entry form, downloadable from the Poetry Society of Virginia website, as well as your entry fee (see below), to:
Sofia M. Starnes
2027 PSV North American Poetry Book Award
4951 Burnley Drive
Williamsburg, VA 23188
Entry fee: $36 for non-PSV members; $25 for PSV members.
Forms of payment: PayPal, via the PSV website, or check made out to the Poetry Society of Virginia
Please include your check or PayPal receipt with your book submission.
Submission period: from October 15, 2026, to January 15, 2027 (postmark date).
This year’s final judge: Ron Smith
Ron Smith, Virginia Poet Laureate, emeritus, is the author of the poetry collections Moon Road, Its Ghostly Workshop, The Humility of the Brutes, and That Beauty in the Trees, all from LSU Press, which will soon publish his New & Selected Poems. Smith’s first book, Running Again in Hollywood Cemetery, has recently been issued in an enhanced second edition by MadHat Press. His poems have been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, and have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies, including The Nation, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Plume, and Helen Vendler’s Poems, Poets, Poetry. Awards include Southern Poetry Review’s Guy Owen Award, Poetry Northwest’s Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize, and the Carol Weinstein Poetry Prize. He has taught poetry and poetry writing at three universities and was the first-ever Writer-in-Residence at St. Christopher’s School, where he also held chairs of distinguished teaching and served as Consultant in Poetry and Prose. Since 2010 he’s been Poetry Editor of Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature.
