Poetry Competition: Split This Rock

2016 Split This Rock Poetry Contest, Judged by Rigoberto González

Entry Fee: $20.00 USD

Ends on 11/1/2015

Benefits Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2016
April 14-17, 2016

$1,000 in prizes awarded for poems of provocation & witness!

Prizes: First place $500; 2nd and 3rd place, $250 each. Winning poems will be published on our website and within The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database. All prize winners will receive free festival registration, and the 1st place recipient will be invited to read the winning poem at Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2016.

Deadline: November 1, 2015 

Themes: Submissions should be in the spirit of Split This Rock: socially engaged poems, poems that reach beyond the self to connect with the larger community or world; poems of provocation and witness. This theme can be interpreted broadly and may include but is not limited to work addressing politics, economics, government, war, leadership; issues of identity (gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, body image, immigration, heritage, etc.); community, civic engagement, education, activism; and poems about history, Americana, cultural icons.

Ethics: Split This Rock subscribes to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics.

Accessibility: If Submittable is not accessible to you, please contact us at:

 infoATsplitthisrockDOTorg (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

for instructions on how to email your submission to us. It is important that we know about your situation before receiving your mailed or emailed entry. Please allow sufficient time for your submission to be received.

About the Judge: Rigoberto González is author of four books of poetry, most recently Unpeopled Eden, which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His ten books of prose include bilingual children's books, young adult novels, and Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He edited Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing and Alurista's new Xicano Duende: A Select Anthology. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and many other accolades, he is professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. In 2015, he received The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle.

Submission guidelines:

Submissions need to be received by 11:59pm on November 1, 2015, Eastern Standard Time. We encourage you to submit before the November 1 deadline so that if you encounter problems we can assist you.

Submit up to 3 unpublished poems, no more than 6 pages total, no more than 1 poem per page, in any style, in the spirit of Split This Rock (see above).

What we mean by “unpublished”: We accept only poems that have not yet been included in a publication with an ISBN number or online via a juried journal or website. If your poem is selected and it is posted on social media, we ask that you take it down prior to our publishing contest results.

We read blind. Please do not put your name or contact information on the document you upload to Submittable or within its title or your poems will be in jeopardy of being disqualified.

Simultaneous submissions are OK, but please notify us immediately if the poem is accepted elsewhere.

Close friends, relatives, students, and former students of the judge are excluded from the contest. Likewise, the current Board of Directors, staff, teaching artists, and DC Slam Team of Split This Rock are excluded, as are members of their immediate families.

Mailed and Emailed Submissions: Except for special circumstances we are aware of in advance, we do not accept mailed submissions. If you have a circumstance that makes it difficult for you to utilize Submittable, please contact us for instructions on how to email your submission. It is important that we know about your situation before receiving your mailed or emailed entry. Please allow sufficient time for your submission to be received.

Late entries will not be accepted.

Once decisions have been made, you will receive an email notifying you of the selected poems. We do not send hard copy notifications or accept self addressed stamped envelopes. Please monitor Split This Rock’s website and Facebook page for updates on the contest if for some reason you have trouble receiving emails.

For more information: 202-787-5210