Deadline: Aug. 5, 2017.
The Poetry Mail invites you to submit to its 4th RL Poetry Award. Submit eight to 10 poems from manuscripts you currently work on or have completed. You can submit a mix of published and unpublished poems. Or, your manuscript can consist of only unpublished poems. Save all your poems as one single Word document.
Indicate on the cover page your name, country, nationality, manuscript title, each individual poem title, including if they’ve been published before. Also, write your entry in Times New Roman, size 12, left aligned. Place each poem on separate pages, with clear title.
You can only participate if you’re a poet who hasn’t had a poetry book previously published by a large press are eligible. Send your entry to submission@thepoetrymail.com.
The Trust will longlist 12 Indian poets and 12 international poets. Longlisted poets will then have to submit their full manuscript. Then, it will shortlist six Indian poets and six international poets. From the shortlist, the Trust will select an Indian winner and an international winner.
The Poetry Mail reserves the right to not publish any manuscript if not satisfied with the quality of work submitted. Finally, it will not cater to inquiries about the award selection process.
Lenkoane Itumeleng
I would like to write
Admin
Lenkoane, please go ahead and write.
Praise Olorunfemi
Am a Nigerian, Living in Nigeria, and am a student can I submit my poems also?
Admin
Praise, absolutely. Should you submit your poems, you will be considered as an international poet. Good luck with your submission.
D. C. Chigbo
Hi, Admin! What will happen to other 12/6 shortlisted poets when the best 2 poets are chosen? Should they be published? If yes, what will be their reward?
Admin
D.C., you would have to email submission@thepoetrymail.com to be certain. But, I believe that it has published longlisted poems in an anthology before. Please, email the editor to be certain.
D. C. Chigbo
Hi, Admin! What will happen to the long/shortlisted poems when the best 2 poets are finally selected? Should the long/shortlisted poems be published? If yes, what will be the rewords of the poets who own the titles?
Robert Asom
Good day. I am Robert Asom from Nigeria. Is it that I can only submit my personal poems or can I add poems by another author also? I ask this because I can submit only seven personal poems right now. Thank you
Admin
Robert,
It’s never a good idea to submit someone else’s work. That’s stealing, except if you mean submitting translations you did of another author’s work. Then, the translation piece is yours, but you would always have to indicate it’s a translated piece and who wrote the original.
Felix Kalu
The cover page where entrants will write their name, title of poem etc…is it on the body of the mail or in the attached document where the poems are written ?
Admin
Felix,
A cover page is the first page of any document. So, your identifying information should be on the first page of the document.
Simamkele
If I submitted 8 poems and get selected that means I must submit more other poems ?
Admin
Dear Simamkele, according to The Poetry Mail if you get selected because of the eight poems you submitted, you will be asked to submit a complete manuscript. Then, they will publish the winning manuscript.
Please direct/tweet any other inquiry to @RLPoetryIndia with the hashtag #RLPoetryAward2017. Good luck!
The RL Poetry Award 2017 is Open for Entries | PEN South Africa
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