MAYDAY

MAYDAY Announces Poetry Micro Chapbook Contest

Poetry Micro Chapbook Contest

Submissions are open for the MAYDAY Poetry Micro Chapbook Contest and the deadline is July 31! MAYDAY is excited about poetry that surprises us, that isn’t afraid to break traditional forms, that is expansive and bold. We love innovative, strong writing that trusts the reader and is true to its author regardless of genre. Send us a manuscript filled with poems that have achieved a balance of both craft and story so seamlessly that we cannot look away. We are committed to featuring a diverse range of content and authors, including LGBTQ+, BIPOC and international voices.

  • Winner receives $1000 prize.
  • Submission period is May 1-July 31.
  • The micro chapbook will be published at MAYDAY along with an interview with the winning poet.
  • To submit, please send 8-12 pages of poetry. Please also include a title page and dedication/epigraph.
  • Manuscripts should be a single Word or PDF document. Please use the title of your micro chapbook as your document name.
  • Individual poems from the manuscript may have been published previously in magazines or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.
  • In your cover letter, please include your name, contact information, a brief third-person bio, and a list of acknowledgments for previously published chapbook poems.
  • MAYDAY poetry editors will select the winning manuscript. Manuscripts centered around a unifying theme will be given preference.
  • The early bird submission fee is $10 (May 1-June 15).
  • The regular submission fee is $15 (June 16-July 31).
  • Simultaneous submissions are permitted. Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere while under our consideration.
  • All rights revert to the author after publication.

Further Reading

LUCKY’S SOLILOQUY by Robert Loss

One afternoon I couldn’t think straight. I’d just come home and dropped my valise on the hardwood floor when I realized that I’d forgotten to wipe my snowy, muddy shoes on the rough rug in the kitchen. I thought of the rug in that way: “rough.” In what way could a rug be “rough,” I […]

A Dovecote at a Medieval Manor House Ruin in Oxfordshire
by Stephen Gibson

  Two workers were repairing it the day we visited— one worker passing thatch to one on a ladder; our friend Judy, a photographer, said this was a favorite place for her: the dovecote once bred   pigeons and doves for the dinner table: chambers inside—when the manor house was inhabited— filled with squabs and […]

“Company”
by David Eye

I’ll remember you too clearly . . . There was the college room of it: a fishnet on the walls and ceiling above a single bed. A turntable on bookshelves of stacked cinderblock and pine plank. There was macramé. There was this boy and that boy, the night of not-knowing then knowing. Its bright orange […]