Poetry Award Guidelines

Next deadline: July 15, 2023

We are pleased and honoured to have Erín Moure as our poetry judge this year. Erín Moure is a poet and poetry translator based in Montreal. She has published 18 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, essays, articles on translation, a biopoetics, two memoirs, and is translator or co-translator of 26 books from French, Galician, Portunhol, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian (with Roman Ivashkiv) into English and of one from Galician into French. Most recent: Chus Pato’s The Face of the Quartzes (Veliz Books, 2021), plus the chapbooks Retooling for a Figurative Life (Vallum, 2021) and Arborescence (Columba, 2022). Moure’s translation of Chantal Neveu’s This Radiant Life (Book*hug, 2020) won the 2021 GG for translation into English and the Nelson Ball Prize. Her Theophylline: an a-poretic migration via the modernisms of Rukeyser, Bishop, Grimké, will be out in August 2023 from House of Anansi Press, and her translation into French of Chus Pato’s Chair de Léviathan is forthcoming from Éditions Apic in Algiers, in the collection Poèmes du monde directed by Habib Tengour.

POETRY CONTEST RULES:

1. Submit 1-3 poems, up to 6 pages of poetry. The entry fee covers 3 poems.
2. Poems may be on any theme or subject, but must be original and not previously published. Begin each poem on a new page, use 12-point font, and single spacing. Experimental formatting is welcome, but please respect poem and page limits.
3. First prize is $750 and one finalist will be awarded $250. Poems will be published in Vallum magazine and on Vallum’s website. Honourable mentions may be selected and published, but are not eligible for cash prizes.
4. You may submit more than once.
5.  The document with your poems must not include your name. Please include a separate cover letter with your name, a short biographical statement, the titles of your poems, and how you heard about the award.
6. Vallum staff will select a longlist of 20-30 poems for consideration by our guest judge.
7. Simultaneous submissions are eligible, but please let us know immediately if your poem becomes unavailable. Email: submission@vallummag.com

Past Winners

Winner: $750 + Publication
Finalists: $250 + Publication

ENTRY FEE:

$25 for Canadian entrants, $30 for U.S. and international entrants. Payments are processed through our Submittable account. Each entry fee includes a free one-year subscription to Vallum!

If you are in a financial position where paying the entry fee poses a difficulty, please email us at submission@vallummag.com for details about how to submit. 

If you have any questions about the submission process, please email  submission@vallummag.com.

 

SUBMISSIONS OPEN June 1 – July 15, 2023

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The editors at Vallum strongly encourage Indigenous writers, writers of colour, gender non-conforming writers, differently abled writers, LGBTQI2S+ writers, writers with mental or physical illnesses, and writers who are otherwise affected by structural inequality to submit their work for consideration.