This category is always open for free submissions!

We are looking for both pitches and completed drafts of poetry craft essays. We love work that engages with specific elements of poetic craft, and welcome any writing that dives deeply into the nuts and bolts of how poetry works. We’re also interested in hybrid craft essay forms, and welcome work which is not easily classifiable, including work with a personal essay element, experimental forms or formatting, or anything that explores the boundaries of genre—as long as it has a clear craft focus and aims to educate, inform, and inspire working poets.

We are especially interested in craft concepts inspired by books from independent publishers, writing advice that puts more than one text into conversation with another, or essays that highlight underrepresented or marginalized voices. We would prefer that at least one of the texts that you are engaging with was published within the last year, although this is not a hard-and-fast rule.

Our ideal length for these pieces is between 1,000 and 3,000 words. If you need additional space, please leave us a short explanation in your cover letter.

For pitches, please submit:

• a brief (500 words or fewer) summary of what element of craft you would like to explore, and what writers or books you are planning to highlight;
• a biographical statement (100 words or fewer) with any relevant credentials; and
• 1-3 samples of similar work, if possible.

If you would like to send a finished draft, please indicate your word count at the top of your submission. We would especially love to work with emerging writers on drafts, so if you’re not sure if something is publication-ready, send it along and see if it’s a good fit—we’d be happy to work on it with you! Drafts should be double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, with regular margins, unless specific formatting requires otherwise.

Accepted essays pay $50.

We can’t wait to read your work!

Palette Poetry invites innovative work from emerging poets for The 2024 Rising Poet Prize. This contest is open to poets who have not yet published a full-length collection at the time of submission. We look forward to celebrating new and exciting work, so please send us your best poems. The first-place winning poet will be awarded $3,000, publication, and an interview in Palette Poetry. The second-place and third-place winners will receive $300 and $200, respectively, as well as publication. The top ten finalists will be selected by Palette editors, and Guest Judge Morgan Parker will choose the three winners from among the ten finalists. 

Morgan Parker is the author of five books, most recently the essay collection, You Get What You Pay For. Previous titles include Who Put This Song On?, a young adult novel; and the poetry collections Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Parker is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.” She lives in Los Angeles with her dog, Shirley.

Submission Guidelines: Please read carefully!

• For this prize, we are only accepting unpublished work from new and emerging poets: poets without a full-length collection published at the time of submission. Poets with no publication history are especially encouraged to submit. Poets with only chapbooks published are also eligible. Poets with self-published full-length collections, however, are ineligible.
• Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English—inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely written in English.
• DO NOT INCLUDE your name or identifying information in the document OR submission title box. 
• We are only accepting unpublished work. If your poem has been published elsewhere, even on a blog or on social media, it is not eligible.
• We accept simultaneous submissions—just please send us a note if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.
• Your submission must be no more than three poems and under ten pages. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. Please begin each poem on a new page and include each poem's individual title.
• We do accept multiple submissions (of one to three poems apiece), but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.
• Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with your publication history, if any. This is where you can include your name and/or bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this cover letter is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on. To safeguard our reading staff, please include content warnings in the cover letter, if applicable, as well.
• Review our FAQ page for frequently asked questions.
• NOTE: If after submitting you notice an error in your submission, please message us rather than withdrawing and resubmitting your submission. We can open it to editing once so you can correct the error.
• Palette Poetry does not accept AI-produced work.
• Contest closes September 22, 2024. Submitters will be notified of their submission status 8-12 weeks after the contest closing date.

Included Unique Opportunities and Discounts

As a thank you for your support for Palette, we’d like to offer a 10% off discount code on a writing class from The Writing Salon. Find a class and use the code included in the confirmation message at checkout.

Editorial Feedback Option

This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The three-letter option costs $149 and will provide you with six pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions, from three separate guest editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and are all incredibly astute poets.