2025 Yeats Poetry Prize Awards Have Been Announced

More information is available at www.yeatssociety.nyc. The 2026 prize competition will begin September 1 and continue through February 1 of next year. Please check back at that time for updated submission instructions. Thank you.

Dear Poets and Writers

Thank you for your interest in the annual Yeats Poetry Prize, a public program since 1997 of the all-volunteer, nonprofit WB Yeats Society of NY. Submissions are accepted November 1 to February 1. To enter, click the SUBMIT button below. Our 2025 Judge is January O'Neil, who also served as 2024 judge. All inquiries regarding the prize should be sent from our website’s contact page at www.YeatsSociety.nyc. 

Eligibility and Fees

  • Poets of any age from anywhere in the world may enter.  
  • There is no limit on entries. They can be on any topic and must be in English, unpublished, and no more than 60 lines in length. 
  • First prize is $1,000, second prize is $500, and there are several honorable mentions. 
  • The entry fees, which help to underwrite the competition, are $15 for the first poem and $12 for each additional poem. 
  • Winners are announced in March and awards are presented in New York City in April (National Poetry Month in the U.S.). 
  • Winners also receive a two-year membership in the WB Yeats Society of NY, and their winning entries are published in the judge’s report, which is posted on the WB Yeats Society of NY website (www.yeatssociety.nyc) and which includes reports from prior years.

Evidence that an entry was composed, in whole or part, with AI technology will disqualify it.

Submissions

  • Submit your entries and payment via this Submittable site. 
  • Once entries have been submitted, no additions, deletions, or substitutions are permitted. But you may withdraw a poem before the submission deadline and resubmit an edited version as a new entry with a new fee. You will forfeit the fee for the previous entry. 
  • We also welcome mail-in entries to the WB Yeats Society of NY, c/o The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003. Make check payable to the Society's full name. Enclose a self-addressed, U.S. stamped envelope (SASE) to receive the printed copy of the judge’s report. Each mail-in poem must be 1) typed on a separate sheet of A4 paper (8.5x11in/0.21 x 0.297m) and 2) have a 3x5-in index card attached to it that includes the poet’s name, address, phone number, and email address, hand-written or typed. This information must not appear in the poems themselves.

Publication Requests

If any of your submissions is chosen for publication before March 1st, you must inform us at once along with the details. You may choose to publish the poem, but it will not be considered for a Yeats Poetry Prize, and the submission fee will be forfeited. You may also withdraw the poem from the Submittable site.

Anonymity

This is a blind competition. All entrants remain anonymous while it is being conducted. The judge reads each poem at least once, often several times, as part of the decision process. There are no other readers or editorial filters. No awards are announced publicly or on this site until all winners have been notified. To help ensure the competition's anonymity, you must observe the following rules:

  • Do not identify the filename for any poem or set of poems with your last name. Use titles only.
  • Do not include acknowledgments, explanatory statements, reviews, resumes, autobiographical statements, photographs, illustrations, artwork, or lists of earlier publications and/or mentions in online or print media. Should you win an award, we will contact you via our Submittable form for further information.
  • Any poem that fails to meet these criteria will be disqualified and the associated submission fee will not be refunded. 

Our Namesake's Advice

Should you require more incentive to write poetry or enter competitions, remember what W.B. Yeats is alleged to have said about taking action as a writer: "Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot but make it hot by striking." The world needs poetry and poets. 

Sincerely,

Andrew J. McGowan, President

WB Yeats Society, c/o National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003. www.YeatsSociety.nyc

Previous Yeats Poetry Prize Judges, A-Z: L.S. Asekoff, Billy Collins, Alfred Corn, Alan Feldman, Jessica Greenbaum, Eamon Grennan, Ann Kjellberg, Campbell McGrath, Leslie McGrath, Samuel Menashe, January O'Neil, Paul Muldoon, Marie Ponsot, Alice Quinn, Spencer Reese, Grace Schulman, Harvey Shapiro, and Bill Zavatsky. 

2024 WINNERS (January O'Neil, Judge)First prize of $1,000 went to “Double Golden Shovel Sonnet Found on the Q Train” by Carlos Andrés Gómez, Atlanta, GA, and Second prize of $500 went to “Kapuśniak” by Sean Nevin, Madison, NJ. Honorable mentions included “Prayer Wing” by Dr. Punam Mony Nimchonok, Toronto, Canada; “Orlando” by Caroline King, Cambridge, MA; and “I Always Thought I’d Marry a Sasha” by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Columbus, OH. See more detailed information on our website under AWARDS, https://www.yeatssociety.nyc/yeats-poetry-prize

The executive board of the WB Yeats Society of NY extends its sincerest thanks to everyone who took part in the competition. We appreciate your commitment to the art of poetry.

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Submit to 2026 Yeats Poetry Prize