THE COMPETITION IS CURRENTLY CLOSED.
It will open on May 15, 2024.

Prizes:

1^st Place — $300 and publication

2^nd Place — $150 and publication

3^rd Place — $100 and publication

2 Honorable Mentions — $75 and publication

The competition will open May 15, 2024, on Fare Forward’s website. The deadline for contest submissions is July 15, 2024, at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Selection Process:

Whitney Rio-Ross, Fare Forward’s poetry editor, will select 25 poems as semifinalists. At that point, the other editors will cast votes to choose 15 poems as finalists. The final judge (still to-be-announced) will choose the winners and honorable mentions from those finalists.

Winners and honorable mentions will be announced August 30, 2024. The poems will be published in Fare Forward’s poetry issue.

Guidelines:

• Entrants may include up to 3 poems in a single submission with a $10.00 entry fee. Multiple submissions are allowed with a $10.00 entry fee per additional submission.
• Submissions must be made online by emailing poems to fareforwardjournal@gmail.com and paying the entry fee through your PayPal account to fareforwardjournal@gmail.com. Do NOT submit the payment through the PayPal widget on this website; it is set up for magazine subscriptions and will automatically charge you $40.
• No poem may exceed 40 lines, beginning with the first line of text below the title.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished.
• Submit your poems in separate documents. Please submit each poem as a Microsoft Word document or PDF.
• This is a blind competition. Do not include your name anywhere on your submission document or in the title. Submissions that include identifying information in the submission document or in the document’s title will be immediately disqualified. Use a poem’s title as the title of its Word or PDF file.
• Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but you must withdraw your poem immediately if it is selected for publication elsewhere.
• Previous contributors and poetry competition finalists (including 2^nd and 3^rd place) are welcome to submit to the competition.
• Close friends or recent students of poetry editor Whitney Rio-Ross or the final judge may not enter the competition. Recent students include students who have taken a semester-long or year-long course with either judge in the last three years.
• All decisions made by the judges regarding the winners are final. No contest entry fees will be returned.
• By submitting, you are agreeing to all contest rules.

If you have any questions about the competition or guidelines, email us at fareforwardjournal@gmail.com.