The New York City–based Academy of American Poets has extended the deadline for its annual Walt Whitman Award until December 1. The award includes a cash prize of $5,000 and publication for a first book of poetry.
The winning work will be published by Louisiana State University Press, and will be distributed to thousands of Academy members. In addition, the winner will receive a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and will be invited to read at the annual Poets Forum in New York City next fall. Previous winners have also been profiled in American Poet, the Academy's biannual magazine, which is sent to all of the organization’s 8,500 members.
Original manuscripts in English written by current United States citizens who have not yet published a full-length collection are eligible. Individual poems may have been previously published in periodicals or limited-edition chapbooks. Visit the Academy of American Poets website for complete guidelines.
Using the online submission manager, poets may submit a collection between 50 and 100 pages with a $30 entry fee by December 1. Rae Armantrout will judge.
In addition to its writing awards, the Academy of American Poets, founded in 1934, administers a variety of programs, including National Poetry Month, celebrated nationwide in April each year; numerous events and readings; free online educational resources; and an extensive audio archive of over 700 recordings dating back to the 1960s.
Chris Hosea of Brooklyn, New York, won the 2013 prize for his collection Put Your Hands In. Minnesota poet Matt Rasmussen, who won the 2012 award for his collection Black Aperture, has since been shortlisted for the National Book Award in poetry. Listen to Rasmussen read the poem "After Suicide" from his winning collection.