The Reuben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition is open
IAWE
The 37th annual Reuben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition, sponsored by the Voices Israel Group of Poets in English, is open for entries.
This year, entries will be judged by prize-winning American poets Mark Elber and Anne Myles, plus IAWE member Wendy Blumfield, who was a prize winner last year.
First prize is $500, second prize $200, third prize $100. Ten honorable mentions will be awarded. The thirteen winning poems, each from a different poet, will be published together with next year's Voices Israel poetry anthology.
The entry fee is $6 for 1 poem, $14 for 3 poems, $19 for 6 poems.
The competition is open to every human being in the world. (No computer-generated work, please.) Poems are judged without the poets’ names. Please make sure that your name appears nowhere in the poetry file you send.
Challenging, humorous, and/or eccentric poetry is welcome, but please avoid unconventional formatting (such as inserting emojis, mixing font sizes, using non-black text, etc.). We do not reproduce illustrations.
Each poem should not exceed 60 lines, including any stanza breaks, dedication, epigraph, notes, etc. but not including the title. For the purpose, a line more than 68 characters long is considered more than one line.
Poems must be in English and previously unpublished and must remain unpublished until the list of winners is e-mailed to the entrants (target date, December). Online publication counts as publication, but inclusion in the monthly Voices Israel newsletter or in a chapbook from a Voices Israel workshop does not.
To submit poetry, you must be the author or have the author’s permission. We retain a non-exclusive right to publish and republish the thirteen winning poems in all media, while the poets retain copyright and may also publish their respective poems after the winners are announced.
The deadline is October 1st, 2026. The judges’ decision is not subject to appeal.
To submit, use this link https://voicesisrael.submittable.com/submit. If you have questions or difficulties, please write to reubenrosepoe...@gmail.com.
Israel Association of Writers in English (IAWE)
P.O. Box 39385
6139301 Tel Aviv