The Furious Flower Poetry Prize for emerging writers is open for submissions from December 15 to February 15 annually ($15 submission fee). Poets with no more than one published book are invited to submit up to three poems (no more than a total of 6 pages) for consideration. The winner and honorable mention receive $1500 and $750 respectively and will be invited to read at the decennial Furious Flower Poetry Conference, September 2024. The winner, honorable mention, and select finalists will also be published in Obsidian. Winners are announced in late March/early April. 

2024 Judge: Roger Reeves

Roger Reeves is the author of Best Barbarian (W.W. Norton & Co., 2022), a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. Tracy K. Smith called it “a revelation and a form of reparation.” His debut collection is King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), a Library Journal  Best Poetry Book of the year, and winner of the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, and a John C. Zacharis First Book Award. His first book on nonfiction is Dark Days: Fugitive Essays, published by Graywolf in August 2023. His poems have appeared in magazines and journals such as The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and Tin House, among others. He was awarded a 2013 NEA Fellowship, Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation in 2008, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard University, and a Whiting Award. 

How to submit your work

Go to Submittable

• Make a free Submittable account
• Fill out the form and pay the non-refundable $15 submission fee
• Attach a pdf of your poems (no more than 6 pages) and ensure no identifying information is in the file

2023

• Alafia Nicole Sessions - Winner
• Marissa Davis - Honorable Mention

2022

• Ariana Benson - Winner
• Benin Lemus - Honorable Mention

2021

• Aurielle Marie - Winner
• Jennifer Bartell - Honorable Mention

2020

• Diamond Forde - Winner
• Nathan John - Honorable Mention

2019

• Rachelle Parker - Winner
• Cynthia Manick - Honorable Mention

Furious Flower Quarantine Kwansaba Contest (2020)

Furious Flower Poetry Contest for emerging creative writers in response to the COVID-19 quarantine. 

Winner:

Turning - Angel C. Dye 

My panic does not move heaven so

I try turning instead; till terror into

verse, plant praise song and patient seeds

for what remains of spring. Breather- full,

deep. Drink salt- sweet to shed when 

I weep, but I never wither. Intern;

turn inward, away from fear of still. 

Finalists:

Glenis Redmond, Believed to be the First Black Woman Photographed with a Typewriter 

Sherese Francis, Dream Conducts a Mother Tongue's Memory.