April is over, the National Poetry Month celebrations are done, and our thoughts naturally turn to the approaching summer season. There are not many publication contests that run during the summer, but spring is not yet finished, and if you’ve been working on a poetry manuscript, you still have time to submit it to one of these poetry competitions with upcoming entry deadlines:

• Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Award (postmark deadline May 15)
• New Letters Prize for Poetry (postmark deadline May 18)
• Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press (postmark deadline May 31)
• Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest (email entry deadline May 19, postmark deadline May 31)
• Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize from Calyx (postmark deadline May 31)
• The Bordighera Poetry Prize for Italian American poets (postmark deadline May 31)
• Many Mountains Moving Poetry Book Contest (postmark deadline June 1)
• Taste ’Test contest from Poetry Daily and the Virginia Arts of the Book Center (postmark deadline June 1)
• Boston Review Poetry Contest (postmark deadline June 1)
• Best New Poets Open Competition from the University of Virginia (online entries accepted April 15 - June 5)
• Verse Drama Prize from the Poetry Foundation (postmark deadline June 15)
• Ekphrasis Prize for poems based on other works of art (postmark deadline June 30)
• Barrow Street Press Book Contest (postmark deadline June 30)
• Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award (postmark deadline August 15)
• Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Award (postmark deadline August 15)

Required reading before you submit to any contests:
How to put together a poetry manuscript for publication
“A Word To the Wise: On entering your poems in competition,” by Kurt Heintz
“You Do It Because You Love It,” by S.A. Griffin

Related resources:
More contest links