Submissions Open Now for the 2026 (Emerging) Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize

August 15, 2025

Submissions are now open for the 2026 (Emerging) Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize. Open to poets who have not yet published their first full-length poetry book, this prize awards $1,000 and publication by MSU Press.

Deadline for entry is October 1, 2025.

Entries must be made via Submittable. Please see full guidelines for details.

The final judge for this round is Carol V. Davis.

Carol V. Davis is the author of Below Zero (Stephen F. Austin Univ. Press, 2023), Because I Cannot Leave This Body (Truman State Univ. Press, 2017) and Between Storms (TSUP, 2012). She won the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg. Her first book, It’s Time to Talk About…, was published in a bilingual English/Russian edition, (Symposium, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1997). Her poetry has been read on National Public Radio, the US Library of Congress and Radio Russia. Formerly Poetry Editor of the Los Angeles newspaper, The Jewish Journal, in 2018 she has guest edited the poetry journal, Shirim. She was the 2008 Sandburg-Auden-Stein Poet-in-Residence at Olivet College, MI, and teaches at Santa Monica College and Antioch University, both in California. She was a senior Fulbright scholar in Russia, 1996-97 and again in 2005. She taught in Siberia, most recently in winter 2018 and was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant for Siberia in 2020, postponed due to Covid, and then canceled. Her work has been translated into German, and Russian. She has also published translations from Russian. Donna Sternberg and Dancers choreographed a dance piece, “Ancestors’ Voices,” using Davis’ poetry.

Wheelbarrow Books, established in 2016, is an imprint of the RCAH Center for Poetry with publication and distribution by MSU Press.

The Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize is awarded annually. Submission periods for first books of poetry and those by previously published poets alternate every year. To view previous winners, visit wheelbarrow-books/previous-winners.

Inquiries: cpoetry@msu.edu