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.  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 next book is Dark Days: Fugitive Essays to be published by Graywolf in August 2023. His poems have appeared in journals such as 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, two Bread Loaf Scholarships, an Alberta H. Walker Scholarship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, two Cave Canem Fellowships and a Whiting Award. 

The prize is open to poets who have not published a book-length collection of poems with a registered ISBN. Poems previously published in magazines, online, or in limited edition chapbooks may be included in the manuscript, but the manuscript itself must not have been published as a book-length work exceeding 25 pages. Translations are not eligible nor are works written by multiple authors. APR complies with the CLMP Code of Ethics in the administration of this contest. The judge will select a manuscript in an anonymous review process and will not award the prize to any writer whose personal relationship to the judge poses a conflict of interest.

To be considered for the prize, submit a manuscript of 48 pages or more, paginated, with a table of contents, acknowledgments, and a $25 entry fee, checks made payable to The American Poetry Review.

• Manuscripts must be received by the new deadline of October 1, 2023. The winning author and all other entrants will be notified by January 15, 2024.
• You may simultaneously submit your manuscript elsewhere, but please notify us immediately if it is accepted for publication. Submission of more than one manuscript is permissible; each must be under separate cover with a fee.
• The winning author will have time to revise the manuscript after acceptance, but please send no revisions during the reading period.

Send submissions to: APR/ Honickman First Book Prize, 1906 Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia PA 19103 or online here.