Richard-Gabriel Rummonds
Poetry Contest

About the Prize

The Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize awards $2,000 and publication by Ex Ophidia Press to the author of a collection of poems. The winning poet will receive ten copies of the book, a publishing contract with national distribution, publicity, and a discount on book purchases. Poet Leslie Adrienne Miller will select this year’s winning manuscript from ten finalists.

About Our Judge: Leslie Adrienne Miller

Leslie Adrienne Miller’s collections of poems include Y, The Resurrection Trade, and Eat Quite Everything You See from Graywolf Press, Yesterday Had a Man In It, Ungodliness, and Staying Up For Love from Carnegie Mellon University Press.

She has received the Loft McKnight Award of Distinction, two Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the PEN Southwest Discovery Award, two Writers-at-Work Fellowships, and a number of prizes from literary magazines, the Strousse Award from Prairie Schooner and the Nebraska Review Poetry Award.  She has also held residencies and fellowships with Le Château de Lavigny, Morges, Switzerland; Fundación Valparaíso, Mojácar, Spain; Literarisches Colloquium, Berlin, Germany; Hawthornden Castle International Writers Retreat, Lasswade, Scotland; Ventspils House International Writers and Translators’ House, Ventspils, Latvia; the Anderson Center in Red Wing, Minnesota; Willapa Bay Artist Residency, Oysterville, Washington; and Arts International, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Miller’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Professor Emerita of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, she holds degrees from Stephens College, the University of Missouri, the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the University of Houston.

Photo Credit: Leslie Crane

Eligibility

1. The Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize is open to all authors writing in English who reside in North America.
2. Entrants must be at least 18 years old.
3. Manuscripts must be submitted via Submittable in the following submission window – May 1, 2026, to September 16, 2026, at 11:59 PM CST.
4. Current or former students, colleagues, employees, family members, and close friends of the judge are not eligible for the prize.

Standards and Commitments

1. The mission of the press is to publish English language poetry that explores new territories of the imagination by using traditional techniques of poetry: rhythm and melody, imagery and metaphor, irony and insight, in other words, apt language for important ideas. We intend our books to mirror this mission.
2. Translations, collaborative work, or AI generated work are not eligible for this contest.
3. By entering the contest, the author confirms that the work is their own.
4. The judge and first readers do not screen submissions with a preference for any style or type of poetry. Please remember that a 9 x 6-inch book publication restricts the format of the poems, so lines regularly longer than four inches, concrete poems, or experimental formats may regrettably disqualify a manuscript for purely technical reasons.
5. Currently, we do not have the capacity to publish illustrations.
6. The Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize is administered in accordance with the Code of Ethics developed by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). The judge and first readers will use an anonymous review process to select the winning manuscript.

Please read and follow the instructions for the work you are submitting. We cannot accept any submission that does not follow the guidelines exactly.

Submission Guidelines

1. Submissions must be original poetry manuscripts in English language (although it is acceptable to include some text in other languages). Poems published in print or online periodicals, anthologies, or chapbooks may be included, but the manuscript itself must be unpublished.
2. If you include quotes from other works in your manuscript, please be sure they are clearly attributed to the author(s) in a “Notes” section at the back of the manuscript. If permissions are required, for a quote, the author is responsible for obtaining permissions.
3. Manuscripts must consist of 50 to 100 numbered pages, including a title page and table of contents. Each new poem must start on a new page.
4. Manuscripts should be formatted using a standard typeface in 12-point font. Manuscripts may be single-spaced or 1.5 spaced.
5. Upload your manuscript electronically via Submittable as a .doc, .docx file. Hard copies will not be considered. Include a title page with the title only and a table of contents. The author’s name should not appear on any pages of the uploaded document.
6. Where indicated on Submittable, include a brief bio and a list of acknowledgements of previously published poems in the manuscript. Do not include acknowledgements, biographical information, or any other cover letter within the manuscript.
7. Submitting more than one manuscript to the prize is not allowed.
8. Corrections of minor errors in a submission can be edited through the Open Edit function so that authors can fix the problem. Authors can send an open edit request to the press.
9. The prizewinner will have an opportunity to edit their manuscript prior to publication.
10. You may simultaneously submit your manuscript elsewhere, but please notify us immediately if it is accepted for publication.
11. Manuscripts that do not adhere to the submission guidelines will not be considered.
12. The Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize reserves the right of the judge to not choose a winner for any given year of the competition.