yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/youngerpoets.asp

COMPETITION RULES

IMPORTANT NOTE: New submission dates below.

Submissions for the 2008 Competition must be postmarked no earlier than October 1, 2007 and no later than November 15, 2007. See Guidelines for Submission below for precise information regarding your entry.

Rules Governing the Competition

Each year, Yale University Press seeks one book-length poetry manuscript to be published in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. The competition is open to any American citizen under forty years of age who has not published a book of poetry (contestants must be under the age of forty at the time they submit the manuscript to the competition). The winner receives royalties when the book is published.

All poems must be original – translations are not accepted. Writers who have had chapbooks of poetry printed in editions of no more than 300 copies are eligible. Only one manuscript may be submitted each year. Manuscripts submitted in previous years may be resubmitted.

There is no application form. Please follow these guidelines in preparing your manuscript:

1. The manuscript must be a minimum of 48 numbered pages and a maximum of 64 numbered pages in length. All manuscripts must be paginated. Each new poem must start a new page. Manuscripts must be printed single-sided.

2. The manuscript must begin with unnumbered frontmatter: a title page that shows the book’s title and your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address (if you have one), and page count; a second title page which lists the title of the collection only; a table of contents; and (if applicable) a list of acknowledgments.

3. Begin paginating the manuscript after the frontmatter. If your book is divided into parts or has an epigraph, Page 1 will be the first part title or the epigraph. Otherwise, Page 1 will be the first poem.

4. In formatting the manuscript, please make legibility your first concern. If you use a word processor, select a standard typeface (such as Bodoni, Garamond, or Times New Roman) in at least 10-point type. Manuscripts may be single-spaced, double-spaced, or 1.5 spaced. Manuscripts may be prepared on a typewriter instead of a word processor. Handwritten manuscripts will not be accepted.

5. A brief biography may appear at the end of the manuscript. The information is not required and, if submitted, need not be included in the page count.

6. Do not bind or staple the manuscript. Place the loose sheets in a plain envelope of appropriate size.

Send the manuscript to Yale Series of Younger Poets, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040. Include a check or money order for $15.00 made out to Yale University Press. Please do not send cash.

Submissions for the 2008 competition must be postmarked no earlier than October 1, and no later than November 15, 2007.

Do not send the only copy of your work. Manuscripts cannot be returned after the competition. If you wish receipt of your manuscript to be acknowledged, please include a stamped, self-addressed postcard. If you wish to be informed, by July 2008, of the contest results, also include a stamped, self-addressed envelope.

For more information regarding the Yale Series of Younger Poets please write to us at:

Yale Series of Younger Poets
P.O. Box 209040
New Haven, CT
06520-9040