The Vincent Poetry Prize
Millay House Rockland announces the Vincent Poetry Prize in honor of Edna St. Vincent Millay, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. She was born in Rockland, Maine, and known to her friends as “Vincent.”
The Vincent Poetry Prize will be awarded to one poem of exceptional vision and quality that is in conversation with a poem by Millay. We encourage you to read her poems and consider her obsessions, for example, poems of place, eros, and political protest, and poems in the sonnet form. Each poem submitted must use a line from a poem by Millay.
The winning poem, along with the Editors’ Choice and honorable mentions, will be announced by the end of July and published online in the summer edition of The Third Fig Review, the literary journal of Millay House Rockland. An online launch reading to celebrate the winning poems and poets will be held in late summer.
$500 prize for the winning poem
$200 for the Editors’ Choice
Judge: Julia Bouwsma, Maine Poet Laureate, 2021-26
Submissions Open May 1-31, 2026, or until cap of 200 is reached
Guidelines
Submit 1 previously unpublished poem. (You may submit more than once for an additional submission fee for each submission.)
Reading fee of $10 per entry. A limited number of complimentary entries are available to poets for whom the fee presents a hardship. Contact us at vincentmillayrockland@gmail.com to request a fee waiver. Submission fees are used to pay winners, the final judge, and web costs. The editorial staff is composed of Millay House Rockland board members, unpaid. Millay House Rockland is a nonprofit literary arts organization. You will be invited to add a reduced cost membership for $30 to your entry and to opt in to emails from Millay House Rockland.
Each poem submitted must include one line from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Please note the poem’s line and title at the end of your poem. The line must also appear as your title, an epigraph, or as a line within your poem.
Submissions are read anonymously; kindly refrain from placing your name anywhere on the attached poem file. Submissions with identifying information will be disqualified without refund.
The editors will consider all submissions for publication.
Simultaneous submissions welcome. Please notify us immediately of publication elsewhere by leaving a message in Submittable.
We cannot accept entries after the deadline or changes to poems after submission.
We follow the CLMP Guidelines for contests and are committed, in all we do, to the highest ethical standards. If you are a personal friend, family member, or student of any MHR board member, editor of The Third Fig Review, or of the judge, please refrain from submitting.
Submissions are capped at 200.