Unlock Your Writing Potential: Students in Our Writing Competition Preparation Class Are More Likely to Secure Awards
1. What is the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest?
Kenyon Review Poetry Contest is a competition for anyone to submit a small collection of their best poems for a chance to be published and win a scholarship to a writing workshop. High school sophomores and juniors (10th-11th grade) are welcome to compete for this prize but are recommended to instead submit to the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, hosted by the same organization.
Judge
The final judge for the 2025 Kenyon Review Poetry Contest is Diane Seuss (unrelated to Dr. Seuss). This accomplished author and poet has won many accolades, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN Voelcker Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the John Updike Award. She’s currently a finalist for the National Book Award for her latest poetry collection titled Modern Poetry and is an elected member of the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors. Read her works frank: sonnets (winner of the above prizes), Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Four-Legged Girl (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize).
Prizes
Winning poems will be published in The Kenyon Review, along with a corresponding contributor payment.
Full scholarship to an in-person or virtual Kenyon Review Adult Writers Workshop. These are week-long, residential writing workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with acclaimed faculty in Gambier, Ohio. In-person workshops will be held in June 2025 or July 2025, with the remote option in June 2025. Regular prices are $2,495 for in-person and $895 for remote.
The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers is otherwise known as the Kenyon Review high school poetry contest. To clarify, the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest is open to all students and adults, not just high school students. On the other hand, only 10th and 11th-grade high school students are eligible to submit to the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers.
2. Submission Requirements for the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest
Poems submitted cannot be published work, and participants must not have published a book of poetry at the time of submission.
Submission may include 3-5 poems for a maximum combined length of 10 pages. These poems cannot be currently reviewed in other magazines or contests. Additionally, participants may only submit one collection of poems to Kenyon Review per year. Therefore, high school sophomores and juniors should consider the Patricia Grodd contest instead.
Remove all self-identifying information, including your name, and then submit your work online through the Submittable portal.
To get an idea of what the magazine is looking for, read the contest-specific archive and the magazine’s archive. You can create a free account to read five entries per month.
3. Eligibility for the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest
The contest is open to everyone, regardless of age, nationality, or location. There are no restrictions based on background or experience.
4. When is the Submission Date?
The Kenyon Review Poetry Contest submission deadline is September 1 to September 30, 2024. The contest is expected to run annually from November 1 through December 31, with winners and other results to be announced in late spring 2025.
Fees
$24 Entry fee. All participants immediately receive a free half-year subscription to either print or digital publications of The Kenyon Review.
90% of Aralia Students Win Awards in Poetry Contests
5. Kenyon Review Poetry Contest Winners
In late 2023, the Kenyon Review received 467 submissions for the poetry contest and one winner to be featured in the Fall 2024 magazine. See below the winning poem from the latest Kenyon Review Poetry Contest in 2024.
The pickup driver refuses cash
when he sees the wreath of poppies
pressed to my hands by an aunt
at Heathrow, so I ride in the truck bed
with Berber shepherds, peer at maps,
the long brown hills, and wonder
what I’ll say. Then a worn face nods
and from the desert springs a tiny square
of England: grass perfect then row after
after row after row of headstones. “Jouer!”
I shout, to a boy in a Barcelona shirt
who rolls his football, embarrassed.
“Play on!” I cry, until he weaves away
between the graves as I look for Uncle Jim.
We move together, the boy and I, one fast
one slow, until we reach the Coldstream Guards:
Chris, Leslie, John, Frank, and Jim in front,
Charlie and Will behind, Fred Newsome at the back.
I lay the wreath as the boy darts forward, and whisper
something small of home — the fields, the moors,
the curve of a bay — to these lads of the north
picked last at Dunkirk and first to face Messi away.
2024 winners will be published in the 2025 print magazine publication, featuring the themes of translation, architecture, lyric essay, cinema, and visitation guest edited by New York poet and educator Jennifer Galvão. Note that these themes do not reflect the contest, but rather the entire magazine publication. There are no genre or theme limits nor recommendations for the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest.
6. Why Participate in the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest as a High School Student?
Win a workshop worth more than any cash prize
In addition to winning a chance to have your work published in a respected literary journal, Kenyon Review Poetry Contest winners will also receive a free entry to the Kenyon Review writing workshop. The workshop features incredibly decorated guests such as author and Brown University professor Lucy Ives; Pulitzer Prize-winning author and TED Talk speaker Mitchell Jackson; National Book Award 5 under 35 winner and previous faculty at Harvard, MIT, Brown, Stanford, Tulane, Hunter College, Johns Hopkins, and currently Vanderbilt University ZZ Packer; Poet Laureate Oliver de la Paz; and Brown University and Washington University St. Louis alumni and University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor Paul Tran. Read more about the in-person Kenyon Review writers workshop guests.
Win a workshop worth more than any cash prize
In addition to winning a chance to have your work published in a respected literary journal, Kenyon Review Poetry Contest winners will also receive a free entry to the Kenyon Review writing workshop. The workshop features incredibly decorated guests such as author and Brown University professor Lucy Ives; Pulitzer Prize-winning author and TED Talk speaker Mitchell Jackson; National Book Award 5 under 35 winner and previous faculty at Harvard, MIT, Brown, Stanford, Tulane, Hunter College, Johns Hopkins, and currently Vanderbilt University ZZ Packer; Poet Laureate Oliver de la Paz; and Brown University and Washington University St. Louis alumni and University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor Paul Tran. Read more about the in-person Kenyon Review writers workshop guests.
7. Prepare with Aralia Education
Aralia Education helps students brainstorm, edit, and curate their poetry collection to submit to the Kenyon Review Poetry Contest. We are an innovative online education platform with a track record of leading students to success inside and outside their school classroom. Our team of instructors from top-ranking US high schools propels students forward by building stronger foundations in traditional school subjects as well as crafting exceptional applications for extracurricular competitions. Learn more about Aralia’s Kenyon Review preparation class!
