The 37th annual Reuben Rose Memorial Poetry Competition is open for entries from mid-July through October 1st, 2026.
To submit, read the entry requirements on this page, then at the bottom of the page click on the Submit button.
Submission Procedure
All poems must be submitted and entry fees paid via the online submissions service, Submittable. If you find you are unable to use the Submittable.com website, please write to reubenrosepoetrycompetition@gmail.com.
The 2026 submission period runs from July 15th through October 1st 2026.
Entry fees for the 2026 competition:
US$6.00 for 1 poem; US$14.00 for 3 poems; US$19.00 for 6 poems.
Prizes: First prize: $500; Second prize: $200; Third prize: $100. Ten Honourable Mentions will also be awarded. The thirteen winning poems, each from a different poet, will be published together with the 2027 Voices Israel Anthology, either in their own sections of the Anthology volume, or as a separate booklet accompanying it.
The judges for the 37th (2026) competition will be:
- Mark Elber and
- Anne Myles: both prize-winning U.S. poets.
- Wendy Blumfield, a British-born Israeli poet and journalist.
Requirements for Entry
Please follow these Guidelines to ensure your entry/ies will be accepted:
Anyone, anywhere in the world, may submit. No computer-generated or AI-assisted work please!
Each poem should not exceed 60 lines, including any stanza breaks, dedication, epigraph, notes, etc. but not including the title. For the purpose, a line more than 68 characters long is considered more than one line.
Challenging, humorous, and/or eccentric poetry is welcome, but do not use unconventional formatting (such as tilting words, inserting symbols or emojis, mixing font sizes, using non-black text, etc.).
We do not accept illustrations. Any included with the submitted poems will be discarded.
Poems must be in English and previously unpublished, in print or online, and must remain unpublished until the list of winners is e-mailed to the entrants (target date: December). Inclusion in the monthly Voices Israel newsletter or in a chapbook from Voices Israel workshops is not considered publication.
Poems must have been written by the owner of the Submittable account used to submit them. Do not use someone else’s account, e.g. that of a friend or relative, to submit — the submission will be recorded as the work of the account owner.
Poems are judged anonymously, without the poets’ names. Please make sure that your name does not appear anywhere in the file you send or in the file’s name. Failure to observe this rule may result in your inability to enter the competition.
No poet may win more than one prize or Honorable Mention in the same year’s competition – i.e. among the top 13, no poet will be included more than once.
We retain a non-exclusive right to publish and republish the winning poems and Honorable Mention winners in all media, while the poet retains copyright and can also publish elsewhere after the winners are announced.
The judges’ decision is not subject to appeal.
The submission period for the 2026 competition is July 15th through October 1st, 2026. To submit, during the submission period only, please click on the button below.
Voices Israel Group of Poets in English 