Submit your poetry for the Walt Whitman First Book Award

Rae Armantrout
photo by Rosanne Olson

Walt Whitman First Book Award Deadline: December 1

Submit your manuscript today.

The Walt Whitman Award brings first-book publication, a cash prize of $5,000, and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center to an American who has never before published a book of poetry. The Academy also purchases thousands of copies of the book for distribution to our members, and promotes the winning poet on Poets.org and in American Poet.

This year's judge is Pulitzer Prize- winning poet Rae Armantrout. 

Past winners of the prize include April Bernard, Nicole Cooley, Suji Kwock Kim, Alberto Rios, and Matt Rasmussen, whose 2012 Walt Whitman Award winning manuscript, Black Aperture, is a finalist for this year's National Book Award.