Los Angeles Poetry Prize Guidelines
The Los Angeles Poetry Prize and its editors are members of the CLMP.
We're excited to read and review your work for the Los Angeles Poetry Prize. The Prize award $1,000 for a single poem and celebrates the poet at a venue in Los Angeles, CA in February, 2027. Please follow the guidelines to be considered for the prize.
The Los Angeles Poetry Prize is judged by Jose Hernandez Diaz!
Jose Hernandez Diaz is a Mexican American writer, editor, and teacher. He is the author of multiple poetry collections, including The Lighthouse Tattoo (Acre Books, 2026); Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024); and The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020). He has been published in The Yale Review, The London Magazine, Academy of American Poets, and American Poetry Review. A 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellow, Diaz lives in Los Angeles, California.
Reading/contest fee:
$17 (Early Access)
$20 (Regular Access)
Deadline:
October 15, 2026 (Early Access)
January 1, 2027 (Final Deadline)
Open to all poets and writers
Prize: $1,000 and publication
All persons who enter are automatically considered for free admission to the award ceremony. We look forward to seeing you there!
Provide three clean, well-edited poems for consideration:
- Only previously unpublished work is eligible for consideration.
- Provide your contact information (including email and phone) & titles of all poems submitted in the cover letter.
- No identifying information should appear anywhere on the submission. Keep the submission simple and easy to read, avoid unusual fonts. Please no illustrations.
- ALL poems/entries are to be uploaded within a single document (i.e. only ONE PDF, .doc, or .docx file is needed to submit "X" number of poems/entries, per submission) - we prefer doc and docx files.
Simultaneous submissions allowed. Poems translated from other languages are eligible only if you wrote both the original poem and the translation.
About the award ceremony: the details for the award ceremony, which is scheduled to take place in February of 2027, will be made public information as soon as conveniently possible. For some context, the New York Poetry Prize, administered annually by Torres & Company, took place on a rooftop in Chelsea, NY this past August and brought together poets and writers from NY and abroad! All are welcomed to read at the award ceremony.
Note: You do not have to be from LA to submit and you can attend the award ceremony virtually, if that's more convenient.
Judge: Jose Hernandez Diaz
General Advisor: Sam Yaziji, production manager at Poetry International
General Advisor: Jasmine Huerta Lara, MFA and MA at San Diego State University
Administrator: Luis Torres
Visit https://www.torresandcompany.org/los-angeles-poetry-prize and use the 'Contact' form to reach out with questions, comments, and concerns.