Individual  poetry manuscript consultations:

   Manuscript consultations are available for a fee of $500. Please keep your documents to a maximum of 70 pages. Each new poem starts on a new page. No need for TOC or Acknowledgements.  

Our editors will read and provide:

   1.)  A summary of written feedback going into details about how the book works: feedback on all poems in the manuscript as well as on book structure and order, titles. narrative arc, (if appropriate), sections, and how it is all coming through to the reader. We will focus on strengths and where the book can be strengthened, as well as where ideas can be expanded upon. The second document is a poem-by-poem close read, with recommended edits and comments on the actual manuscript.

   2.) A scheduled one hour zoom or phone meeting, where you can discuss your manuscript with a Lily editor (either Eileen Cleary or Christine Jones.) We talk about individual poems and how they are working as book. We close by discussing steps to move forward with publishing.

Individual Chapbook Poetry Consultations

Manuscript consultations are available for a fee of $200. Please keep your documents to a maximum of 30 pages. No need for TOC or Acknowledgements.

Our editors will read and provide:
1.)  A summary of written feedback going into details about how the book works: feedback on all poems in the manuscript, as well as on book structure and order, titles. narrative arc, (if appropriate), sections, and how it is all coming through to the reader. We will focus on strengths and where the book can be strengthened, as well as where ideas can be expanded upon. The second document is a poem-by-poem close read, with recommended edits and comments on the actual manuscript.

Created to honor the memory and literary legacy of Jennifer Martelli, this prize recognizes a chapbook manuscript distinguished by emotional depth, precision of language, and a bold, compassionate imagination. We welcome poems unafraid of contradiction, beauty, grief, humor, sensuality, or the strange intimacies of being alive. Above all, the prize seeks work that lingers—poems that risk honesty and transform experience through craft.

Guidelines:

Eligibility:  Open to anyone writing in the English language, U.S. Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.   

Manuscript Requirements:

Previously unpublished, chapbook-length poetry (18–32 pages, but shorter or longer is acceptable).

Must include a table of contents.

Individual poems may have been previously published, but the chapbook as a whole must be unpublished.

Entry Fee: $15 

AI must not be used in the creation of this work. 

Each manuscript is delivered to the readers and judge as a blind submission and stripped of identifying information. 

Translations and previously self-published books are ineligible.

 You may submit multiple manuscripts, but each must be treated as an individual submission, submitted separately

Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. 

Your work will be disqualified if your name or contact info appears on the manuscript. 

About the Judge: January Gill O'Neil

January Gil O’Neil is a poet whose work explores the afterlives of history in American landscapes and intimate lives. Her poems trace how place, memory, and moral inheritance shape identity across generations, joining lyric precision with documentary attention and restraint.

She is the author of four poetry collections published by CavanKerry Press: Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009). Glitter Road received the 2024 Poetry by the Sea Best Book Award and the Julia Ward Howe Prize and was a finalist for several honors, including the Massachusetts Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Nation, American Poetry Review, and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series.

A Cave Canem fellow, O’Neil is a professor at Salem State University and teaches graduate poetry writing in the summer program at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. She served as executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival from 2012 to 2018 and was the 2019–2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is a former chair of the AWP Board of Directors and its longest-serving current board member. She earned her B.A. at Old Dominion University and her M.F.A. at New York University.

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 Final Judge: January Gill O'Neil -Do Not contact judge about your manuscript at any time prior or during this contest.

Entry Fee: $15 

Member of CLMP. 

Submissions for the Jennifer Martelli chapbook prize are open annually from June 15th to September 15th.

Paul Nemser’s most recent collection is Break on Through: New & Selected Poems Volume One. Lily also republished  A Thousand Curves  (originally from Red Mountain Press in spring 2021,His book Taurus, which won the New American Poetry Prize, was published by New American Press in 2013. His chapbook of prose poems, Tales of the Tetragrammaton, was published by Mayapple Press in 2014. In the 1970’s he co-translated two books of Ukrainian poetry. Nemser’s poems have appeared widely in magazines such as AGNI, Blackbird , Linebreak, Poetry, and TriQuarterly . This prize is named for Paul Nemser a master of the lyric narrative. He is published widely and we encourage you to read some of his work at your convenience. 

Awarding publication of a book-length collection, and $500, a Lily Poetry Review Books virtual or in-person launch depending on what best fits for the press and the writer, and a standard royalty contract.

Submission Dates: January 1-April 15, 2027

Eligibility: Open to any poet writing in English regardless of publication history. 

The contest will be read blind and judged by the editors of Lily Poetry Review Books, Eileen Cleary and Christine Jones.

Submissions are accepted online only.

Please read the following instructions carefully.

GENERAL GUIDELINES (for all submitters)

• Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript, in English.     • Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished.     • Please use a legible 12 point font.     • Do not include art work.     • Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.     •You may include a list of acknowledgments if you wish.     • There is no length requirements, save that a book-length collection of poetry usually runs between 48 and 80 pages of text.     • You may submit multiple manuscripts, but each must be treated as an individual submission, submitted separately, and each requires an entry fee of $25.00 per submission. Each must have complete contact info, etc.     • If you pay the entry fee but fail to submit your manuscript by the deadline, your fee will not be returned.     • Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.     •Your work will be disqualified if your name or contact info appears on the manuscript. Follow our guidelines for placement of contact info.

NOTIFICATION

The winner will be notified by email or phone no later than May 15, 2027, Submitters will be notified by email only. The result will also be posted on our website on June 1, 2026, or before. We do not offer editorial feedback to submitters.

Our Reading Policy

Each manuscript is delivered to our readers as a blind submission. That is, it is stripped of identifying material. Only the manuscript, inclusive of any text notes, is sent to the readers and editors blindly. We do not give a list of submitters or titles to the judge.

Our preliminary readers are published poets, experienced editors, and/or poets who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. 

We will look for work that is beautifully crafted, manuscripts that feel whole and well-shaped without regard to our personal aesthetic.

 If a submitter contacts the judge regarding the contest, that person will be disqualified. 

Submit three poems  (not to exceed 5 pages of poetry) altogether. The editors will read and critique these poem within four weeks, and provide edits and helpful suggestions.

Submit additional poems in a separate submission.

Please submit 1000-1250 word reviews of poetry books published in the last 3 years. Reviews should include an implicit argument for what is new, striking, or particularly notable in this author's work, and why the book deserves an audience greater than it may have received.

This is NOT a contest. Please submit a chapbook-length manuscript for consideration to be published through Lily Poetry Review Books.
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 All submissions must go through  Submittable.

Manuscript length recommendation:  14-18 poems. No more than 25-30 pages.

Include Table of Contents. At the beginning of your manuscript, please include a list of poems that appear elsewhere (in journals, magazines, chapbooks, or anthologies).
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We recommend that 25-50% of the poems have been previously published. More than that is fine.

Simultaneous submission is acceptable but please immediately withdraw your manuscript if it's accepted elsewhere.

Each manuscript must be submitted separately.

Please include a one-paragraph biographical note and contact information in your cover letter.

Corrections and new versions will not be accepted.
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A $10 processing/reading fee will be charged for each submission.



 

Thank you for your interest in Lily Poetry Review! We can't wait to read your work.

Please wait three months between submissions. Our porch light is always on,


Lily Poetry Review is a print journal set to publish twice yearly.


Please don’t send previously published material.
Send no more than five pieces per submission., all contained in one document.


Each new poem should start on a new page.
Send in an easy-to-read font.



Authors are free to send simultaneous submissions as long as they withdraw work here once it is accepted elsewhere.

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We can't wait to read your work!