Submissions are open for the Four Quartets Prize, sponsored by the T. S. Eliot Foundation and Poetry Society of America. Launched in November, the prize is given for a sequence of poems published in the United States in the past two years. The winner will receive $20,000.
Established in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the U.S. publication of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, the prize will be judged by Linda Gregerson, Ishion Hutchinson, and Jana Prikryl. The prize is “first and foremost a celebration of the multi-part poem,” such as Eliot’s Four Quartets, Gwendolyn Brooks’s A Street in Bronzeville, and John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs.
Submissions are open until December 22. Authors, publishers, and agents may submit four copies of at least fourteen pages of a poetic sequence published in a print or online journal, chapbook, or book in 2016 or 2017. Sequences published across multiple publications are eligible. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.
The shortlist for the prize will be announced in New York City on April 12 at an event featuring actor Jeremy Irons at the 92nd Street Y. Three shortlisted finalists will each receive $1,000. The winner will be announced the following day.
The Poetry Society of America, based in New York City, is dedicated to promoting the place of poetry in American culture. The T. S. Eliot Foundation, based in London, is dedicated to celebrating poetry, literacy, and “all things Eliot.” The foundation also administers the annual £25,000 T. S. Eliot Prize, given for the best new poetry collection published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
