Deadline for submission:
Extended to March 15, 2013

The Kundiman Poetry Prize is dedicated to publishing exceptional work by Asian American poets. Winner receives $1,000, book publication with Alice James Books and a New York City feature reading.

Alice James Books

Alice James Books is a cooperative poetry press with a mission is to seek out and publish the best contemporary poetry by both established and beginning poets, with particular emphasis on involving poets in the publishing process.

Eligibility

Asian American writers living in the United States.

General Guidelines

  • Reading period begins January 15.
  • Manuscripts must be typed, paginated, and 50 – 70 pages in length (single spaced).
  • Individual poems from the manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, anthologies, or chapbooks of less than 25 pages, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished. Translations and self-published books are not eligible. No multi-authored collections, please.
  • Manuscripts must have a table of contents and include a list of acknowledgments for poems previously published. The inclusion of a biographical note is optional. Your name, mailing address, email address and phone number should appear on the title page of your manuscript. 
  • No illustrations, photographs or images should be included.
  • The Kundiman Poetry Prize is judged by consensus of the members of Kundiman's Artistic Staff and the Alice James Books Editorial Board. Manuscripts are not read anonymously. Learn more about our judging process.
  • Winners will be announced in June.

Guidelines for Electronic Manuscript Submission

Access the electronic submission application between January 15 and March 15.

Guidelines for Print
Manuscript Submission

Should you wish to submit your manuscript via postal mail, mail your entry to:

Kundiman
P.O. Box 4248
Sunnyside, NY 11104

Send one copy of your manuscript submission with two copies of the title page. Use only binder clips. No staples, folders, or printer-bound copies.

MANUSCRIPTS CANNOT BE RETURNED. Please do not send us your only copy.

Entry fee is $28.  Checks or money orders should be made out to Alice James Books. On the memo line of your check, write The Kundiman Poetry Prize.

Checklist for print manuscript entry:

  • One (1) copy of manuscript enclosed, with acknowledgements and two (2) copies of title page
  • $28 entry fee
  • Business sized SASE
  • Stamped addressed postcard
  • Postmarked between January 15
    and March 1

Prize Events

For information on Prize Events, click here.

Previous Winners

2012

Congratulations to Cathy Linh Che, winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize.  The Alice James Books Board along with members of the Kundiman Board selected her manuscript, “Split,” for publication. 

2011
Matthew Olzmann is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.  His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Inch, Gulf Coast, Rattle and elsewhere.  He’s received fellowships from Kundiman and the Kresge Arts Foundation.  Currently, he is a writer-in-residence for the InsideOut Litereary Arts Project and the poetry editor of The Collagist.

2010
Janine Oshiro holds degrees from Whitworth College (now Whitworth University), Portland State University, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is a Kundiman fellow and the recipient of a poetry fellowship from Oregon’s Literary Arts. She lives in Hawaii and teaches at Windward Community College 

Praise for Pier

As if through an echolocation of brilliant and insistent off-rhyme, these poems effect a delicate placement of self into body, body into world, world into word. And at the center of it all is even more delicate loss.  Oshiro's Pier takes its measure in precise instances that ache with intelligence. A truly masterful first book. 
—Cole Swensen