Yellowwood Poetry Prize

Yalobusha Review is excited to announce the 2026 Yellowwood Poetry Prize. This year’s judge is Cody-Rose Clevidence. The winner of the Yellowwood Poetry Prize receives $500, as well as publication and an interview in Yalobusha Review. The contest is open February 1st through March 16th.

GUIDELINES

• Please submit up to 3 poems, totaling no more than 5 pages, through Submittable. We accept only previously unpublished work. All entries will be considered for general publication.
• Only one submission per contestant. Simultaneous submissions are permitted. Please notify us immediately if a piece is selected for publication elsewhere.
• Please do not include your name anywhere on the manuscript.
• Contest entries must be received by March 16th.
• The contest fee is $3.
• General submissions will be closed during the contest period.

ELIGIBILITY

YR cannot consider work from anyone currently or recently affiliated with the University of Mississippi or the prize judge, Cody-Rose Clevidence. This includes those who have studied or taught at the University of Mississippi. 

Yalobusha Review seeks stories that resist outdated tropes and ideologies, rather than uphold them. Writers of color, women writers, and writers who identify as LGBTQIA+ are especially encouraged to submit. All submissions will be considered for general publication.  

FINAL JUDGE

Cody-Rose Clevidence is the author of THIS HOUSEHOLD OF EARTHLY NATURE (Roof Books, 2025), Aux Arc / Trypt Ich (Nightboat, 2021), Listen My Friend, This is the Dream I Dreamed Last Night (The Song Cave, 2021), Flung/Throne (Ahsahta, 2018), and BEAST FEAST (Ahsahta Press, 2014), as well as several chapbooks (Fonograf, flowers and cream, NION, garden door press, Auric).  Occasionally a visiting poetry professor at the Iowa Writers Workshop, they live in the Arkansas Ozarks alongside three loyal, sentient pets, and the continuous void.