The Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize


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The Robert Phillips Chapbook Prize

$500 + Publication

2023 Judge: Alison Pelegrin

Established in 2001, The Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize highlights one book a year that excels in the chapbook format. The Prize comes with $500, a standard royalty contract, and 10 copies of the published book.

Submissions open each year on January 1 and close on March 31.

Guidelines, Submissions, and List of Previous Winners

Winner of the 2023 Robert Phillips Chapbook Prize:

Dumb Luck, by Christine Kitano

Selected by Alison Pelegrin


Submission Guidelines

To submit please visit our online submission manager.

General Guidelines

*Writers who studied with TRP staff or the final judge for a semester-length period are not eligible. Writers who studied with TRP staff or the final judge for two-week residencies, single workshops, or other instances less than a semester in length are eligible, provided the work submitted is previously unseen by TRP staff or the final judge.

Manuscript Guidelines


Alison Pelegrin

Alison Pelegrin photoAlison Pelegrin is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Waterlines and Our Lady of Bewilderment, both with LSU Press. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Louisiana Board of Regents, her poems are published widely. Pelegrin is Writer in Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University. 


Robert Phillips

Robert Phillips (1938-2022), for whom this competition is named, is the author or editor of over thirty volumes of poetry, fiction, and criticism. His honors include a Pushcart Prize, an American Academy and Institute of Arts Letters Award in Literature, a New York State Council on the Arts CAPS Grant in Poetry, MacDowell Colony and Yaddo Fellowships, a National Public Radio Syndicated Fiction Project Award, a Syracuse University Arents Pioneer Medal, and Texas Institute of Letters membership.


Previous Winners:

2023: Christine Kitano – Dumb Luck

2022: J. L. Conrad – Recovery

2021: Marisa Tirado – Selena Didn't Know Spanish Either

2020: Elizabeth Murawski  Still Life with Timex

2019: Thomas Nguyen  Permutations of a Self

2018: Gregory Byrd – The Name for the God Who Speaks 

2017: Evana Bodiker – Ephemera

2016: Mark Schneider – How Many Faces Do You Have?

2015: Loueva Smith  Consequences of a Moonless Night 

2014: J. Scott Brownlee – Ascension

2013: Harold Whit Williams – Backmasking

2012: David Lanier – Lost and Found

2011: John PopielaskiIsn’t It Romantic?

2010: Ingrid Browning Moody – Learning About Fire

2009: David Havird – Penelope’s Design

2008: Rebecca Foust – Mom’s Canoe

2007: Rebecca Foust – Dark Card

2006: Lisa HammondMoving House

2005: Taylor GrahamThe Downstairs Dance Floor

2004: Kevin Meaux – Myths of Electricity

2003: Ann Killough – Sinners in the Hands: Selections from the Catalog

2002: Nancy Naomi Carlson – Complications of the Heart

2001: William Notter – More Space Than Anyone Can Stand