The Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize
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
- A fee of $20 must be paid at the time of submission.
- Open to any poet writing in English. Translations are not eligible.
- Poems may have been published individually in magazines or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.
- Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify TRP immediately by withdrawing the manuscript via Submittable if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
- Current and former students and faculty of Sam Houston State University are not eligible.
- Family and current or former students* of the final judge or TRP staff are not eligible.
- Current and former TRP authors are not eligible.
- Submitters must be 18+ years of age.
- Submissions are accepted through Submittable only.
- Winner will receive a $500 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 10 copies of the published book.
*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
- Manuscripts may be no longer than 40 pages.
- Please include a table of contents, title page, and page numbers.
- Do not include an acknowledgments page.
- No more than one poem per page.
- Submissions are judged on an anonymous basis. Please remove any identifying information from the manuscript.
- Submit as a .pdf, .docx, or .doc file format.
- No revisions will be accepted once the manuscript is uploaded.
Alison Pelegrin
Alison 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 Popielaski – Isn’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 Hammond – Moving House
2005: Taylor Graham - The 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