Submissions to the 2026 Oxford Poetry Prize close at the end of this month – at midnight UTC on 31 August. The prize is awarded annually by Oxford Poetry for a single unpublished poem and is open to poets writing in English around the world. This year there is £3,500 in prizes and our guest judge is Rowan Ricardo Phillips. The winner of the 2026 Oxford Poetry Prize will receive £2,000, the runner-up £1,000, and the second runner-up £500. All prize-winning poets are also offered publication in the print magazine Oxford Poetry. This year’s competition opened on 1 May and will close on 31 August 2026. Read the full T&Cs here.
ROWAN RICARDO PHILLIPS is the author of Silver and Living Weapon, both published by Faber. He is poetry editor of The New Republic and editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. He is Presidential and Distinguished Professor of English at Stony Brook University, and lives in New York and Barcelona. Read a poem by our judge:
Read prize-winning poems from previous years:
You’re currently a free subscriber to Oxford Poetry’s Substack. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
© 2026 Partus Press Ltd |
