Featured Contest

2021 Haiku Book Contest: Now open for submissions!

The 2021 Backbone Press Haiku Book Contest is open for submissions. Poets in the Continental US. Poets and Canada with or without previously published books of haiku are welcome to submit. A prize of $100 and 20 author copies will be awarded to one winner. A submission of 40-60 haiku via our Submittable Page is recommended. The author’s name and contact information must be omitted from the manuscript. A fee of $20 per submission is required and multiple submissions are permitted. Previous winner, Susan Antolin, will judge. Deadline is December 21st.

2020 Winner and 2021 Judge:

In The Years That Went Missing, Susan Antolin digs deeply into herself and her experience to carry readers through life’s seasons. Each poem contributes its own narrative tension as the book explores an undercurrent of medical and personal challenges — years that seemingly interrupted a professional career. The poems are consistently engaging while being honest and forthright, reaching, at last, for a reset button. We may be relieved to be done with the missing years, but value them also.