The Voices Israel Group of Poets

in English

Reuben Rose International Competition

Voices Israel holds an annual competition in memory of Reuben Rose, the founding editor. Submissions are invited from members and non-members alike, living anywhere, and are judged by a panel of three independent judges. Cash prizes totaling $700 are awarded as well as publication of the winning poems and Honorable Mentions.  

The competition usually opens for submissions in mid-July of each year and the submission period runs for three months, until mid-October of that year.  We are usually able to announce the results in the first half of December of that year. 


The competition is now closed for submissions. It will next open on July 15, 2023. 

Please scroll down to see the rules and, during the submission period, a button to enter the competition.

Prizes

First prize $500, second prize $150, third prize $50.  Ten honorable mentions are awarded. 


Prizewinners and all honorable mentions are published in the Voices Israel Poetry Anthology of the following year (e.g. winners and honorable mentions of the 2022 competition will be published in the 2023 Anthology).    Online versions of the winning poems are also posted here on our website. They can be accessed by year from the top menu, above, or by clicking here.

Please note: Poems published on this Voices Israel website and files linked to it, including in our newsletters, competition announcements, and workshop chapbooks, are sole copyright of the poets themselves. Voices Israel expressly does not give permission for reproduction or syndication elsewhere without the poets' written permission.

The 2022 Competition

The judges for the 2022 competition were:

  • Yiskah Rosenfeld - the 2021 First Prize winner.
  • Reuven Goldfarb - winner of an Honorable Mention in the 2021 competition.
  • Yehoshua November - International Judge for 2022.

Yehoshua November is the author of the poetry collections God's Optimism (a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize and winner of the MSR Book Award) and Two Worlds Exist (which won the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the Autumn House Poetry Prize, and the Tampa Review Prize for Poetry). His work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Sun, VQR, and on National Public Radio and On Being Poetry's Unbound series. His poetry has been nominated for two Pushcart prizes. He has in the past taught creative writing at Rutgers University.  He belongs to Chabad and lives in New Jersey.

Requirements for Entries

Anyone, anywhere may submit.

 

Line limit per poem: 41 lines, including any stanza breaks, dedication, epigraph, etc., but not including the title.  Lines that are too long to fit on one page line using a standard 12-pt font will be counted as two lines.


Please do not use unconventional formatting (such as tilting words, inserting symbols, mixing font sizes, etc.).


We do not accept illustrations. Any included with the submitted poems will be discarded.


Poems must be in English and previously unpublished, in print or online, and  must remain unpublished until the list of winners is e-mailed to the entrants. Inclusion in the monthly Voices Israel newsletter or in a chapbook from Voices Israel workshops is not considered publication.


Poems are judged anonymously - without the poets’ names.  Please make sure that your name appears only on the Submission page, not anywhere in the file you send or in the file's name. Failure to observe this rule may result in your inability to enter the competition.


No poet may win more than one prize or Honorable Mention in the same year's competition - i.e. among the 13 winners, no poet will be included more than once.


We retain a non-exclusive right to publish and republish the winning poems and honorable mentions in all media, while the poet retains copyright and can also republish after the winners are announced.

Submission Procedure

All poems must be submitted and entry fees paid via the online submissions service, Submittable.  If you find you are unable to use the Submittable.com website, please write to reubenrosepoetrycompetition@gmail.com.

Entry Fees

US$6.00 for 1 poem

US$12.00 for 3 poems
US$18.00 for 6 poems.

A button linking to the entry form on Submittable will appear here when the submission period is next open.