Skip to Content

The International Metatron Poetry Prize Metatron Press (Gold Star Program) Gold Star


Get your poetry manuscripts polished up! Metatron Press is ecstatic to announce that our beloved Metatron Prize is officially back after a hiatus. Our sixth edition of The International Metatron Poetry Prize (formerly The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors) for full-length poetry manuscripts opens on July 21, 2024 and closes on September 17, 2024.

1ST PLACE
$777 advance, Metatron publishing contract, 25 author copies (worth $450), international distribution + publicity

8 FINALISTS
Featured in a Metatron Prize special feature in 2025

All submissions will automatically be entered into our raffle. $100 gift certificates will be awarded to 3 randomly-selected winners, which will be announced alongside the winner of the prize in Spring 2025.

This year our judge is none other than Nigerian-American artist and poet, Precious Okoyomon! They join a rich history of guest judges, including Fariha Roísín, Marlowe Granados, CAConrad and Anne Boyer.

Precious Okoyomon (B. 1993) is a Nigerian-American poet and artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Their work considers the natural world, histories of migration and racialization, and the pure pleasures of everyday life. In their practice, organic materials serve a dual purpose: they remind us of our violent histories but also celebrate nature’s ability to adapt and flourish in the face of man-made crises. If their work continually asks us to listen to the natural world, it also contains warnings of what might happen should we fail to act.

They have had institutional solo exhibitions at the LUMA Westbau in Zurich (2018), the Museum Für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2020), Performance Space New York (2021), the Aspen Art Museum (2021-2022), and the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Madrid Foundation (2024). They were included in the Thailand Biennial (2024), the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), the Okayama Art Summit (2022), the 58th Belgrade Biennial (2021) as well as group exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021), and Luma Arles, France (2021). Major performances have been commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries, London (2019) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2019). Their second book But Did U Die? will be co-published by the Serpentine and Wonder Press in 2024.

METATRON PRESS + THE METATRON PRIZE

Metatron Press of Montréal [is] one of the great small presses making this present moment a surprisingly exciting one for poetry. — Los Angeles Review of Books

Metatron Press is an award-winning literary publisher based in Montréal, Quebec that specializes in publishing strange and moving books of poetry, fiction, and hybrid texts by rising authors as well as curating various literary projects and events.

Since 2014, Metatron has published beautifully designed books from a new generation of writers who re-imagine the possibilities of language and reshape the way we think and connect. While we are known for our queer, edgy, forward-thinking, and community-centered approach to poetry, we also publish award-winning novellas, hybrid works, short story collections, ebooks, and audiobooks.

The Metatron Prize was founded in 2015 as a means to discover and support more writers outside of our publishing program in Canada and has contributed to six fantastic debut collections:

The Choice Is Real by Jayson Keery (USA)
Little Fury by Casey Bell (USA)
bédayine by Kaitlyn Purcell (Canada)
number one earth by jasper avery (USA)
Soft Focus by Sarah Jean Grimm (USA)
Pony Castle by Sofia Banzhaf (Canada)

We have also published a vast array of titles that we have discovered and fallen in love with during the reading for the Prize.

Edition VI (2024-2025)

Temp Closed

SUBMISSIONS DETAILS

  • Submissions will be accepted through the full moon of July 21, 2024 until the full moon on September 17, 2024.
  • The winning book will be announced in May of 2025 and published in Fall/Winter 2025.
  • Prize money is in Canadian Dollars.

Eligibility

  • The call is open to writers at any stage of their career.
  • The International Metatron Poetry Prize is open to applicants any and everywhere in the world.

Simultaneous Submissions

  • Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but should the manuscript be accepted for publication elsewhere, we ask that you notify us as soon as possible and withdraw your application.

Format and Guidelines

  • Please submit a manuscript of 40 pages or more of original work.
  • While excerpts from the manuscript may have been previously published (as chapbooks, online, or in journals and anthologies, for instance), the manuscript as a whole should reflect a new and unpublished work.
  • Your manuscript may include visual art and illustrations.
  • Collaborations are accepted.
  • While experimental approaches to translation will be considered, one-to-one translations of another author’s writing are not eligible.
  • Our submission review process is not anonymous. Your manuscript should include: page numbers, a title page, a table of contents, and acknowledgements of previous publication, if applicable. Please also include a one-paragraph biographical statement in the submission form. You will not have the opportunity to make any edits or revisions to your manuscript once it has been submitted. The winning author will have time to revise the manuscript once it has been accepted.

How to Submit

  • Please submit online using our Duosuma profile.
  • No hard copies accepted.
  • There is an entry fee of $30 CAD. The submission fee assists our small press support publishing costs and writer honoraria.

To Request a Waiver

  • UPDATE: All fee waivers have been claimed.
  • We recognize that not everyone can afford this expense at this time, and are committed to making this call as accessible as possible. We are offering 10 fee waivers if this expense presents a hardship for you.

You can write us at [email protected] with any questions about your eligibility or the application process.

Other Related Projects

Digital Publications
Micro-Meta Poems
Micro-Meta Series Editor