This contest from Poetry Super Highway is a great opportunity for only $1 per poem to enter, especially since you can enter as many poems as you like. ALL of the entry fees go to the prize pool, and the prize money is not too shabby, usually in the hundreds! There are also several donated books, subscriptions, and such that will be distributed to other contest entrants. Their goal is to send something to everyone who enters! You might even win a copy of my most recent book, A Godless Ascends published by Lithic Press.

The best part is results will be announced and the winners will be published by the end of October. Entering is simple, complete the Entry Form, email your poems, and pay the entry fee.

This non-profit contest distributes all the entry fees to the winners (except shipping costs for the additional prizes):

• First Prize: 50% of the entry fees collected plus winning poem featured on the PSH
• Second Prize: 30% of the entry fees collected plus winning poem featured on the PSH.
• Third Prize: 20% of the entry fees collected plus winning poem featured on the PSH.

Meet Your Judges: Nancy Murphy, Salvatore Roseo, and Terri Niccum

For more information on what Poetry Super Highway is up to, see my interview with Rick Lupert below.

HOPKINSON: Tell me a little bit about Poetry Super Highway. 

LUPERT: Poetry Super is an online publication and resource for writers with a focus on poetry. We publish two poets every week chosen from email submissions, maintain a link directory of other poetry and writing sites, offer an annual poetry contest where everyone gets a prize just for entering (thanks to many generous sponsors), and other unique projects such as:

1) The Great Poetry Exchange – Authors offer to send a copy of their book to another randomly selected participant in exchange for receiving one.

2) The E-Book Free-For-All – Authors upload a pdf version of their book. All e-books are free to download for 24 hours.

3) A Prompt-A-Day – We publish a poetry writing prompt every day during National Poetry Month and encourage people to post the poems they write as comments to the prompt’s Facebook post. Prompts are chosen from reader submissions.

4) Annual Yom HaShoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day issue – We publish an extensive issue of poets responding to the events and issues of the Holocaust every year near Holocaust Remembrance Day.

5) PSH Live – An monthly live open reading conducted on Zoom and open to all.

HOPKINSON: How/why was Poetry Super Highway originally started? 

LUPERT: Back at the dawn of the internet, Poetry Super Highway started as a small section of my personal website. I thought that creating investment from website visitors would be key to having people return to a website so I put out a call for submissions to my poetry friends. Turns out people are eager for opportunities to share their work so it grew quickly and I realized this was a whole thing beyond my personal site and thus Poetry Super Highway as its own publication was born. The name “Poetry Super Highway” was a play on the early “Information Super Highway” internet moniker.

HOPKINSON: Who is your target reader audience? 

LUPERT: Humans (mostly.) Anyone interested in reading poetry including people who write poems and those who don’t.

HOPKINSON: What type of work are you looking for? 

LUPERT: Poetry Super Highway showcases a wide variety of work with no particular guidelines on what we’re looking for. That having been said if you peruse past issues you’ll get a sense of what kinds of work are typically published. Short work written with accessible language tends to go up quicker than other kinds of work. Form is welcome and does well when it’s not obvious that it’s work trying to fit in a form. Rhyming work is not typically published, especially if the rhyme is noticeable…but that’s not a rule and occasionally a rhyming piece goes up.

HOPKINSON: What do you wish you’d see submitted, but rarely comes in? 

LUPERT: A lot of submissions come in every week that cover quite a lot of ground in terms of content and style. So I’m not sure it would be accurate to say that anything in particular is rare in terms of what is submitted. I like humor and rule breaking, out of the box work that avoids cliche and classic poetry tropes. 

HOPKINSON: What are some of your favorite lit mags/journals?

LUPERT: I’m a an of the daily poem emails I get from Rattle, The Academy of American Poets and George Bilgere. The first two come every morning so I read two poems every day before getting out of bed. George Bilgere’s email comes at midnight (pacific) every day so I read at least one poem every day before going to bed. I find the sensibility of what is offered by these three to often be what I’m looking for in poems. Bonus points to Corey Mesler of Memphis’ historic Burke’s Books who sends out a poem every Monday as well.

HOPKINSON: What is your favorite part of being on staff with the Poetry Super Highway?

LUPERT: All the riches and fame that come with it. I’ve already built a solid gold sauna room with all the poetry money and enjoy, always, signing autographs as I’m recognized in the street as the famous Rick Lupert of Poetry Super Highway!

Besides that I enjoy that the weekly tasks involved with putting Poetry Super Highway, Haikuniverse and the Virtual Cobalt Poets reading series keep me automatically connected to and immersed with poetry.

HOPKINSON: Where can we send submissions? 

LUPERT: Poetry Super Highway Poet of the Week submissions, are done through an online form which can be found (along with detailed submission guidelines) at https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/poetry/submission-guidelines/

The currently running poetry contest also has a submission form and it’s own guidelines which can be found at https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/2025-poetry-contest/

HOPKINSON: If someone has a question, how can they contact you? 

LUPERT: Send me an email at Rick@PoetrySuperHighway.com

Click here to read complete guidelines.

ENTRY DEADLINE: September 27, 2025

POET OF THE WEEK: Always open, no submission fee

FORMAT: online

ENTRY FEE: $1/poem (enter as many as you like)

PRIZES: 

• First Prize: 50% of the entry fees collected plus winning poem featured on the PSH website.
• Second Prize: 30% of the entry fees collected plus winning poem featured on the PSH website.
• Third Prize: 20% of the entry fees collected plus winning poem featured on the PSH website.

In addition, contest sponsors Rolland Vasin and Lummox Productions have each donated $300 (total $600) which will be added to the prize poet divided by the three winning poets.  Also, thanks to the generosity of their sponsors, they are able to supplement the cash prizes with an impressive array of prizes which would be of interest to poets and writers. Their goal is to be able to send every single person who enters the contest something. See the list of donated prizes here.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED: October 12, 2:00pm (pacific): PSH Live Event: “Winners Announced” in a special broadcast. Listen to it live and if any of the winners happen to be listening, they’ll be invited to call in and read their winning entries live on the air.

ISSUE FREQUENCY: if applicable

Poet of the Week: Weekly

Contest: Annual Project – Winners are published in October.

AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME: 

Contest: Submission acknowledged usually within 24 hours. Winners announced, October 12, 2025

Poet of the Week: Rejection letters aren’t sent and submissions time out after 6 months if not used. Poets are notified the week before if their work will be published which is often 1-3 months after submission.

SUBMISSION METHOD: 

• Contest: Online form at https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/2025-poetry-contest/
• Poet of the Week: Online form at https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/poetry/submission-guidelines/

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: Contest: Simultaneous submissions are welcome and if a poem is published elsewhere AND is a winner in the contest, we will include a previously published credit if asked.

Poet of the Week: Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please notify immediately if a poem is selected elsewhere. Previously published in print also welcome (but not if published in an online journal.)

 FORMS: Poetry! (And there’s a very wide understanding of what that might mean.)

SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, Threads, YouTube

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