The 12th SUSPECT Poetry Contest
Deadline: June 30th, 2026
Awards: USD300, 200, and 100
No entry fee
The SUSPECT Poetry Contest returns in 2026 with its 12th iteration!
In conjunction with Gaudy Boy’s September 2026 publication of Mark Kyungsoo Bias’s MINOR DESTRUCTIONS (winner of the Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize), SUSPECT calls for poems that use BOTH words “minor” AND “destructions” or their variants in an imaginative fashion, together or separately. We want micro-stories of huge losses and macro-stories of tiny wreckages. We want deconstructed lyrics and lyrical deconstructions. We want the irreparable, except, perhaps, by art.
The contest is open to everyone.
Awards of USD300, 200, and 100 will go to the top three winners. The winning poems will be published in SUSPECT; non-winning poems will be considered for publication as well.
This year’s SUSPECT Poetry Contest judge is Mark Kyungsoo Bias, the author of the poetry collection Minor Destructions, winner of the 2025 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize and forthcoming in fall 2026. His work has been published in AGNI, New England Review, Gulf Coast, Georgia Review, Cero Magazine, The Adroit Journal, Narrative, The Common, Washington Square Review, and more. He is a recipient of scholarships and awards from Tin House, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Kundiman, and the Academy of American Poets. He holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he was a REAL Fellow. He currently lives in Seoul.
Friends and family of the judge are allowed to submit entries too. Judging will be based solely on poetic merit and the creative use of the words “minor” and “destructions.” We reserve the right not to make any or all awards, should the quality of entries not merit them.
Contest entry is free. Please submit a maximum of three poems. Only unpublished poems will be considered. Posting on weblog, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media does not constitute publication.
We require all submissions to include a clear statement of not having used GenAI in any stage of their creation; and in the very few instances where GenAI is allowed (please refer to our full GenAI policy), to transparently declare its usage. We will not consider any submissions without such a statement.
No simultaneous submissions, please. Email your submission to Jee at jkoh@singaporeunbound.org. The poem(s) must be pasted into the body of the email, together with a short cover letter giving your name, mailing address (including country of residence), and brief biographical note.
The deadline for submissions is June 30th, 2021. Results will be announced in August.
