2026 Poetry Contest ($1,500) - Judged by George Bilgere
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You may submit up to 6 single-spaced pages of poetry per submission entry.
Submissions for this contest are "concealed." Please exclude your contact information—including name, email address, and mailing address—from your actual submission.
$1,500 Prize and publication in New Ohio Review 37 or 38. Pieces that are not selected will still be considered for publication. (Customarily, we publish 30-40 poems that were originally submitted as contest entries.) Entry fee comes with two print issues.
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George Bilgere came into national prominence in 2002 when then U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins chose his collection of poems, The Good Kiss, to win the University of Akron Poetry Prize. Collins then named Bilgere one of two Witter Bynner Fellows for 2002 and invited him to read at the Library of Congress. In 2006 Ed Field chose his book, Haywire, to win the prestigious May Swenson Poetry Award, and radio host Garrison Keillor began reading Bilgere’s poems on his daily National Public Radio broadcast, The Writer’s Almanac. The popularity of Bilgere’s poems on the show led to an appearance on Keillor’s long-running NPR radio show, A Prairie Home Companion.
Bilgere’s many honors include the 2022 Readers’ Choice Award from Rattle Magazine and the 2021 Editor’s Choice Award from New Ohio Review. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Pushcart Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation through the Library of Congress. He has won the May Swenson Poetry Award, the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize, the Devins Award, the University of Akron Poetry Prize, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and the 2023 Rattle Chapbook Prize.
His poems have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, New Ohio Review, Field, Georgia Review, Southern Review, Sewanee Review, Ploughshares, New England Review, and elsewhere.
Bilgere is Distinguished Professor of English at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he lives with his lovely wife and two fine little boys.