The 2024 Blackout Poetry Challenge

This challenge is now closed.

This fall, Palette Poetry invites you to erase, highlight, blackout, and reimagine existing texts in order to create new poems. For ten days, from October 7 to 17, we will be open for submissions of blackout poetry. You may use any existing text, then submit either a typed version or high-resolution image of your erasure poetry. The Palette editors will select one winning poet to receive $500 and publication. Finalists will also be considered for publication.  

We hope you rise to the challenge during this spooky season and explore what lies in the in-between, the unspoken, and the blank spaces!

Some examples of blackout poetry include:

• Excerpts from “R E D” by Chase Berggrun
• “Hanoi Hilton” by Angela Tran Huynh
• Two Poems by Kiki Petrosino
• On Erasure: an essay by Leigh Sugar

Submission Guidelines: Please read carefully!

• For this challenge, please reinvent an existing text in order to create a new poem. Please include a note identifying the original text (though of course, it doesn’t have to be published—you might create blackout poetry of your diary entries, letters, shopping lists, et cetera).
• Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English—inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely written in English.
• DO NOT INCLUDE your name or identifying information in the document OR submission title box.
• We are only accepting unpublished work. If your erasure poem has been published elsewhere, even on a blog or on social media, it is not eligible.
• We accept simultaneous submissions—just please send us a note if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.
• Your submission must be no more than three poems and under ten pages. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. Please begin each poem on a new page and include each poem’s individual title.
• We do accept multiple submissions (of one to three poems apiece), but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.
• Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with your publication history, if any. This box is where you can include your name and/or bio! If you select the editorial feedback option, this cover letter is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on. To safeguard our reading staff, please include content warnings in the cover letter, if applicable, as well.
• Review our FAQ page for frequently asked questions.
• NOTE: If after submitting you notice an error in your submission, please message us rather than withdrawing and resubmitting your submission. We can open it to editing once so you can correct the error.
• Palette Poetry does not accept AI-produced work.
• Contest closes October 17, 2024. Submitters will be notified of their submission status 8-12 weeks after the contest closing date.

Included Unique Opportunities and Discounts

As a thank you for your support for Palette, we’d like to offer a 10% off discount code on a writing class from The Writing Salon. Find a class and use the code included in the confirmation message at checkout.

Editorial Feedback Option

This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The three-letter option costs $149 and will provide you with six pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions, from three separate guest editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and are all incredibly astute poets.