We are pleased to invite submissions for The Papers School Inaugural Poetry Chapbook Competition for original collections demonstrating a cohesive vision and experimentation with form.

The Prize:

The wining chapbook will be published online as a collection and featured in the upcoming issue of The Vanity Papers Oxford Literary Review. The winner will receive £100 (transferred through Stripe) The winning chapbook will be announced in the spring of 2026.

The Judges:

Jenny Lewis teaches poetry at the University of Oxford. She has published extensively, her collections include Fathom (Oxford Poets/ Carcanet, 2007), Taking Mesopotamia (Oxford Poets/ Carcanet, 2014), Gilgamesh Retold (Carcanet Classics, 2018) which was a New Statesman Book of the Year, an LRB Bookshop Book of the Week and Carcanet’s first audiobook; and From Base Materials (Carcanet, 2024). jennylewis.org.uk

How to Submit:

Manuscripts should be submitted as a single word document. Up to 40 pages. The entry fee is £10. There is no entry fee for members of academic institutions, submission to the competition is free when entered from a university email address. Submissions must be the poet’s own original work. Individual poems may have been published previously but the body of work must not have been previously published as a complete collection.

Deadline extended - Submissions now open until: 20th of February 2026.

Please find the submission form: here