This award honors the achievements of the great Dominican-American poet, translator, and public school teacher Rhina Polonia Espaillat. The Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award will be awarded for an original poem of not more than fifty lines that reflects her lyricism, empathy, and ability to find grace in everyday events of life without having to be explicitly religious.

The winning poet will receive a two thousand dollar award and the winning poem will be published in Plough Quarterly. In addition, two finalists will receive two hundred and fifty dollars as well as publication in Plough.

In contrast to most other poetry competitions, Plough will not contract out judging of this award to a prominent poet. Instead, Plough’s poetry editor, Jane Clark Scharl, will select approximately twenty poems for further consideration, and then the editors will reach a consensus on the winner and the two finalists.

We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.