The Nag Tooth Prize for Poetry
Big News from Book of Matches!
In the spirit of celebrating our five year anniversary, Book of Matches Literary Journal is beyond thrilled to announce its first POETRY CONTEST: The Nag Tooth Prize for Poetry.
We could not be happier to celebrate and give back to a community that has continuously trusted our little hut with their excellent work. These past five years have reminded us how many truly remarkable humans we share our space with. Would that we could meet and celebrate every one of you.
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Contest Submissions accepted January 15th - April 8th, 2026.
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Free to submit. One Winner.
Prize: 100$ USD & Publication
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All submissions sent here: bookofmatcheslitmag@gmail.com
Rules:
1. Submitting to The Nag Tooth Prize for Poetry: NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS permitted, nor any work that has appeared previously online or in print in any manner in any language, nor work that is presently accepted for publication elsewhere and will therefore appear online or in print in any manner in any language in the future.
2. You may submit up to 3 pieces of poetry. We are not restricting page count. Have a glorious 10 page poem you think has what it takes? Submit. We like reading.
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3. All contest submissions will also be considered for general publication in Issue 17. Please do not submit the same pieces for both the contest and our general submissions.
4. Were you published in Issue 16? If no, skip this one. If yes, you may also submit to this contest. However, you still may NOT submit to the non-contest, general submissions in any genre for Issue 17.
5. If you were not published in Issue 16, you may submit to both the contest AND any other genres for general submissions for Issue 17. While simultaneous submissions are not allowed for The Nag Tooth Prize for Poetry, they are perfectly acceptable for general submissions. To differentiate the two submission types, you will simply title the subject line/s of your email/s differently. More on that below.
6. As with every Book of Matches issue, we will be blind reading submissions for this contest and all other general submissions. This means the work has no identifying information of any kind while being read and considered. We separate the work from the email, put it into a master file, and read from there.
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Please do NOT include any additional identifying information in your email or within your submission document. If identifying information is included in the body of your email or your work document/s, we will not read the submission.​
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Please attach your work as a .doc or .docx only. We will not read anything that must be downloaded from a third party space or drive. We will not read work sent via a link to a Google doc.
7. For contest submissions, you must follow this format for your email subject line: POETRY CONTEST: [Your Last Name]. For example: POETRY CONTEST: Wigglesworth. If you do not follow this format, your submission email will not be sorted, resulting in your work not being read.
8. For general submissions in any genre, you must follow our standard submission guidelines, including this format for your subject line: [Last Name]: [Genre]. For example: Wigglesworth: Poetry or Wigglesworth: Fiction or Wigglesworth: Creative Non-Fiction
9. As always, we highly suggest reading a previous issue (even 2!) before submitting to get an idea of what work speaks to us.