The 10th Annual William D. Barney Memorial Chapbook Contest:
The William D. Barney Memorial Chapbook Contest honors the Fort Worth poet William D. Barney (1916-2021). He was one of the most distinguished poets Fort Worth has produced, a former member of FWPS, and past president of the Poetry Society of Texas. He won the national Robert Frost Award, awarded by Frost himself, in 1961 and was Texas Poet Laureate in 1982-83.
The winner of this contest will receive $200 (upped from the $50 prize of previous years) plus publication and 10 free copies of their winning chapbook.
This contest is opens for entries from January 1st to March 1st annually. Entrants must be Texas residents and/or active PST members. Members of the Fort Worth Poetry Society cannot submit an entry to this contest. The judge will not be a member of the Fort Worth Poetry Society. All entries are read blind.
***NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS.***
About the Judge:
Lauren Kalstad is a poet, professor, and essayist. Her work has appeared in New Orleans Review, Rogue Agent, World Literature Today, and The Southeast Review, where she was recently nominated for Best of the Net. Her first collection, Ghost Feathers, was a finalist for the Louise Bogan award from Trio House Press and a semifinalist for the Airlie Prize. She received her MFA from New York University and currently teaches at the University of North Texas. Kalstad is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and lives in Dallas with her husband & daughter.
Guidelines below:
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Previous Chapbook Contest Winners Include:
2025: Immanuel A. Garcia, Purple-Eyed Heirlooms
2024: Susan Maxwell Campbell, Just Looking
2023: Diane Glancy, Jawbone
2022: Eric Blanchard, Beware of Poet
2021: Loretta Diane Walker, From the Cow’s Eye and Other Poems
2020: Catherine L’Herisson, Limping Mermaid
2019: Robert Schinzel: Westbound 380: A Highway Through Time
2018: J. Todd Hawkins, What Happens When We Leave
2017: Anne Howells, Softly Beating Wings
2016: Budd Powell Mahan, Names in a Book
The Poetry Contest:
Texas Poetry Society offers 100 Annual Poetry Contests (many with cash prizes) which are sponsored by local poetry society chapters of PST. First place poems are published in PST’s annual publication, A Book of the Year.
The Fort Worth Poetry Society sponsor’s contest #39:
- * The Derry Tutt Memorial Award – $75.00 Offered by the Fort Worth Poetry Society, a Chapter of PST, for the best poem on Nature. Any form. 28 lines or less.
For more details, complete guidelines and the full list of PST Contests, click here.
Our 2025 contest was judged by FWPS member Amanda Russell. The winning poem was “last-minute trek” by Corbett Buchly.