2021 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize

The Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize is awarded annually to an unpublished manuscript of original Anglophone poetry by an author of Asian heritage residing anywhere in the world. The winner receives book publication and USD1,000.00.

Past winners were The Experiment of The Tropics by Lawrence Lacambra Ypil and Autobiography of Horse by Jenifer Sang Eun Park, selected by Wong May; Play for Time by Paula Mendoza, selected by Vijay Seshadri; and Object Permanence by Nica Bengzon, selected by Cyril Wong. Take a look at our beautifully designed books here.

This year the prize judge is poetry scholar Dorothy Wang. Dorothy Wang is Professor and Chair of the American Studies Program at Williams College. Her book Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry (Stanford University Press, 2013) won the Association for Asian American Studies’ award for best book of literary criticism in 2016 and was chosen for The New Yorker‘s list of “The Books We Loved in 2016.” She also conceived of and co-founded the “Race and Poetry and Poetics in the UK” (RAPAPUK) research initiative, based in the UK.

Five finalists will be announced in July 2021, and the prizewinner in August 2021. The winning manuscript will be published in Spring 2022 by Gaudy Boy, an imprint of the NYC-based literary nonprofit Singapore Unbound.

Established in 2017, Gaudy Boy publishes poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction of extraordinary merit by Asian voices. Our name is taken from the poem “Gaudy Turnout” by Singaporean poet Arthur Yap about his time abroad in 1970s Leeds, UK. From the Latin “gaudium,” meaning joy, Gaudy Boy seeks to delight our readers with the various powers of art.

Requirements

1. The contest is open to emerging and established poets.

2. No proof of Asian heritage is required. As writers ourselves, we go by honor between writers.

3. Submit a 70–120-page unpublished manuscript of original poetry in English. Please number the pages of your manuscript. Include a title page, table of contents, and an acknowledgments page for any previously published poems.

4. Email Jee Leong Koh at jkoh@singaporeunbound.org with a brief cover letter in the body of your email and the poetry manuscript attached in PDF or MSWord format.

5. Your name, mailing address, and email address should not appear anywhere in the manuscript. Instead, they should be given in your cover letter in the body of your email.

6. Submit your entry fee USD10.00 at PayPal to Jee Leong Koh (jkoh@singaporeunbound.org). We cannot consider your manuscript until we receive your entry fee. Your entry fee helps us defray some, but not all, of the editorial costs. We have set the entry fee low so it will not be too much of a barrier for most people. Entry fees are nonrefundable.

7. You may submit more than one manuscript, but a separate entry fee must accompany each manuscript.

8. You may submit the manuscript elsewhere simultaneously, but you must notify Gaudy Boy immediately if your manuscript is accepted by another publisher.