For information about submitting to the Neville Dawes First Book Prize for Emerging Caribbean Poets, visit our Awards page.
Each year the Caribbean Poetry Book Series: Calabash publishes two to three books of poetry by Caribbean poets. These books feature some of the best new poetry written by Caribbean poets at various stages of their career.
In addition to publishing poetry collections by emerging and mid-career poets, we also publish new and selected volumes or collected volumes by major contemporary Caribbean poets. These volumes highlight the breadth and length of poets’ careers and contributions to world literature. The series seeks to redress the problem of accessibility to the work of some of Caribbean’s most gifted and accomplished poets.
All manuscripts will be reviewed by the editorial board.
When to Send
We accept unsolicited manuscripts of poetry for consideration from January 15th to March 15th through Submittable<insertlink>.
Manuscripts
Poetry manuscripts should be at least 50 pages long.
While we have no specific formatting rules, we suggest sending your manuscript in Times New Roman or Arial, 12-point font, single-spaced. We also prefer one poem per page, meaning a new poem does not begin on the same page on which another ends.
Translators must present documentation from the author or the author’s estate demonstrating that they have permission to translate and publish the work.
Proposals and Queries
We also welcome query letters and proposals for consideration by email to Siwar Masannat, Managing Editor, at siwar_masannat@brown.edu.
Proposals for collected volumes should include a brief biography of the poet whose work is to be collected and a brief biography of the editor, describe the contribution of the proposed book to Caribbean poetics and literature, and offer information regarding the state of the copyrights and the editor’s permission to republish the poems.