Translation Prize Deadline: November 8, 2025
Submissions to the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation are now open! Daniel Borzutzky will select one manuscript to win $1,500 and publication through the University of Wisconsin Press. Translators or original authors are invited to submit a full-length collection of poetry translated into English. Applicants will be asked to confirm they have permission for English translation and publication of the work, by its author(s) and the executor(s) of any active copyright(s). Submissions must be accompanied by a $28 reading fee.
Manuscript Requirements:
- For the Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation, the name of the translator and original author should appear on the title page of the document. Please assemble a single pdf including a title/author page, a table of contents, the manuscript poems, 50-to-250-word bios for each original author and translator, a project statement up to 500 words in length, and (optionally) an acknowledgments page listing any magazines or journals where the submitted translations may have first appeared. Manuscripts must include each poem in both its original language and in English translation, comprising 75 to 150 total pages in length, on 8.5" x 11" pdf pages.
This Year's Judge:
Daniel Borzutzky is a poet and Spanish-language translator from Chicago. His most recent books are The Murmuring Grief of the Americas (2024), and Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018 (2021). His 2016 collection, The Performance of Becoming Human, received the National Book Award. Lake Michigan (2018) was a finalist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize. His most recent translations are Cecilia Vicuña’s The Deer Book (2024); and Paula Ilabaca Nuñez’s The Loose Pearl (2022), winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. His translation of Galo Ghigliotto's Valdivia received the American Literary Translator’s Association’s 2017 National Translation Award, and he has also translated collections by Raúl Zurita, and Jaime Luis Huenún. He teaches in English and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Please upload a book-length collection of poetry translated into English, in pdf format. The translations submitted must be previously unpublished in book form. The manuscript must include each poem in its original language, as well as in translation, and should be no fewer than 75 and no more than 250 pages in length.
As part of your application, you will be asked to confirm that permission has been granted to the translator(s) of this book for English translation and publication of the original text, by its original author(s) and the executor(s) of any active copyright(s). Alternately, you may declare that the translator(s) hold the rights to the translations because the original text is in the public domain.
Your manuscript should be formatted as specified below. Please be sure both the name of the translator(s) and the original author(s) appear on the title page of the manuscript. You will be asked to pay a $28 entry fee, by credit card.
The winner will be announced no later than February 15, 2026, receiving $1,500 shortly thereafter. The winning manuscript will be published in the spring of 2027. Manuscripts that do not win the prize may still be considered for publication and inclusion in the Wisconsin Poetry Series.
Your manuscript should include the following:
- A simple title page, which should include the names of the original author(s) and translator(s).
- A table of contents, with accurate page numbers indicated.
- 75 to 250 pages of poetry (including both the poems in their original language, and in English translation), with numbered pages.
- A biography page, including 50-to-250-word bios for each author and translator.
- A book description that addresses the project's historical, cultural, and/or artistic significance.
- An acknowledgments page (optional, if any of the poems have appeared previously in journals or magazines).