February 2026 Prose poem competition announcement
We are delighted to announce our upcoming Prose Poem Competition, inviting writers to craft a poetic, positive story about someone or something they love — a piece that brings joy, happiness, and inspiration to the page. Your entry should flow like poetry while telling a meaningful story with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
This is your chance to celebrate the people you love and the memories that light up your world. The competition starts today (so submit your entries) and closes on 1st March 2026.
Plus, this month, we have a judge, named Mary Cappelli her profile is Cappelli, MFA, JD, PhD. She will read your work from now.
Prizes will be awarded for first through fifth place, alongside fifteen runners-up, all of whom will be published in The Lark’s upcoming anthology. Even more beautifully, this book will be donated to a leading charity chosen through a special community competition next month, to be announced in our next newsletter on 1st March 2026 — giving your words the power to uplift, connect, and create real-world impact. We can’t wait to read the stories that bloom from your hearts.
What is a Prose Poem?
A prose poem is like a short story in that it’s written in sentences and paragraphs, but instead of focusing on plot and structure, it focuses on mood, imagery, and emotion. It doesn’t use poetic lines or line breaks — instead, the “poetry” lives inside the language itself through metaphor, rhythm, symbolism, and feeling. Therefore, a prose poem is mainly about how it feels, and a short story is mainly about what happens.
For example, here are some prose poems written by Charles Baudelaire that you can look at, and they will help you write one:
Prose Poem Competition — Rules & Guidelines
To ensure fairness and consistency, all entrants must follow the rules below:
- All entries must include the word COMPETITION in the subtitle and in the tagged area of the topics. Submissions without this will not be entered.
- All prose poems must be written in poetic story form, with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
- Entries must not focus on a charity or charitable organisation.
- Submissions must centre on a person, a thing, or an occasion where happiness, joy, and inspiration were experienced with love. Therefore, you can write about a person you love, an item you love, or an occasion that you loved and inspired you in some way. Be creative with your story. Even the perfect day you loved has a significant history, ie, a wedding, a loving, memorable occasion, or a story about someone you greatly admire that brings joy and love into your life. All stories must come from the heart.
- All entries must be between 100 and 500 words. Pieces outside this word count will be disqualified.
- The poetic story must maintain a positive, uplifting tone and not have a negative message.
- All prose poem stories must have a start, middle, and end.
- Plus, we will pick one of our writers to judge this competition alongside my team and me, so now is your chance to shine because we will be picking someone soon.
- If you are not a writer for The Lark Publication, then you cannot enter this competition. However, you can write to us and ask if you can be added as a writer because you want to enter our competition, but you must first write at least two poems with us before you can enter any of our competitions. But please note: At the moment, we have a list of writers waiting to join our publication, so we cannot guarantee how long it will take.
- Please note: only one entry per person is allowed.
- The last entry date will be 28th February 2026.
- Finally, please put some love into your writing.
We encourage writers to let their creativity flow while honoring these guidelines, allowing their words to shine with warmth, sincerity, and heart. So, all prose-poems should show love and happiness.
Thank you so much for reading.
Best wishes and kindness in your writing…
From
The Editor & The Lark Publication Team.
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