Literary Magazine
Poetry Contest Submission Guidelines
Many Nice Donkeys is thrilled to read your submission for our very first Poetry Contest, judged by Felicia Zamora! The top ten poems selected are guaranteed publication in a special spring contest edition of Many Nice Donkeys, and the winner will receive a cash prize of $50. We may also publish additional pieces that give us a hard time with our decisions.
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We are interested in unpublished poetry of all sorts. We welcome the literary, the weird, the disobedient, and the avant-garde. Send us poems that make claims we can’t stop chewing on and which reframe the ordinary. The submission fee is $10, which supports our contest expenses, as well as webhosting and community event costs. We remain an all-volunteer publication.
Contest Submission Window: February 1 - February 28, 2026
Please review the guidelines below in full before sending us your submission. Please also note that submissions which do not adhere to our guidelines (for example: more than 3 poems in a single submission) will be deleted, unread, and submission fees will NOT be refunded. Revisions or swaps will not be permitted; contest submissions are considered final.
Format
Send up to 3 poems, but no more than 5 total pages of poetry, in a single document per submission. Each poem should start a new page. Please also note that we are unlikely to select rhyming poems and poems that are center aligned. You may send multiple submissions, though each submission packet will incur a $10 submission fee. However, please note that no more than one poem per poet will be eligible to move to the short list (Top Ten).
We currently do blind reads at MND. Your name should appear only in two places - this submission form, and in your PayPal payment. Please do not include your name or contact information anywhere in your actual submission documents.
We ask that you use standard fonts like Times New Roman or Garamond and submit .doc or .docx files. Please follow the format guidelines above unless a .pdf is necessary in maintaining the shape of a poem. We STRONGLY prefer .doc or .docx.
The name of your document and your submission title should both be the title of the first piece that appears in the submission. ​
Simultaneous
Submissions and Previously Published Work
Simultaneous submissions are welcome. We ask that you let us know as soon as possible by sending us a follow up email if any of your work is accepted elsewhere (be sure to specify which piece(s) if you have submitted multiple).
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Previously published work is NOT acceptable. This includes any work that was self-published on a personal blog or website, in addition to traditional publishing. We also prefer to avoid any work that is already slotted for future publication in a chapbook or collection.
Citizenship
We welcome you to challenge us but remember: if you are an ass you must be a nice one. Racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, sexism, etc. have no home here. Should you send work containing/perpetuating intolerance or hate, our barn doors will close on you quickly.
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Rights
Many Nice Donkeys acquires first serial rights. Following publication, all rights revert back to the writer.
AI
Please do not submit work that was generated by ChatGPT or any other artificial intelligence tool. We want the work you share with us to be written by you.
Response
You will receive a confirmation email when you submit this form. If you do not, check your Spam and be sure to add manynicedonkeys@gmail.com to your contacts!
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Please do not inquire about the status of your submission. Our short-list and winner will be announced in April. Our winner and Top Ten, as well as any additional submissions we would like to publish, will receive outreach directly from us via email. Results will also be published on social media.
Submission Payment
Payment is accepted via PayPal. Please use the QR Code below, OR go to paypal.me/ManyNiceDonkeys to send the $10 contest fee. Please be sure to include both your name as it appears on your submission, AND the title of your submission file. This is VERY important.
MEET OUR JUDGE
Felicia Zamora is the author of eight books of poetry include Murmuration Archives (Akrilica Series, Noemi Press 2026), Interstitial Archaeology (Wisconsin Poetry Series 2025), I Always Carry My Bones (Iowa Poetry Prize/Ohioana Book Award - Poetry), and Body of Render (Benjamin Saltman Award winner). She’s won the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, C.P. Cavafy Prize, Tomaž Šalamun Prize, Wabash Prize, and two Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards as well as received fellowships and residencies from CantoMundo, Ragdale Foundation, Tin House, and Yaddo. Her poems appear in American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Boston Review, Ecotone, The Kenyon Review, The Nation, Orion, Ploughshares, Poetry Magazine, West Branch, and others. She is an associate professor of poetry at the University of Cincinnati and a poetry editor for Colorado Review.