Full Details on the “Year of the Sestina” submission call
Revised Saturday, may 10, 2025One
Primary sestina contest:
Please submit one sestina by December 1, 2024. The top three poets will receive 100$ dollars and Fish will select one to submit a narration to a poetry music video consisting of landscape shots and original electronic music.
Please submit 1 (one) sestina as a PDF or RTF. Do not include visual art or other poems. We are not accepting simultaneous submissions for this contest. B.H.L.M is running contests and anthologies this year with a focus on ESL learner poetry and tutoring online and in person. We are also creating paid and free portfolios for our founding artists and writers, including Yeyduh K./Fish, Gideon Rodrigo or @wompod.
In your submission, please include a brief (one paragraph) cover letter. Please also include whether you prefer payment over Venmo, Paypal, or CashApp. Paypal is preferred for international applicants. We can also mail a check. Do not send your payment info in your submission email, or it will be rejected.
The top three poets will receive 100$ dollars and Fish will select one to submit a narration to a poetry music video consisting of landscape shots and original electronic music.
Upon first publication of the #2 and #3 sestinas, all relevant rights shall revert back to the poet.
Upon first publication of either or both of the #1 sestina and its potential “Poetry Music Video”, all relevant rights shall revert to the poet. We do not ask for anthology or reprint writes for this writing contest.
If said poet declines the “Poetry Music Video”, which shall not feature any actors or extraneous human audio other than a sample/s, Fish will select from ten random submissions, not from the second and third place winners.
B.H.L.M will thus focus on the sestina for craft this year. Fish has never completed one.
TECHNICAL NOTE ON OUR SUBMISSIONS PROCESS, USING LEGAL NAMES
B.H.L.M does not commit to a full anonymous or “blind” reading process, and also does not commit to the inclusion of more than two (2) interns to prune the overall submission load to 10% per final selection by Ms. Kleiner.
Should submission volume necessitate, Ms. Kleiner will designate two readers to reduce the overall submission load to between 10 and 20 percent, then remove all identifying info from the remaining sestinas. Otherwise, Ms. Kleiner will consider the poems herself. If overall submission volume exceeds 300 sestinas at any time, Ms. Kleiner is likely to invoke this clause.
Ms. Kleiner believes this is a reasonable compromise between ignoring the biographies of poets, which tends to dis-favor new, international, and non-academic poets, and including them.
B.H.L.M will notify all submitters at the conclusion of the submission period, December 1, as to whether volume necessitates additional readers. Until then, Ms. Kleiner may correspond or answer questions with poets, but any transmission of an original sestina to her above B.H.L.M email shall constitute a submission. She will conduct lessons on this form in the meantime.
All sestina submissions and inquiries to:
Full legal details for the Year of the Sestina writing contest
Legal Details for “Year of the Sestina” primary writing contest
Submissions policy for “Year of the Sestina” cash prize:
A: 1 poem per poet
B: submit a .PDF or .RTF of your poem once submissions open on April 1.
(the prior submission call listed May 1, Fish, as CFO and current literary editor of B.H.L.M, decided to open them formally to field questions and receive already finished sestinas)
C: B.H.L.M will retain no rights to the sestina upon publication. This means the second and third place winners shall immediately receive all rights to their poems upon publication, but the “winning poet” will not. The winning poet may cancel or decline the Poetry Music Video with original electronic music, and they are responsible for providing a professional level recording - hi fi or lo fi - of their poem in a timely manner by any reader. All three poems will be published at once in written form.
D: payment is 100$ cash prize transmitted via Venmo, Paypal, CashApp, or, least preferred, Zelle. The raw payment is $125 to cover fees. The top three poets may claim this prize, the number one winner of the contest, selected by Fish, may submit an audio narration or designate a free narrator of their choice, not including B.H.L.M staff, to accompany a freely released “poetry music video” produced and scored by B.H.L.M staff. If the winner declines said offer, B.H.L.M reserves the right to not produce a “poetry music video” or produce one from an otherwise publicly unknown sestina not in the top three.
E: formal submissions shall be over a gmail address not registered to our domain beginning May 1.
F: submissions shall close December 1, 2025.
G: Three winners shall be announced, published, and monetarily compensated no later than March 1, 2025.
H: B.H.L.M will endeavor to complete the “poetry music video” unpaid by September 1, 2026. This is a fallback legal date in the event of an injury or medical concerns for the “winning poet” or production team, the actual shooting and scoring process are expected to take a month in parallel, and not be conducted by Fish.
I: the entire contest shall conclude and any produced video released by September 2, 2026.
J: MODIFIED MAY 10, 2025: B.H.L.M has departed all age gated platforms. The winning poem with it’s music video shall be published on Instagram, Youtube, and as dedicated video on this platform.