The Rattle Chapbook Prize (edition 2026)

Written By Benne van der Velde

I’ve entered mine! Like I did last year. Why, do you ask? It is the most prestigious one out there I could find. With an unmatched possible exposure. It’s like buying a lottery ticket, with virtually no chance in hells to win the jackpot, DUH, but sending your work in anyways at least allows you to dream on :) In their own words:

Rattle Chapbook Prize

We’ve always loved chapbooks for their brevity and intensity. At a few dozen pages, a great chapbook is the perfect reading experience for the 21st century—not too long, not too short: They’re the Goldilocks zone of the poetry world. So we wanted to do for chapbooks what we’ve done for poems with the Rattle Poetry Prize—provide a fair, fun, and friendly way to make the most of what they offer. The idea for this project came from our conversation with Jan Heller Levi, where she described how the Walt Whitman Award launched her career: “It was wonderful, but it was also a bad introduction to the world of poetry publishing. [Fox laughs] As if every publisher is going to send out 5,000 copies and your book will be everywhere.” Every publisher can’t do that—but Rattle can.

While most chapbook contests offer maybe $500 and 25 copies of your chapbook, we’re going to give a few poets something special. Every year, three winners will receive:

$5,000.

500 copies.

Distribution to Rattle’s 8,000+ subscribers.

In a world where a bestselling full-length poetry book means 1,000 copies sold, the winners will reach an audience more than seven times as large on the first day alone—an audience that includes hundreds of other literary magazines, presses, and well-known poets. This will be a chapbook to launch a career.

And maybe the best part is this: Every Rattle subscriber will receive a copy of each winning chapbook. Beginning in 2018, each quarterly issue of Rattle includes a bonus chapbook delivered to every subscriber, most of which being selected through this annual competition. Visit the Rattle Chapbook Series page for a full list of selections.

 

DEADLINE:
January 15th (11:59 p.m. EST)

Information


Code of Ethics

Winners

2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016


So. Yeah. Sure sounds jackpotty to me! Wanna have a go yourself? Let’s dream together. Here are the Guidelines.

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Benne van der Velde

After thoroughly enjoying the Dutch slam poetry scene in the early and mid 2000s (with wins in 7 cities and eventually a place in the Nationals of 2012) and performances at the Lowlands-, Uitmarkt- and Parade festivals a/o, Benne successfully made the transition from the stage to paper by signing his first publishing deal in 2005. Since then 4 publishing houses (kleine Uil, Douane, Nadorst and Stanza) released volumes of his poetry. For a 5th (Passage) he co-edited an anthology of satirical/pamphlet poetry with fellow poets Daniel Dee and Alexis de Roode.

As a member of the artist movement ‘Het Ongeboren Idee’ he helped to organize (and was part of/presented) cultural lo-fi festivals, exhibitions, making a movie, monthly poetry stages in his hometown of Vlaardingen (Poezie in De Steeg), Rotterdam (De Poetsclub) and Nijmegen (Late Letteren Live) + a talent show for bands.

In 2002 and 2003 he studied ‘writing for performance’ at the vocational university of the Arts in the city of Utrecht (HKU) and as a result saw 3 of his theater plays make it to a stage. Writer Hiekelien van den Herik and he co-wrote a knight spectacle play complete with real choreographed sword fights, men in heavy plate armor and more great stuff like that. Theater-/enactment group Ridderspoor performed said play in 2004 and 2005 at Het Archeon, during De Kasteeldagen and at an Elfia-fantasy fair. He also gave numerous poetry and rap workshops at schools and other institutions. There were a lot of collabs too, for example voice-over work for a Rock Opera, a monumental art project for which he partnered up with the artist Erwin Adema and thrice alongside the R.J.S.O (The Rotterdam Youth Symphony Orchestra).

Benne has been an editor for several literary magazines (Krakatau, Renaissance and Op Ruwe Planken), at one time he and his wife owned a secondhand bookstore, he’s been the official poet laureate for his hometown of Vlaardingen and released his first and only Dutch rap-EP in 2011. In 2012 he rapped his way into the finals of Art Rocks. An EP with songs in English followed in 2021. A year later he started translating Dutch musical and lyrical classics from Dutch into English, and vice versa. Some of his short sci-fi and fantasy stories have found their way to medium related websites, magazines and anthology’s.

According to the poet himself rewriting his own poetry, lyrics and prose in English somehow feels like the next logical step in his career, a way to open up to the world at large. Which is both exhilarating and terrifying. So far several of these translations have been published in Bebarbar, Hare’s paw, Festivalforpoetry, Punt Volat, The Dewdrop, The Dillydoun Review and Months to Years a/o.

In everyday (some claim real) life he worked as an industrial tank cleaner, in pest control, on a garbage truck, driving a forklift, in a chemical waste facility, on a Ferry and 10 years as a bartender in a cannabis bar. At the time of writing this resume he can be found at home or in the hospital battling throat cancer. He’s been off the Herb since 2008, has a wife, 2 dogs, mild anxiety issues and likes to read every sci-fi and fantasy classic he can find.

www.linkedin.com/in/benne-van-der-velde-8b17a7296

The poet/lyricist and author Rob Chrispijn: ‘Benne writes sentences that stick; clean, dark and intense. This way a poem lasts!’

The poet Philip Hoorne on the website Poetry rapport: ‘There’s a genius hiding in Benne van der Velde, those are the Good Tidings of today. Amen.’

https://www.doubledutchmagazine.com
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