Comstock Review

08/18/2026

About our 2026 Chapbook judge!

Martin Willitts Jr

is editor for Comstock Review. He is judge of the New York State Fair Poetry Competition. He won 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize 2018; Editor’s Choice, Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, December 2020; the 17th Annual Sejong Writing Competition, 2022; the 2025 Silent River Poetry Prize; and t-length collections include Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent books are “The Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” including all 36 color pictures (Shanti Arts Press, 2024); “Martin Willitts Jr, Selected Poems” (FutureCycle Press, 2024). He won the 2025 Silent River Poetry Prize for “One Thousand Origami Paper Cranes Fly Away in Search of Peace”. His new full-length is “Sounds I Cannot Hear Clearly Anymore Add Up to the Sum of Silence” (Bainbridge Island Press, 2026), which has been nominated for the National Best Poetry Book Award.

08/13/2026

EVERY ENTRY RECIEVES A COPY OF THE WINNING BOOK!

2026 COMSTOCK REVIEW CHAPBOOK CONTEST
MARTIN WILLITS, JR, JUDGE

$1000.00 top prize, plus publication and 50 free copies of your winning book.

The Comstock Review has been publishing poetry since 1986 and each year runs an annual poetry contest plus a chapbook contest.

07/16/2026

Once again, the Editors of The Comstock Review are indebted to you, dear readers.

It has been a rough couple of years, but we are back and will soon have announcements regarding upcoming publications!

In a year when we are continuously hearing about the Dangers of AI, and "The End of Reading," let it be known that whatever may be coming to an end, it is not art, it is not love, and it is not suffering. It is not the end of Writing, nor is it the end of need - the need of the artist to find what it is that makes us human after all.

For you and your words, dear readers, we are ever grateful. We are still here, nearly 40 years on, and we still want to know.

We want to know what is happening out there.

Keep reading and keep in touch.

Love,
The people of the Comstock Review.

We will be waiting.

07/11/2026

Now finishing production and available soon. Our 2025 Chapbook Winner.!

04/13/2026

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2025 JESSIE BRYCE NILES CHAPBOOK
WINNERS!!

Thank you to everyone for your poetry and your patience.
A special thanks to our Judge, Georgia A. Popoff!!

The Comstock Review has been publishing poetry since 1986 and each year runs an annual poetry contest plus a chapbook contest.

03/31/2026

THE MURIEL CRAFT BAILEY SINGLE POEM CONTEST OPENS TOMORROW!!!

The Comstock Review has been publishing poetry since 1986 and each year runs an annual poetry contest plus a chapbook contest.

03/18/2026

NOW AVAILABLE - NEW WORK
FROM OUR 2015 CHAPBOOK WINNER, James K. Zimmerman

I'm pleased to inform you of the publication of my fifth book of poems, "Unbroken Circle, Unending Thread." This may be confusing, since I just sent an email 2 months ago announcing the publication of "Uncertainty," my fourth book of poems.
The poems in “Unbroken Circle, Unending Thread” hew to Mary Oliver’s admonition: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” The focus is on the changing seasons and the passage of time – beginning in winter and returning there in an epilogue – with a subtext of attunement to both the subtle joys of experiencing the evolving and revolving of the year and to the sense of loss inherent in the inevitability of impermanence. Embedded in the subconscious of these poems is the centrality of climate change and its disorienting and deleterious effects on all inhabitants – human and otherwise – of planet earth.

If you're interested in purchasing a copy of this book -- or the two that preceded it -- here are links:

Unbroken Circle, Unending Thread

- James K. Zimmerman

02/19/2026

Asking ourselves every day

02/07/2026

https://bottlecap.press/products/uncejkz

New Work by the author of "Family Cookout," our 2015 Chapbook winner!

Poetry, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features. In Uncertainty, James K. Zimmerman weaves a narrative thread that begins with the Big Bang – and what may have come before that – and then takes the reader on a journey into the depth and breadth of the Anthropocene Era. How we regard oil – ...

02/06/2026

WE ARE STILL HERE AND WE WELCOME YOUR SUBMISSIONS.
DON'T DESPAIR!
WE LOVE YOU ALL.

GOOD NEWS IS ON THE WAY.

AND OUR OPEN READING IS ON UNTIL APRIL FOOL'S DAY!

THE WORK HAS BEEN EXCEPTIONAL.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INQUIRIES AND YOUR SUPPORT.