Poetry Contest Vietnam 2026, Thơ Lục Bát Welcome

Quick answer: Monthly poetry contest for Vietnamese poets. Write in Tiếng Việt or English, lục bát to free verse, win cash prizes, earn certificates and detailed scores.

Lục bát is the heartbeat of Vietnamese verse, a six syllable line answered by an eight, and Nguyễn Du carried it through all 3,254 lines of Truyện Kiều, a poem Vietnamese students still study in school and quote from memory. Around that metre sit the ca dao sung in the countryside, the sharp Nôm poems of Hồ Xuân Hương, the Thơ Mới generation of Xuân Diệu and Hàn Mặc Tử who broke the old forms open in the 1930s, and Ngày Thơ Việt Nam, the poetry day marked each year at Hanoi's Temple of Literature on the first full moon of the lunar year.

Writory runs a monthly international poetry contest that reads Vietnamese work exactly as it is written, with no translation required at any stage. Entries open on the 1st, close on the 25th and results are published on the 30th. Winners take cash prizes, every entrant collects a participation certificate, and each poem comes back with a score across creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme saved to the poet's profile. Poets from more than 50 countries have entered Writory, and a poem sent from Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City is read in exactly that company.

Writory holds a monthly international poetry contest that Vietnamese poets can enter in Tiếng Việt, English or any other language, with cash prizes for winners and a certificate for everyone who submits.

Why enter

Vietnamese and English entries reach the same judges under the same five criteria, so neither language waits at the back of the queue.
There is no set form, which means a chain of lục bát couplets and a twenty line free verse poem are each read on their own terms.
Twelve separate contests a year, so missing the 25th one month costs you nothing more than a wait until the 1st.
Entry is open from age 13, putting trung học students and long practising poets in the same reading pile.
Poets who normally only see a local cuộc thi thơ get a monthly route to an international readership.

What winners and entrants receive

Cash prizes for the winning poems, announced on the 30th of the month you entered.
A participation certificate for every Vietnamese entrant, placing or not.
Win a month and your next entry costs nothing, and the same applies after three months of entering in a row.
The strongest poems of the month are posted to the public leaderboard at writoryofficial.com/leaderboard.

Lục bát, song thất lục bát, thơ Đường luật, thơ mới, haiku and open free verse are all accepted, in Tiếng Việt, English or whichever language the poem arrived in.

Key facts

Entries open the 1st, close the 25th at 11:59 PM IST, results on the 30th.
One poem $5, two poems $8, five poems $15 (Rs 150 / Rs 220 / Rs 450 in India).
Every poem scored by human judges on five criteria: creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme.
A participation certificate for every entrant, not only winners, and the score is visible in your profile.
Cash prizes for winners, free entry the following month for winners, open worldwide from age 13, any language.

Questions

I write in Tiếng Việt and my poems depend on tone. Do I need to translate them?

No. Writory accepts poems in any language and never asks for a translation, so a Vietnamese poem is judged as the Vietnamese poem you wrote, tonal marks and all.

How can judges compare a lục bát with an English free verse poem fairly?

They do not compare forms, they score craft. Each poem is marked on creativity, emotion, structure, language and theme, and those five numbers land in your Writory profile where you can read them yourself.

What will it cost me to submit from Vietnam?

Fees are charged in US dollars: $5 buys one poem, $8 buys two and $15 buys five. Winners pay nothing the month after they win, and three consecutive months of entering also earns a free entry.

How long is the wait between submitting and finding out?

Submission runs from the 1st to the 25th and the announcement comes on the 30th, so a poem sent early in the month is settled before that month ends.

By the Writory editorial team. Updated July 2026.

Enter the August contest · International poetry contest · Past winners · Read the winning poems