Weekly Discussion — Publication Talk, {{date %B %Y}}

Welcome to this week's discussion thread: Publication talk!

Where have you submitted to lately? What have you heard back?

Let's root for each other's submissions, celebrate our acceptances, and commiserate over rejections.

Are you new to publishing? Do you need help finding a home for your poems? Do you have questions about the publication process in general? Feel free to ask here, but please read the FAQ immediately below this introduction first. That will cover the basics.

(Note: some parts of the FAQ are still unwritten. If you have advice/resources about poetry contests or chapbook/book publication, please notify u/neutrinoprism and your advice can be incorporated into the FAQ going forward.)

Very important rule: Do not post your poems as comments here in the thread. You are welcome to link to a poem as part of a comment — you can link to it on the web, as a post elsewhere on reddit, as an imgur post, whatever — but in order to keep the thread focused on conversation, we'll have to (1) limit poems to links only, and (2) require those links to be part of a meaningful comment. Be a talker, not a spammer. (Spammers get the axe.)

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POETRY PUBLICATION FAQ

How can I get my poems published in magazines?

Let's answer this in three steps.

Step 1: Find magazines that are publishing poetry.

There are several websites you can use to find calls for submissions:

• Chill Subs, a frequently-recommended submission tracker and publisher database, has a customizable display of calls for submissions visible at the free tier. A keyword search and other features are only usable at the paid tier. If your main objective is be published quickly and easily, you can find likely outlets via Chill Subs by searching for high acceptance rates, quick response times, and no submission fees. For example, here is a listing of magazines (25 as of this writing) with no submission fees, at least 80 percent acceptance rates, and at most 30 day response times, according to their stats. (More selective publications are more prestigious, of course, but if you want a quick path to published-poet status, there you go.)
• Submittable, a website you'll end up using frequently to handle your poetry submissions, has a "discover" feature showing calls for submissions. Here is everything listed under the keyword "poetry" with no submission fees. This is a somewhat clunky but wide-ranging resource encompassing a huge swath of publishers. HOWEVER, you should know that you'll have to sift through a fair amount of low-quality, no-standards, borderline-scammy or vanity-press publishers that make listings there too. Some of them will try to spring submission fees on you later, some of them will accept anything and then make money from charging you to obtain a contributor copy. If a publisher is listed again and again with very shallow themes that look designed to appeal to beginner poets, they are probably trying to capitalize on your naïveté and you should steer clear. But there's also a lot of legitimate stuff there too. You'll just have to go in equipped with skepticism.
• Duotrope, the industry-leading submission tracker and publisher database — albeit a paid service only — has a calendar feature showing current calls for submissions.
• Poets & Writers Magazine publicly lists some magazines currently accepting poetry.
• Authors Publish also publicly lists some calls for submissions.

Although it doesn't track calls for submissions on the day-to-day level, the free-to-use website The Submission Grinder also lists currently active poetry publishers. Here is their list of poetry publishers sorted by quickest response time according to their stats.

Step 2: Find magazines that are publishing poetry like yours.

I should acknowledge that there is some debate on this issue. Here is a post from 2022 arguing for a "spray and pray" approach to publishing, i.e., to make as many submissions as possible to all remotely plausible magazines. However, here is a follow-up post from another knowledgeable commenter pushing back against that attitude and advocating for more targeted submissions, which is the conventional wisdom on the matter. The rest of this advice will be given with this latter mindset, with the idea that you should aim to focus on magazines featuring poetry most comparable to your own.

How do you find these magazines? Well, perhaps as an implicit Step Zero, you need to read contemporary poetry. "Contemporary" here means "published in the last ten years or so," maybe twenty. "Contemporary" is not a format or aesthetic descriptor: there are contemporary formal poems, contemporary free verse poems, prose poems, haiku, experimental poems, and so on, written in all kinds of registers, and with hybrids and subspecies of each. The important thing is that, in pursuing publication, you need to seek out published voices that you would consider your peers. So as you read contemporary poetry, you should try to find contemporary poets that you vibe with or that you recognize a kinship with in terms of style, subject matter, goals, etc.

If you've found poetry like that straight from a magazine then great. Spend a few minutes checking out that magazine [specifically as described by u/zebulonworkshops](https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/qt9lym/opinion_an_addendum_to_ulickin_possum_butt_s/). If your poetry seems like a good fit, gather some of your best, most compatible-feeling pieces send them in for publication.

If you find a poem you feel kinship with in a context outside an originating magazine, you'll have to do some digging to find out where the poet was published. Oftentimes this is as simple as a Google search, leading you to that piece's publication history or the poet's web page, which should list at least several magazine publications. If you have a poet's book in front of you, there's usually a list of publication acknowledgments in the front matter. Go investigate the listed magazines.

Duotrope and/or Chill Subs can be a great resource to extend this process. They keep detailed stats on various magazines including, as previously mentioned, acceptance rates and average response times, but also statistically similar magazines. Poets who submitted to magazine A also submitted to magazines X, Y, and Z. Follow those leads. See if the connections ring true to you.

If you write in a particular subgenre or have a particular interest, keyword searches can be useful here. You can easily search for keywords in Submittable — "haiku" for example — and as a paid feature in either Duotrope or Chill Subs.

Step 3: Submit your poems for publication.

Every magazine will have a page called something like "Submit."

Things to stress over: submission guidelines. These are important. Make sure your poems are submitted in the specified format and number. The default convention is for the submission packet to NOT include your name and contact information. Those are often kept separate in the submission process in the hopes that your poems aren't prejudged by your identity.

Things to NOT stress over:

• Cover letter — keep in mind that this is a polite formality, not part of your audition. You will not cajole a magazine into publishing your poems with the dazzlement of your cover letter. So keep it simple and informative, listing the poems submitted and with no editorializing. If the editors want more information about your poems, they will reach out to you later.
• Short biography — again, this is not a decisive factor when it comes to publication. A good-enough bio written in five minutes will make you a happier writer than a clever-clever bio hammered out over the course of hours. It's not worth sweating over.

Finally, after submitting, you should keep track of your submissions. This is especially useful if you're making simultaneous submissions, which means submitting the same piece to multiple magazines. (Most magazines allow this, but a few do not. Check their submission guidelines.) Duotrope, Chill Subs, and The Submission Grinder all have submission-tracking functionality if you're not inclined to invent your own filing system.

When should I submit to a poetry contest?

FAQ content needed! Notify u/neutrinoprism if you have advice or resources about this!

How can I publish a book of poetry? What is a chapbook? Should I self-publish?

FAQ content needed! Notify u/neutrinoprism if you have advice or resources about this!

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MONTHLY DISCUSSION SCHEDULE

• What Have You Been Reading?
• Publication Talk
• Local/Regional Scenes
• Classical & Ancient Poetry
• Miscellaneous