American Tanka welcomes submissions from anyone who has been writing tanka: experienced tanka poets, experienced poets in other forms, and novices. We strongly suggest that all newcomers to the form read and practice tanka for a while before submitting. American Tanka encourages everyone to try their hand at tanka and submit their best work to the journal. Though volume prevents us from responding individually, every submission is carefully considered. Please allow at least three months for a response. Email Submisisons accepted. Full details on their submissions page.

Bear Parade electronically publishes short collections of fiction and poetry. The site is minimalist and visually arresting, and the typical poetry collection is eight-ten poems by one author. The formal submission guidelines read “Open for suggestions”. Full details at their about page.

The Cafe Review
Submissions to The Cafe Review should not exceed three poems (any length) and should arrive with a self addressed stamped envelope. All submissions should be accompanied by one dollar ($1.00), our reading fee, which we put directly back into the production of our publication.

Send submissions to:
The Cafe Review
c/o Yes Books
589 Congress St
Portland, ME 04101

Full Details at the submissions page.

The Eleventh Muse accepts submissions throughout the year for their annual collection. Email submissions accepted. Please submit up to five original, unpublished poems (100 lines or less per poem) attached as a single RTF or Word Doc file, and a brief biography (50 words or less) appropriate for contributors notes, to poetrywest(at)yahoo(dot)com. We are interested in everything from traditional metrical/narrative work through free verse lyrics and into cutting-edge work that pushes on the boundaries between poetry and prose, visual art, etc. Whatever the style, the language must be extraordinary. We also consider essays, criticism, reviews, and short prose works on poetry. Please query first. We accept translations if you can provide us with the original untranslated text as well. Details at their submissions page.

Technorati Tags: poetry, poetry markets, submit poetry

That”s just one of the things that makes Chris Hamilton-Emery”s essay (really a chapter from his book 101 Ways to Make Poems Sell: The Salt Guide to Getting and Staying Published). The chapter is posted in its entirety here, and it”s well worth reading if only for the solid, practical advice on how to evaluate your own reasons for wanting to be a published poet. Emery has a lot to say about what poets must do to sell books, to create a market for their own works and to become known as poets.

The world of poetry is not a world of isolated individual practitioners. Hermits in their caves. If you currently find yourself in this position, you should try to get out more. The world of poetry is a very busy place, filled with a wide range of professionals most of whom are eager to tell you about their talents.

The world of poetry is not filled with gentle suffering creatures (to call upon Eliot). It is not fair, just, or particularly caring. It can be supportive, but it is not a self help group. It is not a world based upon power sharing. In fact, the world of poetry can be a bear pit, and like any industry it is competitive and has moments of confrontation and even dirty tricks. Be prepared to take some knocks along the way.

Emery”s short list for becoming a published poet includes:
1. Read poetry. Lots of it. He makes the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that there should be a law requiring poets to read 80 books of poetry for every one that they submit.

2. Be involved in the world of poetry – in coffee houses, book shops, open reading venues, on the internet. The more involved you are in that world, the more connections you”ll have within it. As a side note, you”ll also hear an awful lot of poetry – both excellent and horrible. It will affect you as a writer. It” can”t not.

3. Concentrate time on building a “pedigree” for your work – i.e., getting your poems published in magazines and on literary web sites.

4. Write reviews of other people”s poetry. He says, “Engaging with other work and actively revieing it is a great way to build your own experience of poetry… A side effect of such endeavors is that the poetry you believe matters will eventually be given air space.”

The chapter is even more worth reading for the practical ending to the chapter, Fifty dos and don”ts for submitting poetry. A couple of samples from the list:

5. # Make yourself a player. A mover and shaker. If you are out there participating in literature, publishers will notice you.

10. Find out the name of the person you are submitting to. Find out what they like. Find out where they live. Follow them to work. Alright, just kidding, but find out their name.

21. Beware of sending poems which contain wild metaphor, clever descriptions of everyday phenomena, and make novel use of dialect and idioms, all ending with a stunning epiphany. It”s a tired old template now. Descriptive writing can be very dull.

46. Don”t include your photograph – especially the moody one with the Fedora.

And just because I haven”t done it yet this week… three markets for books of poetry that are currently accepting submissions – do check their web pages for specific submission guidelines.

Shendoah: The Washington and Lee University Literary Review
Dream Horse Press
Cherry Grove Editions

The Missouri Review, founded in 1978, is one of the most highly-regarded literary magazines in the United States and for the past twenty-five years they”ve upheld a reputation for finding and publishing the very best writers first. The journal is based at the University of Missouri and comes out three times a year. Each issue contains new fiction, poetry and essays. The Missouri Review accepts up to ten pages of poetry at a time, and pays $30 per printed page. You can submit via snail mail, but this year they”ve begun accepting email submissions. Submitting by email will cost you $3 in handling and printing charges, but it”d probably cost you that much in ink, paper and stamps to mail your poems in. Full details on the submission page.

The New Hampshire Review was founded in 2005 by Virginia M. Heatter and Seth D. Abramson. Published twice a year online, TNHR accepts poetry, book reviews, and artwork.They aim is to publish the highest-quality work from both established and emerging voices. TNHR is listed in the 2006 Poet”s Marke and will nominate six poems annually for the critically-acclaimed Pushcart Prize anthology. The New Hampshire Review accepts 3-5 previously unpublished poems via snail mail or email. Full guidelines available on the submission page.

The South Dakota Review established in 1963, is a national literary, scholarly journal for an educated and often professional audience. SDR contains works having a slight western regional emphasis, although selection is based primarily on the quality of the work rather than on subject matter. New, established, and emerging writers appear in each issue; most accepted work, however, is that of writers of considerable experience and ability. SDR accepts 3-5 poems per submission. Complete submission guidelines on the submissions page

Technorati Tags: poetry, poetry markets, poetry submissions, submit poetry, poetry journals

Can there be any explanation other than this when a 17-year-old youth enters our bookshop asking for The Complete Works of Byron, or when a blonde girl no older than 15 says she is searching for the poems of Shelley?

In a decade of book-selling this has never happened before. Suddenly we are buying poetry books again to meet demand, and retrieving the slim poetry books we relegated to boxes in the basement, to create a special poetry section. (read Justine”s article at Issue #114).

What Justine is seeing is similar to what I”m seeing in the world of coffee shops and poetry venues. When I first started reading my poetry on stage a dozen years ago, the audience was pretty homogenous – mid-twenties, middle class, not quite yuppies, but certainly not from the ranks of the disenfranchised. Now a Sunday at the Java Hut, a Tuesday at Reflections, a Wednesday at the Cantab – the audience is anything but homogenous. The age range starts in the mid-teens and runs up through the seventies. The poets come from all walks of life, from newspaper columnists to shop clerks to street kids. My daughter works with inner city teens, and their interest in poetry – both in writing it and learning about it – is keen. According to Ron Silliman, writing last December, Poet”s House had collected over 2100 books of poetry published in the previous year. These are not glimpses of a dying art.

But I digress. Back to AllInfoAboutPoetry. They have far more to offer than the newsletter – which is a fun but very short read. You”ll find pages upon pages of info about contests and competitions, teaching poetry, book reviews, a book store, poets, poetry and miscellaneous poetry news with such gems as the Academy of American Poet”s Poetry Road. Check it out, submit your stuff and enjoy.

Technorati Tags: poetry, poets, poetry discussion, Poetry Road, poetry newsletter, poetry resources

But I have in mind at more poetic use for the Technorati Mini. If you”re not familiar with Technorati, here”s what it does in a nutshell (from their own website):

Technorati is the recognized authority on what”s going on in the world of weblogs. We help people search for, surface, and organize bloggers and their daily posts. Currently tracking over 52 million blogs.

So what this has to do with poetry. Blogs are rapidly becoming a medium by which poets disseminate their work – in text entries, in audio files, in podcasts and in vlogs. Technorati tracks blogs about everything. They estimate that there are about 75,000 new blogs a day, and about 1.2 million updates to blogs daily. A lot of these blogs are about poetry, written by poets, post poetry, post about poets – you get the idea.

I love reading new poetry. I love seeing what people out there are writing about. Technorati Mini launches a little window that hides under my other stuff, and searches the blogosphere every 60 seconds for anything new about poetry. If it finds something, voila! It appears in my little window and I can check it out. In the last ten minutes, I”ve found:

100 Billion Reasons, a blog about technology, poetry, languages, politics and more, with a couple of easy on the ear and eye poems and some links to sites of Finnish poetry – as well as a gorgeous picture of a Tallinn sunset.

I followed a link from Marsha”s blog to her book of poetry at Rash”s House, where I spent a delightful half hour reading in her family album.

And an announcement of an upcoming event in NYC that I won”t attend, but that sounds interesting – and mentioned a few names that I”ll probably follow up on just to read their poetry.

There”s something new about every ten minutes or so – sometimes several new posts somewhere out there that mention poetry specifically. If you”re bored some evening or afternoon and want to find something a little random, a little unusual, a little funky and tangentially poetic, I highly recommend doing an hour or so on the Technorati Mini. Just click on it, type “poetry” into the search bar, and see where it takes you.

I”m not sure why I have this reluctance to write about that day, or what came after it. The notion of trying to put so much emotion into words humbles me, makes me wonder what hubris would allow me to imagine I could shape a poem to convey even the tiniest bit of it. That, however, isn”t the case for many others – and that is a good thing. Poetry has always offered people a way to seek solace and comfort and begin healing. In recognition that tomorrow should be a day of commemoration and healing, I”m offering something a little different – a list of as many sites devoted to poetry surrounding 9/11 as I can find. Read, share, take comfort, heal.

september11victims.com
The site was online at 11 AM the morning of the attacks, and posted the names of victims as they were confirmed. In the five years since, the site owner has added photos, profiles and information about those that died that day, and opened it to comments. There are a few dozen poems posted here for the victims and their families. The one that brought tears to my eyes was this one.

Robert Pinsky reading his poem 9/11. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky was commissioned by the Washington Post to write a poem commemorating 9/11. He read it September 12, 2002 on the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour for PBS.

About.com poetry guides, Bob Holman and Margery Shaw, solicited poetry for 9/11 after the attacks. The anthology is collected here, along with a sidebar of links to other collections of 9/11 poetry on the web.

Poetry for 9/11 at www.coping.org. Along with the poetry are videos, links to virtual memorials, slide shows and more.

A tribute from the UK in the form of a poem to be read by Simon Armitage, widely believed to be in line to become the next Poet Laureate of the UK. He”ll read the poem tomorrow evening on a national show, on the anniversary of the tower attacks.

Ten poems from poemsforfree.com that are free for any personal or non-commercial use.

The Internet Remembrance Campaign at worldatwar.org collected – and still collects – poetry and artwork inspired by the events of 9/11.

A memorial Syrnu posted at Authorsden.com, a moving combined work by over a dozen poets.

A few other sites that accept poetry books for review (check site for reading periods)

The Danforth Review (next reading period: November, 2006)
Absinthe Literary Review (next reading period, January 2007)
Boxcar Poetry Review (First books only. Query for instructions on submitting a review copy)

New England Review
New England Review is one of the country”s most respected literary publications. Recent contributors to NER have included David Roderick (winner of the 2006 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Award), Lucia Perillo (winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award 2006), Carla Panciera (winner of the 2005 Cider Press Book Award), Michael Ryan (winner of the 2005 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award), Patrick Phillips (winner of the 2005 Kate Tufts Award), David Baker, Jane Hirshfield, Kimberly Johnson, Laura Kasischke, Eric Pankey, and Mark Wunderlich (recipients of the National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowships) – the list could go on for several pages. Suffice to say that you would be in good company if your poetry is accepted for publication by NER. NER pays $10 per published page, and two contributor copies. Submission Guidelines can be found here.

Pearl Magazine is a 96-160 page, perfect-bound magazine featuring poetry, short fiction, and black & white artwork. We also sponsor the Pearl Poetry Prize, an annual contest for a full-length book, as well as the Pearl Short Story Prize, an annual fiction contest. Our annual poetry issue contains a 12-15 page section featuring the work of a single poet. The magazine is the love child of editors Joan Jobe Smith, Marilyn Johnson and Barbara Hauk. Pearl”s three femme editors, with their three very different poetic points of view, try to make Pearl an eclectic publication, a place for lively, readable poetry and prose that speaks to real people about real life in direct, living language, profane or sublime. To that end, they offer wonderful submission guidelines that contain some interesting quotes from a few famous poets. Do take the time to read about The Editors, just because it”s fun.

Prairie Schooner, a national literary quarterly published with the support of the English Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Nebraska Press, is home to the best fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews being published today by beginning, mid-career and established writers. PS has been published for over 80 years and has published the work of Eudora Welty, Octavio Paz, Tennessee Williams, Weldon Kees, Joyce Carol Oates, and Rita Dove, Richard Russo, Reynolds Price, Julia Alvarez, Sharon Olds, Cornelius Eady, plus scores of others. Find their submission guidelines here

Like another of my favorite resource sites, GotPoetry, what makes Today”s-Woman.net so special is the commitment of its owner, Rose DesRochers. In her own words, she takes

a real passion to the site and an active role. This is something you do not receive on other communities. Most communities the administrator stays hidden in the background. I like to be on a first name bases with the members and get to know them.

That commitment shows in the variety of help and encouragement you”ll find at Todays-Woman.net. From honest critique of your work on the forums to a section of classifieds where you”ll find calls for submission and want ads for writers of all sorts, the site is designed to be supportive to writers and poets. One of the best features – and a feature I haven”t seen anywhere else – is their Writers Warnings section, a growing database of reports from writers about scams, unethical publishers and things to watch out for in poetry contests and publishing. They name names and give details, making it easy to avoid the pitfalls of trying to get your work published.

Besides the usual community based forums, you”ll also find a few things you won”t on other community sites – the Members” Books, for instance, where members can list their own works for sale to other members and the general public. There”s an excellent resource section with several hundred listings in over 30 categories – and some just-for-fun features like daily horoscopes, games and e-cards. And of course, there are excellent articles about every aspect of writing poetry, from where to submit to how to beat writer”s cramp.

This is a definite add-to for your list of poetry resources. If you haven”t visited it, check it out and let them know where you heard about them!

Of special interest to poets are the calls for submission and the calls for papers, as well as the listings of poetry magazines by country, including a new section of online poetry magazines. You can join The PK discussion list, one of the longest running email poetry discussion lists on the internet, read the PK list”s own poetry journals, Transparent Words and Caught in the Net, or indulge yourself in a fingerwalk through literally dozens of poetry blogs from around the world.

There are lists of poetry contests (arranged by deadline – so handy!), poetry organisations, poetry publishers, poetry magazines, poetry courses, poetry workshop groups (arranged by area – most are in the UK, but there are some from other countries),funding organisations and grants for poets – are you beginning to get the idea? Good! Drop by The Poetry Kit and check it out for yourself – I can guarantee you”ll find something there to wet your whistle – or quench your thirst.