Which Poem Should I Send? Submitting Poetry to Editors

You have been writing poems for years. Stacks of your words on paper are sitting on the desk collecting dust. Everyday you walk past them, looking at them you say to yourself, "someday I am going to send them to be published." Friends come over and ask what that pile with all of that dust is and you tell them what you have said to yourself a million time over, "someday I am going to send them to be published." Finally fed up with the song and dance of, "someday I am going to send them to be published", you decide it is time to tackle that pile. It's is P-Day (poetry publishing day)! Blowing off the dust, you take the stack and set in on the floor. Spending the next couple of hours, you look at each poem one by one. Trying to decide which poems to send for submission, where does one start? It is time to call in some help. We will look at an answer questions on what publishing means to us, the process of picking out what poems to send and to whom and finally to get started a list of some journals, magazines and e-zines in which will accept poetry. If you are ready to send those poems to magazines and/or journals, or are thinking about it, read on!

How do you know where you're ready?

- Ask yourself, "am I proud of my writing?" (If you answered yes, proceed to the next step.)
- Find and ask different kinds of readers to read and comment on your poems that are being considered for submission. Ask them to rank their favorite one's by
writing them down a sheet of paper or if it is a manuscript, marking them with sticky notes.
- Warmly accept any feedback on your poems and revise your work.
- Participate in a poetry workshop, take a creative writing course and/or join a local writing group.
- What is being published these days? Find out by going to a bookstore. Pick out a couple of literary journals and read two to three poems to get an idea on
what is being published and what isn't.
- Ask yourself, "what does publishing mean to you?" Is it a part-time thing for fun, or do you think of it as a job? Do you see yourself as becoming a member of
the greater literary community? Or is it being publicly seen as a poet? There is not a wrong answer here.

Picking poems to send

You have given it some thought, gotten some feedback, revised your poems and are ready to send them for submission. Which poems do you send?

- Put together your best poems that you consider finished (ex. best poem, third best poem, fourth best poem/shorter poem, second best poem/longest/most
ambitious poem).
- Poems should be typed on a clean 8.5 x 11 sheet. Your name should be near the top in an easy to ready, legible font below 11 point.
- Think about if there are any themes that some of them have in common. Are any of them in sequence?
- Group long poems with shorter poem in batches of 4 to 6 (never send out more than one long poems 5-10 pages at a time).
- Group them in categories: one's that have a similar theme, your most strongest poems and one least ambitious poem.

Unless you are targeting a specific magazine, try to keep the batches the same when sending and resending your poems.

Choosing where to send your poems

In choosing where to send your poems, if you don't have any magazines already in mind, clear a couple of hours and go to a locally owned bookstore. It is a good idea to bring a pen and notebook with you. Start by reading some literary magazines and be sure to pay attention to local magazines. Notice the themes and what journals are publishing. Remember that pen and notebook. I recommended you bring? It is a good idea to catalog and acquire a directory of literary magazines. Identifying magazines and what they publish will help you to decide later on where and to whom to send your poems to. When submitting to journals, sometimes it is not as easy as folding the pages up and mailing them. Some journals have submission guidelines. Make sure you read them thoroughly and follow them. If the guidelines are not in the journal, visit them on the web. Have you ever thought about e-zine? There are many journals who will publish poetry on-line. Check them out and see if you like them. This web site offers a list of poetry publishers who accept email submission: www.publishing-explained.com/ezines-poetry.html.

Some local magazines

For all of those Minnesotans out there, if you go to the Minnesota Humanities Commission, you will find the Minnesota Book Award and information on writing and publishing in Minnesota (www.minnesotahumanities.org). Others who live in different states, there should be something similar like this you can find with a little searching. Here are some local magazines from the Minnesota Humanities Commission web page to help you get started:

Ascent

The Blue Skunk Companion

The Corresponder

Dislocate

Great River Review

Mankato Poetry Review

Rain Taxi

Riverbank Review

A View from the Loft

XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics

Some magazines and journals across the country and internationally

Spout Press

Floating Holiday

www.plumbiscuitnywriterscoalition.org

Bryant Literary Review

The Sarana Review

Newport Review

Global City Review (University of Colorado at Boulder)

Minnesota Memories

www.poetrymagazine.com

The Modern Review (international)

www.wordsinhere.com (international)

www.gumballpoetry.com

Romantic Short Love Stories.com

The Kenyon Review

Inkwell Magazine