The Poetry Porch is Looking for Submissions

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Dear Friends,

We are reading submissions for the next issue. But please, no more poems about the snow! Unless you really love snow––? What do we write about when we write about love? Snowflakes falling on the business man in Moscow and the lady with the pet dog in Chekhov’s story. The heat of the day when Ruth left the fields with Boaz. The banquet where George Herbert’s guest was invited to sit and eat. The music of the spheres that startled Pericles when he emerged from bottom of the ship onto the open deck in Shakespeare’s play. Is it love that drives the scholar’s search in the library? The translator’s meddling with an original? The poet’s first draft? Yes, I think so.

Some of you have said you prefer to submit to a theme, but we want to have another open forum this year, to be determined by submissions and acceptances. I look forward to hearing from you. (See specifics below.)

Joyce Wilson

January 2016

Poems: send 3 to 8 poems. We are looking for poetry that is formal or informal, that adheres to strict meter and rhyme or experiments with them, that is personal or objective, classical or modern, urban or pastoral. These should be original and not previously published.

Sonnets: We are interested in original unpublished sonnets to add to The Sonnet Scroll.

Essays and stories: These can be 300 to 4000 words in length and on any topic that we agree is literary and that shows an engagement with language.

Reviews: I’m convinced that the substance of a good book review drives the choices made by administrators of grants and awards. We are interested more than ever in publishing reviews of poetry books. Critical reviews are welcome (300 to 1500 words). These can be first books, collections, groups of books, and chapbooks. Book reviews do not have to discuss a current publication but can introduce books published in the past decade that might have been overlooked or that will justify a reconsideration. We suggest that reviewers discuss what the author has set out to do and then how well he or she has done it, quoting specific examples from the poems.

Email or US mail: Send MS Word attachments (doc or docx or rtf) or paste text into the message box to jpwilson@poetryporch.com or to jpwwilson@comcast.net or through the link on The Poetry Porch pages. Or you may send hard copies through US mail to Joyce Wilson, Editor, The Poetry Porch, 158 Hollett Street, Scituate, MA 02066.

Contact information: Please include contact information on every page of your submission (name, email, telephone, and US mail address) and a brief biographical statement to let us know who you are, how you heard about The Poetry Porch, where you have published, and other relevant information.