Submission Guidelines: Poetry

Editors: Ellen Elder and Libby Maxey
literarymamapoetry (at) gmail (dot) com

We are looking for unpublished poems extraordinary in vision, craft, integrity, and originality. Poems of any length and form are welcome. Maximum of two poems per submission, please. If more than two poems are submitted, only the first two poems will be read.

Send submissions in the text of an email (no attachments), and be sure to include your full name and the word “Submission” in the subject line. Every poetry submission is initially reviewed by our Poetry editors. Selected poems are then compiled and submitted for final approval by our Senior Editors. We aim to respond to all submissions within three months. If you have not heard from us after three months, please feel free to query about the status of your submission. Approved poems will generally be published within one year of acceptance.

Questions we consider about each submitted poem:

1. Does the poem fit within Literary Mama’s mission? Does it convey writing about the many faces of motherhood (or fatherhood)? Read poems in our current issue and in our archives to get a sense of the types of poetry we publish (but feel free to submit something different and amazing).
2. Is the poem well-crafted? Is it technically skillful? Whether free verse or formal, does it pay attention to poetic techniques such as metaphor, imagery, rhythm, and word choice?
3. Does the poem jump off the page? Is there something unique about it, whether perspective, theme, language, or something else? Does it look at the familiar in an unusual way or lead the reader to consider something new?

We accept simultaneous submissions; please let us know if your poem is accepted elsewhere as soon as possible. We receive many excellent submissions, and we often turn away high-quality work because of limited space. We encourage poets to keep writing, polishing, and submitting their work to us.

Review our General Submission Guidelines and check out this blog post for more tips.