The Strategy

For the unpublished poet, getting fresh ideas into editors’ slush pile is the first step in a long process that culminates in print publication, a process which may involve multiple rejections, revisions, and resubmissions. The poet must prepare her manuscript so that her work does not drown in that pile—and that involves a little research and modesty.

While some presses may adopt reading or contests fees to publish the winner, it should never cost the poet money to get the process started. “It is truly not respectable to publish your own work, nor is it respectable to pay to get your work published,” writes Terri Witek, poet and Chair of Creative Writing at Stetson University, in an email interview. The respectability of the poet, in this sense, is proportional to her publication credits.

One possible strategy, then, is to start with college literary journals or low-profile magazines in order to establish a publication history. Beth Gylys, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia State University, writes: “Generally speaking, the literary community wants to see good work that has been published by a peer-reviewed press or journal and looks down on [vanity and subsidy presses].” Gylys’ appearance in numerous journals over the years (The Paris Review, The New Republic and Ploughshares, among others) has left her with “so many rejection slips, it’s ridiculous. I think it’s good to just think you’re likely to be rejected. Just put the poems in the mail. Just do it.”

Determining what exactly should go in the mail will vary from publication to publication, however. First, the poet needs to have a good sense of the content of the magazine she is submitting to long before she begins to affix any postage stamps or seal manila envelopes. Carefully selecting her poems to match the magazine’s style is just as important as polishing them to perfection. To this end, resources such as Little Magazines and Small Presses, The Writer’s Handbook, Literary Marketplace, and Writer’s Digest are indispensable because they catalogue a broad selection of venues for publication, as well as book and chapbook publishers, contests, conferences and workshops. Each journal has different guidelines for the acceptable length and number of poems that should be included in a single manuscript. Moreover, the poet has to check whether the magazine allows “simultaneous submissions,” which means that the poet is sending the same poem for consideration to multiple publications at the same time. While Stetson University’s Witek strongly disapproves of this practice, Gylys writes, “many journals accept simultaneous submissions as long as you let them know.”