These magazines publish poetry of various kinds, and they are a mix of literary and genre magazines. Some of them also accept other genres, like fiction and nonfiction. Many, but not all, are open for submissions now. Some of these magazines pay writers. They are not listed in any particular order.
Lit Fox Books: Lit Fox Poetry Series Submissions
This new press runs The Lit Fox Poetry Series, where they publish “one exceptional poem per quarter. Payment is $150, and the selected poem will be our top featured poem for three months.” Send up to 5 poems (see guidelines). They also publish books, and have a poetry award. Details here.
Spectrum
This literary magazine is affiliated with UC Santa Barbara. They’re reading submissions for Issue 68. “We accept fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art, but we don’t want you to feel limited to these definitions of genre. If it can be printed in two dimensions, we will consider it for publication. This includes sheet music, photography, collages, poems, essays, and stories with untraditional layouts, and much more. … We are open to all genres and forms, including hybrid work.” Send up to 5 poems. Submission is via a form. The deadline is 31 December 2024. Details here.
Rattle
Rattle publishes various kinds of poetry, including a monthly ekphrastic challenge, see the current challenge and submit your poem responding to the visual prompt here. They’re also reading for various other sections currently, including Rattlecast Prompt Poems; Food poems; Poets Respond, where poets respond to a news story or an event that happened the previous week; and general poems – send up to 4. They pay $100 for poems published online, and $200 for poems published in print. Details here.
The Broken Spine
“We are looking for work that excites us and shakes us to the bone. We enjoy reading work that employs an imaginative use of language, shows rather than tells, and offers a genuine sense of place.” And, “We are not fans of rhyming poetry, not traditional form and meter. We prefer Narrative poetry that shines and has a sense of flair/voice/style. We believe that emotions, feelings, honesty and bravery are great if they are cultivated.” Send up to 2 poems. They offer fee-free submissions for poems published online; submissions are via a form, and open through December. Details here.
The Paris Review
They will open for poetry submissions, including translations, on 1st January 2025. Their Submittable will close when the cap is reached, but they will still accept mailed submissions postmarked till 31st January. They have given their annual schedule on their website. Pay is unspecified. Details here.
Abridged
Their tagline is ‘Magazine & Exhibition Makers’. They want poetry and art on the ‘Legion’ theme; they have detailed guidelines, including “Abridged is looking for poetry and art that explores the fear of difference, the tyranny of common sense and the voice of the crowd.” Works will be published in A5 size. Send up to 3 poems. The deadline is 12 January 2025. Abridged is funded by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and The Arts Council of Ireland. Details here.
Anthropocene
This is an online poetry journal; they also publish translations. They are accepting fee-free poetry submissions through December. Send up to 3 poems. Details here.
Variant Literature
Send up to 5 poems, a total of up to 10 pages. They also publish fiction, as well as flash and micro. Submissions received until 31 December 2024 will be considered for the March 2025 issue. They pay $10. Details here.
Chantarelle’s Notebook
They accept poems (send 3 to 5), video poems, and flash fiction. Details here.
Syracuse Cultural Workers: 2026 Women Artists Datebook
This organization “strives to nourish communities that honor diversity and creative expression, and inspire movements for justice, equity and liberation while respecting our Earth and all its beings.” You can read about them here. This is a call for artwork and poetry for their 2026 Datebook; they want submissions by women and femmes (LGBTQIAA+) only. They want “Inspirational Work that Promotes Activism and/or Healing.” Send up to 4 poems, up to 30 lines each. Pay is $70, and the deadline is 15 January 2025. They’re asking for artwork for this, and other calls too – please see their website. Details here and here.
Gully Magazine
They are reading submissions for their second issue – they want fiction and poetry. “We pay US$15 for poems and Gullets (flash fiction of less than 1,000 words) and US$30 for longer fiction (1,000 words and over).” Send up to 5 poems. The deadline is 31 December 2024. Details here.
Poetry London
They publish contemporary poetry; send up to 6 poems. They also accept translations; “We are particularly keen to read poems in translation, especially translations from endangered languages.” And, “We pay poets £30 per poem, though appropriate adjustments may be made for very long poems. Review and interview fees are agreed in advance with the Reviews Editor and benchmarked at £50 per 1,000 words.” Details here and here.
Password: the journal of very short poetry
Their guidelines say, “I want to see very short (no more than about 25 syllables) poems that only you could have written. I’m also very interested in English translations of such poems from other languages. Qualities that attract me in very short poetry: concrete imagery, disjunction, surprise, innovation, juxtaposition of unlike images, surrealism, concrete and visual poetry.” Send 5-10 poems in any format, but no more than 25 syllables each. They accept submissions on an ongoing basis, with cut-off dates for issues; the next one is 31 January 2025. Details here.
Only Poems
They have certain fee-free sections, and certain submissions have a submission fee. They have a Poet of the Week feature, for which you can submit up to 10 pages of poetry. “We love prose poems, traditional forms (ghazals, villanelles, sestinas), love poems, sex poems, speculative poems, and all sorts of experimentations, but we are not married to a style or genre.” Their upcoming fee-free period for Poet of the Week is 15th to 31st January 2025. They also have a Poem of the Month feature, where poets have to respond to a prompt on their website during the first 7 days of the month; payment for this is $22. They also accept book reviews of hybrid collections or poetry collections (up to 1,000 words for a review), and pay $22; reviews are currently open. Details here and here.
Strange Horizons
“We publish SF/F, speculative, and slipstream poetry.
What’s a speculative poem? We’re interested in hearing your answers to this question, not answering it ourselves. A poem’s experimentality on the level of language might make it a speculative poem. A narrative poem about a werewolf might be speculative. A speculative poem could explore how people with bodies considered inhuman or fantastical navigate our mundane world, and it might include no magic or ray guns at all.
We value formalism as well as experimentality, and are highly receptive to both. Poems must substantiate their forms, or their experimentations; a weak concept in rhyme is still a weak concept. Sonnet plus spaceship is not enough.” Send up to 6 poems. They also publish speculative fiction (closed now), nonfiction, and other formats, for which they pay. They pay $50 per poem. Details here (links to submission guidelines for all genres/formats), here (poetry guidelines), here (poetry submission portal).
Acumen
This award-winning poetry journal seeks “new poetry and poetry translations, alongside articles, debate, comment and reviews of recent poetry publications.” Send up to 6 poems, or an essay. Details here.
Josephine Quarterly
This is a journal of poetry and art. Send up to 5 poems. They pay $30/poem, and accept a limited number of submissions each month. Details here and here.
Tyger Tyger
This is an online magazine of poetry for children. Their About page says, “The poems we publish are aimed at children in Key Stage 2 (7-11 years old), but many will be suitable for Key Stage 1 (5-7 years old) and Key Stage 3 (11-14 years old) as well.” They want submissions of poems for children on the theme of ‘Big Things’ (send up to 3 poems) until 31 December 2024. Details here.
Iterant
This poetry magazine accepts 3-8 poems, 10 pages maximum. They pay $50 per poet. Details here.
COMP
They accept poetry (up to 6 poems, 1 poem per page), fiction, creative nonfiction, cross-genre work, and critical prose. COMP is affiliated with Piedmont University. They are reading submissions through February. Details here.
One Art
They have preference for concise free verse, but they will consider formal poems that read in the manner of free verse. Send up to 5 poems, 10 pages maximum. Details here.
Liber: A Feminist Review
They publish feminist work – book reviews, poetry, and features. “LIBER is a broadly feminist publication that welcomes timely reviews and essays on forthcoming books of all genres. Our interest is in feminist theory, culture, history, and publishing, though we welcome submissions that use a feminist lens to analyze works that are not explicitly feminist. Although primarily a review, we also publish poetry, comics, personal or hybrid essays, photo essays, and long-form reported features on topics related to feminist history and publishing. Reviews can vary in length, from 1,000 to 2,000 words. Average length for a feature is 2,000 to 4,000 words.” They review nonfiction, fiction, and academic books of interest to a feminist audience or classroom. Please pitch them three to four months ahead of the book’s publication date (see guidelines). They accept submissions of up to 5 poems. Pay is $100 per book review, $50 per poem, and $100-300 for features. Details here.
Blue Unicorn
This is a long-running print poetry magazine; you can read about them here. Their guidelines say, “BU is known for welcoming formal verse, and this welcome continues. We’re impressed by poems that read as though the poet had simply thought in the form, without forced rhymes, weak words inserted to satisfy the meter, and the like. Every formal writer knows how much effort goes into seeming effortlessness.
But we look for no lesser effort in non-formal verse. We’re alert for the original metaphorical image that may take a moment to prove itself just right; the unexpected word that says more than the familiar one; the sharply observed detail that brings a thing alive. We do not tolerate clichés.
We do tolerate a bit of mystery. We don’t share the widespread allergy toward poems that require rereading or resist paraphrase: al dente poems, you might call them. Given a choice, we’ll take the puzzling piece over the flat one. The uneven poem with a few resonant lines may edge out a smoother but more conventional one.” They pay. Details here.
The Lyric Magazine
Their website says, “Founded in 1921, The Lyric is the oldest magazine in North America in continuous publication devoted to traditional poetry.” And, “We use rhymed verse in traditional forms, for the most part, with an occasional piece of blank or free verse. Forty or so lines is our usual limit.” For general submissions, poems have to be mailed. Contributors receive a copy, and are eligible for quarterly and annual prizes. Details here.
(Lyric is also currently hosting a College Poetry Contest, open to undergraduates enrolled full time in an American or Canadian college or university. Poems must be original and unpublished, 39 lines or less, written in English in traditional forms, preferably with regular scansion and rhyme. The prizes are $500, $200, and $100, and the deadline is 31 December 2024; details here.)
Neologism Poetry Journal
“A wide variety of poetics works here, and you’ll have the most success submitting poems that can do these three things well:
Feel good leaving the mouth; Use original or interesting language skillfully; and Use visual spacing, narrative pacing, consistent meter, or any combination of these to make the reading capture the reader.
Formal poetry is welcome, as is writing with tinges of the dreamlike or unreal.” Send up to 5 poems. Details here.
Kennings Literary Journal
This print journal is affiliated with Hanover College. They accept poetry (send up to 3), fiction, creative nonfiction, art, photography, and other media. The deadline is 14 February 2025, and they may close earlier. Please note, international contributors will get an electronic contributor copy (see guidelines). Details here.
The Cosmic Background
This is a slipstream publication – they publish flash fiction, fiction reprints, and slipstream poetry. They “love poetry that aligns with our tastes in fiction. Weird, chilling, upsetting, thoughtful.” Pay is $100 for poetry and $0.10/word for original fiction. Details here, here, and here.
Metphrastics
This is a new journal of ekphrastic poetry; they have published one issue so far. “We welcome submissions year-round responding to works in the Met’s permanent collection and select past special exhibits – all areas, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, costume, musical instruments, and the Met building itself. All styles are welcome from poets around the world.” Send up to 3 poems; unthemed (in keeping with the magazine’s mission) or themed (they’re reading for 3 themes: Youth & Old Age, Chiaroscuro, and Mother & Child). Details here.
Star*Line
This is the official print journal of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, established in 1978. It is a literary venue for speculative (including science-fiction, fantasy, and horror) poets and poetry enthusiasts, and also accepts short articles on topics related to science-fiction, fantasy, and horror speculative poetry. Send up to 5 poems. Pay is $0.04/word for poetry and $0.01/word for articles. They also accept reviews, and art. They accept submissions on an ongoing basis. Details here.
Relegation Books: R&R Magazine
R&R Magazine is a project of Relegation Books, and publishes poetry, poetry translations, and short fiction. Send up to 10 pages of poetry. They pay $50 for 2-5 poems, and $75 for fiction. The deadline is 7 March 2025. Details here.
Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine.
