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POETRY SUBMISSIONS CALENDAR 2025

Posted in poetry, tagged , , , , on January 20, 2025| 8 Comments »

Update January 20, 2025
 . 
Why on earth would you want to send your poems to some mysterious editor who after four months or six months or probably much longer will arrange for an anonymous message to pop up in your inbox along the lines of, “We regret to inform you . . . ?” Why, oh why?
 . 
Let’s be honest: we poets are not really masochists who thrive on rejection. We just want to connect with someone, which is why we write poems in the first place. And the someone we would most joyously wish to connect with is a reader! So if someone other than your best friend from high school is ever going to read your poetry, first you have to run the gauntlet of editors.
 . 
Another confession: I like editors. Most of them are also writing poetry and trying to get published – we are all in this together. Most editors are engaged and enthusiastic and really optimistic that the next poem they read is going to knock their socks off. And every once in a while one of them will communicate that enthusiasm to you, if you keep sending them your best writing.
 . 
Editors are your friends. Treat them as such. Read their guidelines. Even better, read their publications. Send them poems they are apt to like, in the format they like, on the schedule they like. That’s where this POETRY SUBMISSIONS CALENDAR comes in.
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⇓⇓⇓  CLICK HERE  ⇓⇓⇓
 . 
    Poetry Submissions Calendar – PDF file    
 . 
Here’s how I use the CALENDAR:
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It’s arranged by month – look down the column to see what journals and sources are open for submissions right now!
 . 
 . 
Each row includes the web address – be sure to check before you submit, because requirements and schedules are always changing!
 . 
The row also includes other information such as:
Is this an online publication only?
Should your submission include all poems in a single document?
What file formats do they accept?
 . 
There are more instructions on the table itself. Feel free to print it out. The table currently (20 Jan 2025) contains 332 listings, including journals on hold or defunct (to save you from wild goose chases). At the end are some random references I’ve collected, a table of winners and losers on promptness of reply, and a few journals accepting art & photography. I would really appreciate it if you notify me of any errors or suggested changes!
 . 
If you have journals you’d like me to add to the table please do send me the particulars! I will try to post an updated table once or twice a year and whenever I have made significant additions and corrections to the table.
 . 
Finally, here’s a happy little story. I had received a standard rejection notice after a standard waiting period, but something about the personal nature of the rejection message prompted me to send a follow up email. I dared to ask if any of my poems came near the mark, and this was the editor’s reply:
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You certainly meet the mark, Bill. That is, you’re a fine writer. As are most of Innisfree‘s submitters. Who knows what causes a poem to leap out and insist on its acceptance to the reader. That happens about 2 percent of the time. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future. [Greg McBride, editor, Innisfree Poetry Journal, December 2023]
 . 
May your own poems leap out and insist upon their acceptance to the friendly neighborhood editor who is reading them. And even if they don’t, well, that was at least one reader!
 . 
If  you find this useful, if you can suggest more journals to include, or if you discover errors please send me a comment, correction or suggestions at:
 . 
comments@griffinpoetry.com
 . 
BILL GRIFFIN / ELKIN, NORTH CAROLINA / USA
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❦ ❦ ❦
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Oh, and here’s the origin story: In 2015 I posted the prototype of this table as I was developing a tool to keep track of when and where to submit poems for publication. As the second of a two-part muse on why oh why we place ourselves at the mercy of all powerful editors, here’s the original post with description, but make sure you’re using the link at the top of this page for the most up-to-date version:
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Everything New

Posted in family, poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2025| 6 Comments »

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[with 3 poems by Ralph Earle]
 . 
The Body’s Small Purposes
 . 
His lungs like exhausted fishermen
drew in their glittering catch
of oxygen and his heart
called to the receding tides of the blood.
His bony fingers curled around mine.
I read from Mary Oliver
 . 
how the soul may be hard, necessary,
yet almost nothing, how we all know
the sand is golden under the cold waves
though our hands can never touch it.
 . 
The hearing goes last, the doctor said.
 . 
There are not words for this communion,
this hope that his eyes, turned from
the sunny branches outside, could summon
a vision of loved ones long gone,
wife of fifty years, sister dead in childbirth,
souls knowing already this passage
and awaiting him in whatever form of glory
the living can conjure: my brothers, me,
our children, all the others
still casting the nets of our breath,
still sifting the golden sands.
 . 
Once in his search for love after my mother died
he told me it never ends. But it does.
On a broken day the breath stops
and the cells gently fall asleep
and the soul, perhaps puzzled
by this coming to rest
of all the body’s small purposes
rises and looks on the silence.
 . 
Ralph Earle
from Everything You Love is New, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press, Hickory NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
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After I sit through lunch in the nursing home dining room with him and his friend, Dad and I roll back to his room to hang out for an hour or two. Maybe he tells me about the birds that have discovered the feeders I set up outside his window – he can name most of them. He always offers me something from his overflowing snack drawer – it began as his sock drawer but over three months the socks have all had to find new digs. If I prompt him he’ll recall talking to his sister on the phone last Sunday, or he’ll show me a card someone sent. This is his home now.
 . 
When Dad returned to his townhouse from the hospital after his fall in July, we called Hospice. For a week he barely ate, barely knew us. We set up dual hospital beds so he and Mom could continue to share a bedroom like they had for just shy of 74 years. She would sit and hold his hand for hours, couldn’t bear to have him out of sight, but once told us, “There’s a man in a coma in my bedroom.” He was home only three weeks before she died, but during their last days together he certainly knew her. They ate a few bites together. Watched the news. When she was gone, although the house was never empty it was completely empty.
 . 
“Good as new,” just what does that mean? Six months after Dad’s fall he can get himself out of bed by himself, putter himself down the hall in his wheelchair using his feet like Fred Flintstone, polish off his lunch. He wins quarters at bingo. Today he and I play our weekly Rummikub, exercise for the little gray cells. Last week he beat me for the first time. Right now we’re each down to just two tiles remaining until I draw the winning combo – for a second I consider feigning a bad draw to give him a couple more chances for victory, but nah, I win.
 . 
And at this very moment the activities coordinator sticks her head around the door to remind Dad – a local church has arrived to share a worship service this weekday afternoon. Dad, I’ll pack up the game if you want to attend. We hug, he rolls himself away. I dump the tiles into their case, stash it on his dresser, put on my jacket, and by the time I walk down the hall Dad is out of sight.
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
The Cormorants Arrive
 . 
Like a gang of legislators
+++ dressed in grey
+++ +++ from somewhere
 . 
outside of town,
+++ the cormorants loiter
+++ +++ on the lake’s little float
 . 
strutting a step or two,
+++ dropping
+++ +++ into the water
 . 
for a fish.
+++ The represent
+++ +++ some constituency
 . 
I don’t recognize,
+++ shuffling around
+++ +++ their little island.
 . 
They disturb me,
+++ they embody my fear
+++ +++ of narrow minds,
 . 
of self-assured
+++ self-inflated strangers,
+++ +++ fear of my own silence.
 . 
Still, when I approach
+++ they dwindle
+++ +++ into a smattering
 . 
of awkward fishing birds,
+++ all angle and tackle, waiting
+++ +++ their moment of excitement,
 . 
the shadow of small prey
+++ out of reach
+++ +++ in the darkening water.
 . 
Ralph Earle
from Everything You Love is New, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press, Hickory NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
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They are here. They are gone. Does Ralph Earle mean the birds, flock of black specks flapping, or does he mean the curses his wife calls to herself? Is nothing permanent, not grief, not joy? Everything You Love is New – perhaps it is your love that makes something new, or seem new in that moment of loving, that wonderful fleeting moment when you know you can’t hold something forever and yet you are able to rest in not having to.
 . 
So delicate — Ralph Earle’s poems touch ever lightly all the heavy things we encounter as human creatures. How we do all hurt each other after all, sometimes careless but sometimes intentional. How the things we imagine will bring us joy fall to dust. How apt we are sometimes to turn away rather than reach out. Yes . . . but. These are not poems of despair but of awareness, of acceptance, and sometimes of bright heart-swelling discovery and joy. Reading a poem requires a pause, a brief silence. The mind as it embraces that silence creates an opportunity to fill it with love.
 . 
A damselfly, so delicate, hovers above the mirror of pond. Her abdomen curls to touch the water’s surface so lightly there is no ripple, yet she leaves behind an egg that may become a new damselfly. Perhaps everything you love makes you new.
 . 
❦
 . 
Ralph Earle’s new full-length collection Everything You Love is New is available from Redhawk Publications.
 . 
Read an additional poem by Ralph Earle at last week’s post, Tenacity.
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Birthday Ending in Zero
 . 
No rain for days, and on the pollen-dusted porch
a vase of flowers arrived from nowhere:
 . 
yellow roses, lilies, carnations, tulips with orange tips
and stems of electric-blue buds like paper lanterns.
 . 
We were happy in that second Covid spring, gathering
our loved ones on Zoom, cooking fish with asparagus,
 . 
ate our apple pie and still it didn’t rain. In the pollen
on the back deck, small animals left yellow footprints.
 . 
That week, after so long alone, you let go
into the space we had begun to share.
 . 
You stood the flowers on the kitchen table
surrounded with gifts and letters from my friends.
 . 
Our hearts opened like small animals looking around.
We slept skin to skin, your presence rippling like a lake.
 . 
That week the huge heads of the roses unfolded
in radiance even as the water started to cloud,
 . 
even as carnations drooped and tulip petals dropped.
When the rain began I found a ravine where no one goes
 . 
and under the trees, scatted the globes of the roses,
tulips with their falling petals, lilies and lanterns.
 . 
Ralph Earle
from Everything You Love is New, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press, Hickory NC; © 2024
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2019-02-09
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Things Taken, Things Remain

Posted in family, Imagery, poetry, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 3, 2025| 3 Comments »

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He, the oldest, was / the last to leave and / took our childhood with him.
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[with 3 poems by Irene Blair Honeycutt]
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When the Last Page Turns
 . 
When the last page turns
 . 
will I step into a star
 . 
on a moonless night
 . 
 . 
or drift deep into the dark
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maybe alight on your door screen
 . 
a firefly – a single green lantern?
 . 
 . 
Wherever I was when last
 . 
you read me
 . 
let the empty space
 . 
remember
 . 
Irene Blair Honeycutt
from Mountains of the Moon, Charlotte Lit Press, Charlotte NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
My mother has died. I am no longer a child.
 . 
What has she taken with her? I remember her fingers like butterflies across the keys, the baby grand in the tiny house on Marion Road. She played Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca at warp speed while Bob and I, three and five, whirled and flailed and leaped until we collapsed in convulsions of laughter. She gave us music, yes, and art and games and stories, but what I remember is the laughing.
 . 
Such a childhood she gave us. An old wig, staring eyes painted on her cheekbones, she became a wooly booger to take me trick-or-treating next door. The neighbors startled, then laughed, dubious, not entirely certain it was really her. She was sixty-five, I was forty, such children.
 . 
All the quiet moments before and between, quieter and quieter as her days slowed and faded – thank God I slowed enough with her to share a few. She had been the wizard of noticing, of pattern recognition, spotting a prothonotary warbler, racing the last few pieces into another puzzle at the beach or in her townhouse living room. These past years I named for her the house finch on the feeder, pushed pieces on the table to be closer to where they would fit. Helped with the morning crossword she used to whipsaw in ink. Held a napkin to catch drips from her popsicle on the front porch.
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Who foresees becoming a parent to their parent? Who wants that job? My mother has passed into that kingdom where all she has left to bestow are memories. Her last power, her final gift. Has she taken everything else with her? Innocence? Joy? My childhood?
 . 
No. Not at all. In the nursing home, I lean my bald head to thunk against my equally bald father’s. We laugh. Such children.
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Joy
++++++++++ after Mary Szybist
 . 
I had the happy idea I could be eating breakfast at my
++ friend’s table in California and become bees pollinating
++ her roses.
 . 
Over oatmeal and blueberries, I saw the Lafayette hills mixed
++ with shadow and light reflected in the patio window.
 . 
I had the happy idea I could enter the reflection and begin
++ hiking the path to the eucalyptus trees.
 . 
Sitting in the gravity chair on the deck, I imagined myself
++ a passenger on a jet, flying East of Eden on a Long Day’s
++ Journey into Night.
 . 
I had the happy idea I could be both the seashell sunning in
++ a Peruvian basket and hot-pink geraniums soaking up
++ water in terra-cotta pots.
 . 
I had the happy idea I could become Jarrell’s bat-poet, hitch
++ a ride on a red-shouldered hawk, write a poem while
++ hovering above the witch’s house after Gretel pushes her
++ into the oven.
 . 
I had the happy idea apples and walnuts and pomegranates
++ could mingle. A host of flavors and fragrances never
++ before tasted or smelled would be born.
 . 
My happiest wish was that the ocean would wash over my
++ skin and purify the life within my body. The marrow
++ of my bones, the tissue beneath my skull, would all be
++ renewed.
 . 
And if I truly imagined myself as happy, the pines with
++ candle-like candelabras would light up each night. No
++ one would even try to explain the mystery.
 . 
Irene Blair Honeycutt
from Mountains of the Moon, Charlotte Lit Press, Charlotte NC; © 2024
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
In A Song for the Hours, Irene Blair Honeycutt eulogizes the commonplace and the exalted: railroad spikes and a dead possum, John Donne and Typhoid Mary, a fragment of memory and a burst of birdsong. The message of the poem and the power of every poem in the collection resides in Song’s closing line: I am here. Irene fully inhabits the hours, the moments, and breathes them into poetry.
 . 
To notice: superpower of poets, gift of the muse, or hard-won skill requiring grueling apprenticeship? Read Mountains of the Moon and you may discover clues. Irene gathers places she has known deeply, music and art that have touched her, friendships and griefs, and awakens them – she gives them new life. Perhaps the “noticing” is equal parts paying attention to what is happening around you as well as to the warp and weft within that weave the fabric of your soul. Because Irene’s poems are taken from her true experience and inner truth, then freely, openly given to us, we readers may also be drawn into the noticing.
 . 
A confession: I often tell myself I have nothing left to write. Then I spend an hour with a book like Mountains of the Moon and discover threads within myself that have been calling to untangle themselves into words. Reading poetry has power to jiggle the notice! synapses. And, as usual, the most profound thing one notices is that we humans share in common a wealth of pain and joy. A gift indeed.
 . 
❦
 . 
The opening line of today’s selection is from Irene Blair Honeycutt’s Why, among my brothers.
 . 
Mountains of the Moon, by Irene Blair Honeycutt, is available from Charlotte Lit Press.
 . 
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
Milkweed, Jonas Ridge, NC
 . 
That spring she planted milkweed across the road from
Cozie Cottage on Bald Mountain. It was 2008. Thought
she was doing it for the butterflies.
 . 
By 2010 the milkweed had spread across the field, reaching
the apple trees. During the Great Migration, waves of
Monarchs followed invisible scents
 . 
to her place. Spent several splendid nights. Imagine ecstasy.
Plentiful drumming, feeding, laying of eggs.
 . 
Before they left, Susan drove her mother through
the wonder of it all –
 . 
Grandfather Mountain watching in the distance.
In 2014 her mother, at 96, took flight.
 . 
Though the milkweed has thinned and moved down
the slope, it remains a plant of hope. 2024.
 . 
For the Monarch. The earth.
And for the memories it sows.
 . 
Irene Blair Honeycutt
from Mountains of the Moon, Charlotte Lit Press, Charlotte NC; © 2024
 . 
❦ ❦ ❦
 . 
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