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April is not just the cruelest month but National Poetry Month and yesterday I added a getting-your-poetry-in-print workshop to the last hour of the ongoing Saturday Poetry Workshop that I launched last summer in association with the Literature Department @ Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles.
The workshop is going strong and every Saturday I'm humbled by the power of language and the words of others. Our participants come from all walks of life and backgrounds, reflecting the diversity and richness LA has to offer. Here's an excerpt of the session handout that includes some helpful stuff for poets submitting work to the literary magazine scene: GETTING YOUR POETRY IN PRINT Martin Jago The literary magazine scene is the first and ongoing port of call for poets the world over. It’s exciting getting work published and even better when it’s in a literary magazine that you have long aspired to be published by. Seeing your poem alongside the poems of others’ whose work you recognize as excellent, will give you pride in the work and in yourself. Building a publication list of different journals and magazines where your work has been featured, also builds a readership base for you as a poet. Down the line, you may wish to put together a chapbook and after publication, consider a full collection. This is the three-step traditional route to publishing poetry:
Publishing is constantly evolving and there are many ways to get your work out there. This workshop article focuses on the first step in the traditional approach. With some online research, you’ll find what magazines pique your interest and which ones send you to sleep. Keep a record. Every time you come across an excellent poem, make a note of which journal published it. If it’s a poem that moved you, then you have something in common with the poetry editor who published it because it moved them too. The first rule of submitting poetry to lit. magazines and journals is to make sure the poems you send are final drafts. The eagerness to send out sometimes gets in the way and before we know it, we’ve clicked the Send button, only to discover at a later date, further edits that are needed. So, share your work. Workshop your work. And still wait. Give yourself time away from your babies, let them grow, come back when you hardly recognize them. It will give you the best shot at looking with fresh eyes. Unfortunately, even when the poems are in the best shape possible, the odds are against you. Receiving rejection emails is not nice, but inevitable. However, it is a cliché but also a truism to say that every rejection is a step closer to getting your work accepted. Try to learn from the experience. Just to be absolutely clear about the kind of odds that poets face, here are some stats from one of the biggest literary magazines out there, Rattle, whose website features a breakdown of poetry submissions received, read, accepted etc. The magazine has published 4,500 poets, including 15 Pulitzer Prize Winners, 11 National Book Award Winners and 12 U.S. Poets Laureate. The magazine has a print run of 11,000, which is just huge, especially for a literary magazine. They read 200, 000 poems a year, publishing just 300 a year with a publishing rate of 0.2%. I believe the average is somewhere between 1 - 3%. Rattle is highly regarded, widely known and sought out by poets, making the odds about as slim as they could be. The other thing to say about rejection letters/emails is that not all rejections are the same. Having received my fair share and discussed the art of rejection with fellow poets and writers, it’s clear that there is a hierarchy to rejection. Rejection usually arrives in one of the following forms:
None of this would matter if it wasn’t for the fact that keeping a record of the more personal responses is a good way to build a connection with editors, know who ‘gets’ your work and who clearly doesn’t. Most editors at lit. journals are poets themselves. They champion new writing, want your work to succeed, and from the moment they read the first line, are literally willing your poem to cut through. It may be that your work is excellent but simply doesn’t fit the aesthetic of the magazine. It’s a tell-tale sign to the editor that you haven’t even bothered to read the magazine you’re sending your poems to. Get to know the magazines you are sending to and support the community you are part of. If half the writers who send their work out, subscribed to just one or two of the magazines they submit work to, the literary landscape would be so much stronger. No one runs a literary magazine for financial gain. They are a labor of love and editors usually work on a voluntary basis. Almost all subs are made in one of three ways.
Some magazines still accept snail-mail subs. It used to be the norm but Submittable is by far the most popular way to submit work. Duotrope is another submission platform but the above three methods cover almost all subs you will ever make. Submittable charges magazines to use their platform and that’s why most subs carry a $3 submission fee. There are still plenty of free ones out there and you’ll often find that magazines are willing to waive fees for those struggling financially (but that’s weird because that accounts for almost every poet I know, haha). If you think about it $2 or $3 a go can quickly add up but it’s probably comparable to the cost of sending your work out the snail-mail method. Do This:
Tips, Hacks, Shortcuts
Rust and Moth Palette Poetry Tacoma Literary Review The Sewanee Literary Review Tupelo Quarterly Iron Horse Literary Review Sundog Lit. Sierra Nevada Review The Friday Poem Timber Journal RHINO Poetry The Indianapolis Review Boulevard Michigan Quarterly Review/MQR Conduit Southeast Review
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