Advice on submitting to Poetry Review

Beginning poets have a great advantage over other artists: the technical equipment required to make a start consists of A4 paper, a word-processor or typewriter and a pile of SAEs. And once you start you don't have to complete a full length work before you start to get feedback. Three or four short poems sent to a magazines with SAE starts the ball rolling. Magazine editors read all the poems that come in. They do not read all the books and full-length manuscripts.

What to Do

The list of what you should do is very short.

  1. Send no more than 6 poems.
  2. Type them.
  3. Send an adequate SAE for return, ie, please ensure your submission will fit in the return envelope, and that it has the right postage (in the UK), or that you have included International Reply Coupons.

The list of don'ts is rather longer.

  1. Don't send your bound collected works or self-printed volumes.
  2. Don't send your book from whatever publisher unless you have been sending out poems to magazines regularly for a couple of years. Magazines receive perhaps 3000 books in a year, out of which they might review 150-200 at most. The other books are not read, but all individual poems properly presented are read.
  3. Don't use fancy layouts and typography for the poems and don't illustrate them.
  4. Don't print your poems in capital letters.
  5. Don't send long CVs with the poems. If you have already published, say where briefly.
  6. Don't claim that a famous poet has recommended that you send (even if it's true).
  7. Don't submit work via e-mail.

Poetry Review receives around 60,000 poems a year and prints about 120 poems in the same period. The odds are long but since every poem is read by the Editor herself there is a real chance. There are hundreds of poetry magazines to try; it's important to read a magazine before you submit to it so you can be sure that your poetry is suitable for that particular publication. This applies to the Review too. 

Books for Review

All books received from their publishers will be considered for review; books listed in publishers' catalogues, but not yet received, may also be called in. Poetry Review regrets that additional correspondence with the authors cannot be entered into. 
 

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