The Poetry Marathon

As many of you know we have two official half marathon starting times. One starts at at 9 AM ET on June 26th and go till 9 PM on the 26th and the other starts at 9 PM ET on the 26th and continue to 9 AM on the 27th.

For the first time ever we are also going to allow half marathoners to pick any 12 hour period during the larger 24 hour period that starts at 9 AM ET on Saturday June 26th and goes till 9 AM ET on Sunday the 27th of June. There will be no official start or ending post for these marathoners for logistical reasons (I wouldn’t know where to put them!) but they should always be writing with other marathoners and feel like they are part of the larger spirit of things.

Time zones have long been a concern of ours. The marathon itself is set at times that works for most North Americans, and as the marathon has become more and more international we’ve tried various ways to help international marathoners (by having the two starting periods). We are hoping that this will make a difference.

We’d love to have more options for full marathoners someday but one of our current limitations is simply that 24 prompts (48 this year if you count the image options) is a lot already and it would be hard to keep the spirit alive for a much larger period of time (or monitored with support help). However we are very open to suggestions that would make that possible, this year or in the future.

To sign up go here.

If you are interested in participating please sign up by June 19th! We will get back to applicants on a rolling basis. Most people who apply will be accepted. If you have not heard from us a week after applying please send us an email at poets@poetrymarathon.com. Please do not try and contact us through the FB page

Sign up is now open for the 2021 Poetry Marathon! You can sign up here.

The 2021 Poetry Marathon starts at 9 AM ET on Saturday June 26th and will go till 9 AM ET on Sunday the 27th of June.

Those who are interested in doing a half marathon start at 9 AM ET on June 26th and go till 9 PM on the 26th. Or they can start at 9 PM ET on the 26th and continue to 9 AM on the 27th, which works better for some time zones.

The goal of the poetry marathon is to write and post one poem an hour for 24 hours. Half marathoners post a poem per hour for a 12 hour period.

This is an international event with participants from all around the globe. Generally 500 people attempt the marathon. You do not have to be a poet to participate. To find out how to convert your timezone go here.

To learn more go here.

To sign up go here.

If you are interested in participating please sign up by June 19th! We will get back to applicants on a rolling basis. Most people who apply will be accepted. If you have not heard from us a week after applying please send us an email at poets@poetrymarathon.com. Please do not try and contact us through the FB page

The editor for the 2021 Poetry Marathon Anthology has now been chosen.

It was a very hard decision, with all the candidates making compelling arguments for why they would be a good choice.

One of the things I love about how the Marathon works is that the anthology has a new editor each year, and each year the editor shapes the anthology in different ways!

This year’s anthology editor is Cynthia Hernandez.

Cynthia Hernandez experiences life as poetry and expresses it through writing, photography, visual arts, and her relationships. Born and raised in Washington State, Cynthia has enjoyed a lifelong love affair with rain, sun, wind, trees, rivers, lakes, mountains, and the vast waters of the Puget Sound. When not writing, taking photos of birds, flowers or sunsets, or throwing herself into her work at King County government, Cynthia can be found in conversation, celebration and presence with her son Gabe, family, and friends. Cynthia has self-published two collections of poetry and is working on a third. She has twice completed the full Poetry Marathon, in 2019 and 2020, and looks forward to it each year. One of her favorite things about the Poetry Marathon is reading the work of other poets, so she’s really looking forward to editing this year’s anthology.

Thank you for everyone who applied to the editor position! It is now closed.

We are also closing submissions of art at this time. Thank you to everyone who submitted.

We will be be contacting the potential editor this upcoming week and should announce this years editor by the end of April.

We will be replying to artists this week as well, although it might take us longer to sort out the details/finalize a cover (we probably won’t be making the cover itself till after the marathon).

Editing Position

We’re able to pay this year’s editor of the anthology $600 USD, after securing a generous private donation, as well as contributing to it ourselves.

The Poetry Marathon Anthology is may writers’ first publication, and others’ hundredth, but it is always a clear representation of the range of people who participate in the event.

You can see what last year’s looked like here.

Each year we choose a new editor, and the last two both did terrific job.

The anthology is a lot of work and the editor is expected to choose one poem, out of two that participants can submit, to publish in the anthology. They’re also expected to organize them in half marathon and full marathon sections, and to keep track of participant information. Optionally they can add introductions or subheadings.

If you are interested in applying to be the editor of this year’s anthology, send an email to poets@thepoetrymarathon.com, with a link to your poetry marathon profile/blog, and a paragraph or two explaining your previous experiences. CVs are not needed.

We are only interested in editors who have taken part in one half or full marathon previously. If you have not participated before please do not apply.

We close to submissions on April 23rd. We will respond to applicants by the end of April.

Artwork Submissions

We are also open to artwork submissions from anyone, previous marathoner or otherwise. Work must belong to you and you must be comfortable with us turning it into a book cover (digitally of course).

You can submit something that already exists or link to your previous art work examples and offer something new. No more than five pieces of artwork can be submitted per person. Any medium is allowed, as long as it can be turned into a print book cover. High quality resolution images are a must, though your initial submissions can be lower resolution.

We will respond to applicants that we are not interested in by the end of April, but may make our final selection between a few artists in July or August, once the anthology nears completion.

Please send work to poets@thepoetrymarathon.com.

If you have any question about either position please send us an email at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com.

The 2021 Poetry Marathon will be held on June the 26th. Official start time 9 AM ET. There is a second half marathon starting time at 9 PM ET.

The 2020 Poetry Marathon is now available for purchase. In the US and Canada you can purchase it through Aer. Internationally you can find a copy through Amazon.

You can see the Amazon UK listing here.

The Amazon India link is here.

Thank you to everyone who contributed their wonderful work. Also a huge thank you to Shloka Shankar for her wonderful job editing and to Dexta Rodriguez for the wonderful cover art.

An email with the digital copy should be sent out shortly to contributors. If you do not receive it please send us an email at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com.

A 2021 Poetry Marathon is in the works, although the exact date is not determined, because right now we are scheduled to move in June. Final dates should be released in February 2021.

Submissions to the 2020 Poetry Marathon Anthology are open now and will stay open through the 25th of July!

We our pleased to announce that our editor this year is Shloka Shankar. Shloka is a freelance writer, poet, editor, publisher, visual artist, and surface pattern designer from Bangalore, India. She enjoys experimenting with Japanese short-forms, visual poetry, and myriad found poetry techniques alike.

A Best of the Net nominee and award-winning haiku poet, her poems and artwork have appeared in over 200 online and print venues of repute. When she isn’t writing or poring over manuscripts, she dabbles in abstract/digital art and conducts online poetry workshops to spread her love for words and art. Shloka is the founding editor of Sonic Boom and its imprint, Yavanika Press.  You can visit her website here.

Read our guidelines carefully before submitting.

All submissions must include two poems, no more, no less.

All submissions must be made via the email address – poetrymarathonsubmissions@gmail.com

DO NOT email us at the email address we use for all other communication!

The subject line of all emails must be Poetry Submission. Poems must be included in the body of the email.

All poems submitted must be written during the 2020 Poetry Marathon. All poems should be completely edited and contain no major grammatical errors. Revisions are allowed and encouraged before submitting. Please check your punctuation. All poems should be single spaced. Any extra space will probably be interpreted as a stanza break. 

The first word of every line should not have a capitalization unless it is intentional! Word has an auto caps feature that you can turn off by following the instructions below.

You must indicate which hour each poem was written in. Only poets who completed the whole or half marathon will be eligible to submit. Also indicate your location. Please include a link to your page on the Poetry Marathon.

Thank you for following the guidelines! I know they might seem a little strict but they make it possible to put together an anthology in a few months. The anthology should be published this Fall.

There is no guarantee that by submitting your poem will be selected, although the goal is to include one poem by everyone who submits.

After the poems are published in the anthology all rights return to you.

Digital copies will be made available for free to any contributor. Print copies will be available for a reasonable price (last time it was nine dollars to purchase a copy) and any money that is made from selling the anthology will go towards covering the cost of the marathon.

Want to know what the 2019 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.