Submissions to the 2019 Poetry Marathon Anthology are open now and will stay open through the 16th of July!
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@
DO NOT email us at the email address we use for all other communication!
Jennifer Faylor is the editor of this years anthology. She resonates with William Carlos Williams’ sentiment “No ideas but in things” and especially appreciates poems with plunging emotional depths.
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 2019 Poetry Marathon. All poems should be completely edited and contain no major grammatical errors. Revisions are allowed and encouraged. Please check your punctuation before submitting. 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.
To turn off automatic capitalization, follow these steps:
- Go to Tools. | AutoCorrect Options.
- On the AutoCorrect tab, deselect the Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences check box, and click OK.
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 2017 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.
Understood! Thanks for this opportunity! 🥰
Foremost, thank you for these guidelines. I’ll be preparing and revising now.
I understand all that you’ve outline, but “plunging emotional depths” is so vague. If everyone had this, wouldn’t that skew the anthology? Please know: This is not a criticism as much as a clarification. Little by little I’ve returned to read various poets, hour prompts, or a combination of both. I’ll continue to do that now.
Thank you!
It’s what Jennifer wanted to say about what she’s interested in. I understand your hesitation, because in the past I haven’t included that sort of information – I don’t think it will skew the anthology though. Most of the time people submit what they want to submit, and if the editor is more engaged with the work I think that can be a good thing!
Hi Jan! Just wanted to clarify, I shared a bit about my preferences with poetry but that shouldn’t be interpreted as a theme for the anthology or anything like that. It’s just meant to offer some insight into my preferences in that I enjoy poems that have the power to make me feel powerful things, and that the emotional territory a poem covers is particularly something I pay attention to. If this is tripping you up while you’re trying to put your submission together, feel free to ignore it and go with your instincts! Good luck with your revisions!
Thank you for the guidelines. I am not au faith with word press. How would I include a link to my page of a particular poem being submitted for the anthology?
Anwar, when you submit your poems you just need to include a link to your general page on the marathon blog (go to “My Page” on the blog and the URL bar should show the web address of your page, you can copy and paste that).
Hello. A question about the submission email: Does it need to be formatted like a proper submission letter?
Hi Nancy, no need to worry about formatting in the submission email, as long as you include the needed info (name, location, full/half marathon, hours poems were written, and link to your poetry marathon’s author page) and follow the other guidelines you’ll be good!
Thank you for the guidelines.
What about the poems that were written as erasures? I’m guessing there is a copyright issue and they should be excluded?
Plus I have one that is all song titles, I’m sure that’s out!
Fiona
Hi Fiona!
Erasures, and poems containing quoted material, will be considered on a case-by-case basis. One thing to note is that we can’t handle color.
You should not submit a poem if you think there’s a chance it infringes on another artist’s copyright. Here’s an article which breaks things down well: https://www.morse.law/news/writers-guide-to-fair-use
If I believe a submitted poem violates someone’s copyright it will be rejected. Copyright infringement is not a black-and-white matter, so you have to carefully evaluate your usage of other people’s writing in your own, in each unique instance. I hope this helps!
Do you accept simultaneous submissions? If a poem gets accepted elsewhere, of course the poet must let you know, but then would the poem be ineligible for printing in the anthology?
Hi Donna, yes we accept simultaneous submissions. If we accept your poem you will need to withdraw it from consideration elsewhere. If you commit your poem to publication somewhere else I’m not certain it would still be eligible for printing in the anthology. After the anthology is published though, rights return back to the poet.
Please let us know when print copies of the anthology are available. I’m so excited!
So when is the anthology going to be available in online and print? I want to buy a few. Let me know. Thanks!
Just wanted to update and let everyone here know I saw the 2019 Poetry Marathon anthology is now available for purchase on Amazon! Congrats y’all!