New Yorker Poetry Submission Response Time

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Kizzy Burnworth

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:57:04 PM8/3/24

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We review poetry on a rolling basis, but ask that you please not submit more than twice in a twelve-month period. You may send up to six poems (in a single document) per submission. Our response time is around six months.

We are interested in original, unpublished poetry. We do not consider work that has appeared elsewhere. This includes websites and personal blogs, even if a posting has been removed prior to submission.

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Thank you for your interest in submitting work to Poetry. We look forward to the opportunity to engage carefully with your work. Due to the number of submissions we receive each year, we will likely get back to you within eight months. We appreciate your patience.

If you cannot use Submittable (poetry.submittable.com/ ) and would like to submit your work by mail, please send your submission to 61 W Superior St, Chicago, IL 60654 and include a self-addressed return envelope. If you do not include a return envelope, your submission will not receive a response.

So of course I wanted to send my own poetry to Beloit Poetry Journal for consideration. They have not yet accepted any of my submitted poems, but they did send me some of my first personal and encouraging rejections, with an invitation to keep sending them more.

I discovered the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association and speculative poetry a few years ago and was immediately intrigued by the possibilities. They publish quarterly journals Star*Line and Eye to the Telescope, as well as the annual Rhysling and Dwarf Stars anthologies. The more I read, the more I wanted to try my hand at speculative poetry. Eventually, I began submitting my own speculative poetry to their quarterly journals and an annual contest. I have received many rejections in return, but I sold my first science fiction poem to Star*Line last year, and my first horror poem will appear in Eye to the Telescope soon.

Reading is research for potential markets. Figure out what you like to read, and then start submitting your own work to those publications. I have a list of dream publications, journals and magazines that publish poetry and/or fiction, and when I finish a piece of writing, I start with them.

There came a time when I had so many poems ready to send out to potential markets that my list of dream publications was too short. I turned to market search engines that list ongoing and upcoming submission calls.

The (Submission) Grinder: The Grinder (not to be confused with the hook-up app) is a free search engine and submission tracker created by Diabolical Plots editor David Steffen after Duotrope started charging for its service. The Grinder focused on genre (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) markets initially, but it continues to expand with literary market listings today. Its search engine includes many checkboxes and options for filtering market results, or you can search for journals by name.

You might be wondering, though, who has the time? How are you supposed to devote time to writing, rewriting, market research, AND submitting your work, along with all your other responsibilities and activities?

Well, I am not suggesting that you read entire issues of every potential publication you come across and want to submit to. What I am suggesting is that you do this sometimes, especially when you are starting out, and especially those markets that are the most compelling to you. The only way to know if your work will be a good fit is to spend some time with the publication. You might only have to read a single poem, story, or essay to realize that you are not interested in submitting to them after all. Or you might find yourself racing through their latest issue and discovering a new favorite publication as a reader. The more experience you have as a reader of the types of things you like to write, the more you will be able to tell if a publication is right for your work.

Sometimes you know your piece is the perfect fit for a potential market. Sometimes you are just taking a chance. Either way, once you pick a potential market or several for your pieces, it is time to submit.

Reread their submission or guidelines page. Sometimes they change their submission window or close early. Sometimes they vanish from the internet forever. Sometimes you miss something important the first time you take a look at their website. Read and reread those guidelines!

All that said, most editors tend to default to standard guidelines that you will use again and again when submitting your work. The more you submit, the more practice you will have formatting your poems, short stories, or essays in the way most editors expect. William Shunn put together widely-followed formatting guidelines and published them on the web for writers. For prose, use the format illustrated and described in great detail here. For poetry, use the format here.

If you do not have any publications yet to include in your bio, that is fine! Simply include two or three sentences about yourself. Once one of your pieces is published, then you can add this publication to your bio for future submissions.

Other markets ask for email submissions. Some markets want the text of the cover letter and the poetry or prose copied and pasted into the body of the email. Others want the work submitted as an attachment in a preferred file format.