A Short Guide to Submitting Poetry to Literary Magazines—Heather Cadenhead

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by Heather Cadenhead 

You’ve written a poem that you think might be decent. You email it to a supportive person in your life with some absurd pretense for doing so: “I wrote a poem inspired by our conversation about Baptists and dog breeds! Thought you might like to see!” Then, you attach the file, hit send, and largely forget about the whole thing. You’ve done this, perhaps, for a number of years–and now, you’re reading the Rabbit Room Poetry Substack or some other distinguished purveyor of verse, wondering if you should dust off that poem about Baptists and Bernedoodles. However, your children are asking for snacks and there is a pile of laundry with your name on it. You close your laptop. Next time: plate a few snacks, ignore the laundry–it’s fine if your family needs to fish clothes out of the dryer for a few more days–and reopen this guide. It contains everything a poet needs to begin submitting poems for publication consideration.

Step 1: Write some poems.

Don’t put the cart before the horse. You can’t submit to literary magazines until you’ve written some poems. For the sake of discussion, let’s say you just put the finishing touches on “A Bernedoodle Overturns the Dessert Table.” You even tied in a reference to Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers. You’re feeling pretty good about this poem. Is it time to submit? Not yet. 

First, workshop that poem with a few other writers. If you’re already in community with other writers (i.e., a writing group of some kind), then you know exactly what to do. Share that poem with those writers. Ask specific questions if you have them (“Is the ‘overturns’/‘turnovers’ wordplay in the third stanza a little much?”). If you aren’t in community with other writers, ask your spouse or a good friend if the poem makes sense. Ask if those people can identify certain themes or topics in the poem. Ask what questions they have. Listen to their answers. Don’t defend yourself. Receive their feedback as information; with this data, you can make your poem even better. Pay attention to your natural inclinations. Rule-followers may be apt to take too many suggestions–and, in the process, lose the heartbeat of the poem. Rebels, on the other hand, may be apt to take too few–resulting in a poem so vague or wordy that it never resonates with readers or editors.