Poetry Submissions
Poetry Submissions for Issue Three: Water are OPEN
The topic is WATER.
We’re open-minded and will consider most kinds of poetry, but like anyone, we definitely have tastes. Ours lean toward poems that are moving, unusual, insightful, musical and daring. We like to learn new things and feel along with the poem’s characters. Most of the poems you’ll see here will likely be free verse, but we’re also fans of formal poetry. In general, we’re not fans of poetry so opaque in language that we cannot connect emotionally to the poem, nor are we fans of transcriptions of spoken word.
Because each issue is centered around a theme, we’re most excited by poems that surprise us or give us a new way of seeing the topic (or subtopic). Think of each issue of Bestiary as a mini-anthology.
Each issue will be centered around a theme. Please do not send us poems during a submission period that do not fall under the current theme. Each submission period lasts only a few days; all poems sent outside the submission period will be rejected outright.
Except in rare cases, we will not publish poems that have been published elsewhere in any format (private websites and short-run chapbook excepted). Simultaneous submissions are okay with us, but since the turnaround time between submission and acceptance/rejection will be about two weeks, it’s probably not in your interest to send us poems you’ve sent somewhere else, unless you’re confident it’s perfect for our theme and are comfortable withdrawing the poem from other journals to which you’ve submitted it.
Please send no more than three poems per submission period. Poems should either be: 1) sent as a Word document, 2) sent as an RTF document, 3) pasted into the body of an email. We recommend doing both 1 and 3 or 2 and 3 to ensure your work is readable by us.
Please upload files as .doc or .rtf ONLY. Email poetry@bestiarymagazine.com if you have trouble with the form. Good luck!