Poetry Submission Guidelines
We are honored that you want to share your poetry with us. Please read these guidelines carefully before submitting, they exist to protect the integrity of your work and to help our editors give every poem the attention it deserves.
📝 Looking for our general writing guidelines? These guidelines are specific to poetry submissions. For stories, essays, and articles, please visit our Submission Guidelines page.
✍️ What We Publish
Writing Café Journal welcomes original poetry in any form, free verse, structured, narrative, lyric, prose poetry, and everything in between. What we look for in every poem is a genuine human voice, an authentic emotional truth, and something that stays with the reader.
We do not publish poetry that contains hate speech, explicit sexual content, or political propaganda. Every submission is reviewed by our editorial team personally.
Meeting these guidelines is the first step, not a guarantee. We receive more poems than we can publish, and every submission is weighed individually against the standard of the work we're building here. Final publishing decisions rest with our editors and are made at their discretion.
📏 Length & Format
- Minimum: 2 lines
- Maximum: 60 lines
- Language: English only at this time.
- Format: Plain text. Preserve your own line breaks. Line breaks will appear exactly as you submit them.
- One poem per submission. Each submission form accepts a single poem.
📅 Submission Frequency
We changed the limit of poems per author per month. We have decided that we will accept up to three poems per month.
If you submit more than three poems within a calendar month, only the first three submissions will be reviewed. Subsequent submissions within the same month will not be considered.
✅ Do's & Don'ts
✓ Do
- Submit original, unpublished work
- Write with a specific, genuine voice
- Include a short bio, it is required
- Use a pen name if you prefer
- Proofread before submitting
- Preserve your intended line breaks
✗ Don't
- Submit work published elsewhere
- Submit AI generated poetry
- Submit more than three poems per month
- Submit hate speech or slurs
- Submit explicit sexual content
- Submit political propaganda
- Submit work over 60 lines
⏳ Response Time
We aim to respond to all poetry submissions within 5 days. It can take up to two weeks during periods of high volume. If you have not heard from us after two weeks, feel free to follow up via our contact form.
"We review every submission and aim to notify you of our decision. During high-volume periods, some submissions may not receive an individual response."
©️ Rights & Ownership
You retain full ownership of your work. By submitting, you grant Writing Café Journal a non-exclusive license to publish your poems on this platform. You may publish it elsewhere after it appears here, with credit to Writing Café Journal as the original publisher.
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