Poetry Submission Guidelines

Current Status: CLOSED

January 9, 2012—Due to the tremendous volume we've received in just a few months, ChiZine.com is currently closed to both fiction and poetry submissions. So that we don't give our faithful slush readers brain aneurisms, we will be closed until mid-2012 or thereabouts. Please check back here for an update as to when we'll re-open. We thank you, and the tired eyes of our slushies thank you.

Reading Periods:
For January–March issue: September 1st–November 30th
For April–June issue: December 1st–February 28th
For July–September issue: March 1st–May 31st
For October–December issue: June 1st–August 31st

Managing Poetry Editor:
Sandra Kasturi

Poetry Editors:
Colleen Anderson
Carolyn Clink

It seems that most people found my previous guidelines so amusing that they didn't think they needed to follow them. So, here are revised guidelines that are less entertaining, but ones you might actually pay attention to. Please do so.

Current payment rate is $10.00 (US)/poem (please note, as of July 2011, will be made via PayPal).
We publish 4 per issue, 4 issues per year.
Poems remain on-line for the 3-month duration of the issue, then are archived for one year.
Author retains copyright of poem.

1. The theme is "treatments of light and shade in words." We are only looking for poems that are genre (dark SF, dark fantasy, horror, magic realism) in some way.
2. Note on Goth poems. BEFORE YOU SUBMIT, go to the Goth-o-Matic Poetry Generator and create a poem:
   http://www.deadlounge.com/poetry/poems.html
   If the poem you want to send me even remotely resembles the one you just created with the Generator, DO NOT submit your own poem.
3. Unless you have had poems published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly or a similar calibre of magazine, DO NOT SUBMIT:
   
   1. formal verse of any kind whatsoever
      
   2. vampire poetry
      
   3. any poem with the word "blood" in it
      
   4. any poem with the word "womb" in it
      
   5. anything remotely related to J.R.R. Tolkien
      
   6. any werewolf poem. We know you think your werewolf poems are good. We don't. We're tired of the howling and the biting. You give us mange.
      
   7. any poem entitled "Underworld." The movies weren't THAT awesome. Also, it's the name of the knicker factory on Coronation Street, so it elicits immediate snickers from the editors.
   • Send poetry within the text of the e-mail. No attachments.
   • Please include your real name and address.
   • Please note that we no longer accept reprints of any kind.
     
   • Use a readable font and size. (for example, 12-point Times New Roman or Arial). For editors, almost 100% of the time, interesting font = bad submission.

   • Indicate the title of your poem. If it's untitled, write _untitled_.
   • Don't explain what your poem is about in your cover note. We don't extensively footnote things at ChiZine, so if the meaning can't be figured out from the poem itself, you're doing something wrong.
   • Shorter poems (i.e., around 50 lines or less) are infinitely preferred.
   • No simultaneous submissions.
   • Send submissions here.