Deadlines: February & March 2025
Every middle of the month: new deadlines, new contests, and new opportunities for your work to find its audience. Here is a roundup of ten submission opportunities with deadlines in February or March, including The Rumpus, Black Fox Literary Magazine, The London Magazine, and more.
DEADLINE: 2/16
Presenting is a print feature in which Senior Editor Xavier Cavazos introduces readers to a poet whose work has never before been featured in a nationally distributed print journal.
All writers whose poetry has not been featured or is not forthcoming in a nationally distributed print journal may submit up to four poems at a time. Please wait for a response before submitting again.
All work submitted in this category will be considered for general publication even if not selected for the Presenting feature.
Please read our general guidelines before you submit.
Reading Fee: none
DEADLINE: 2/28
At MAYDAY, we want to publish poems that teach us their language and how to read them. We seek to cultivate a poetry section that moves readers through the expressive and fresh–the weird yet intentional. We value subversive poems that engage critically with the world, that are specific yet embrace the mess of complexity. We want poems that make us laugh, poems that make us cry, and those that manage both. We enjoy poems that invite readers to connect with their speakers, and leave us transformed by the poet’s voice. We want poems that engage in or break received forms and those that create new ones. We’d love to see poetry that uses space imaginatively, including projective, concrete, visual, erasure, and documentary forms, as well as forms we haven’t seen yet! Show us what a poem can be and do. Send us your best.
Please submit 1-3 poems totaling no more than 10 pages in a single document. Submissions of more than 3 poems or 10 pages will not be read. We aim to respond to submissions within six months; please do not submit again until hearing back on your first submission.
Reading Fee: $3
DEADLINE: 3/1
We aim to center writers and artists who have been marginalized and underrepresented, or historically misrepresented, and encourage submissions that engage with issues of racial, social, economic, gender, and environmental justice.
Poetry Submission Guidelines:
- Please submit to Lunch Ticket only once per submission reading period (regardless of genre).
- All submissions at Lunch Ticket are read anonymously in the first round. We only read pieces that have all identifying information removed. Make sure no identifying information exists in the document title, submission title, or the work itself. Identifying information (such as names and bios) can only be included in the cover letter, and not in any attached files or the submission title.
- Submit up to 3 poems per cycle. Submit all poems in the same document.
Reading fee: none
DEADLINE: 3/2
The Rumpus: The Rumpus Poetry Prize (judged by Kaveh Akbar)
Announcing the Inaugural Rumpus Prize for Poetry
The Rumpus has a long history of championing emerging and established poets, and we’re pleased to announce a new way of bringing attention to great poetry.
- $1,000 first-place prize and publication on therumpus.net
- Honorable mention receives $200 and publication
- All entries are eligible for publication in The Rumpus. Those published will be offered the standard contributor payment of $50.
The Rumpus will accept contest submissions from December 5, 2024, through March 2, 2025. Finalists will be contacted in May 2025. Winners will be announced publicly and published by June 2025.
We are honored to have KAVEH AKBAR as our judge for the inaugural Rumpus Prize for Poetry.
Submit 2–4 poems per entry. Combine all poems into a single document. For poetry, we are seeking to publish the single best poem or set of 2–3 poems. The entire submission should not exceed 10 pages. Poems must contain only the poem title(s) and poem(s) without the author’s name or contact information anywhere on the submission itself. While we embrace and consider poems with diverse page presentations, there may be situations where we are unable to accommodate poems with special formatting as seen on the page.
The cost to submit is $20 per set of 2–4 poems (10 pages max). Writers may submit multiple groups of poems, but each entry will include a $20 submission fee.
Reading Fee: $20
DEADLINE: 3/3
Middle West Press LLC, an independent micro-publisher based in Central Iowa, has issued a call for human-generated poems and micro-prose (300 words max.) telling fantastic stories of monsters in a 21st century American Midwest.
The working title of this project is Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters.
This anthology will published in both print and Kindle e-book formats. Publication is projected for Fall 2025. Contributors will receive one complimentary digital contributor’s copy.
This is explicitly a speculative poetry (and related micro-flash-prose) market. We welcome both established artists, and those experimenting with such genre narratives and forms for the first time.
We want to read your poems and stories of monsters—whether your protagonists are giant or relatively human-sized; traditional, pop-cultural, or newly created—as set in (or against) the context, landscape, environment, and character of the 21st century American Midwest.
These can include, but not be limited to:
- Monsters, cryptids, kaiju and mythic beasts that are traditionally based in the American Midwest.
- Monsters that might just be visiting, vacationing in, or relocating to/from the American Midwest.
- Monster narratives that illuminate, celebrate, or challenge stereotypes of Midwestern identity.
As with previous Middle West Press projects, we hope to publish work that intersects in some way with the people, places, nature, and history of the terrains and cultures we inhabit, especially works stemming from the lived experiences of women, youth, poets of color, poets who identify as LGBTQ+, military veterans, and other marginalized voices.
As final words of inspiration, the editors of Cryptids, Kaiju & Corn: Poems and Micro-Stories about Modern Midwest Monsters write:
Tell us stories like “Paul Bunyan vs. Godzilla!” Or “Little House Bigfoot on the Prairie!” Relocate the giant robots of Pacific Rim to the New Madrid Fault! Tell us about noodling Lovecraftian catfish, or how-to repair supernaturally possessed tractors! Tell us about the joys and dangers of urban-coyote lycanthropy, or about joining the Children of the Corn Palace! Surprise us!
Reading Fee: none
DEADLINE: 3/7
Milk Press merges the poetry, visual, and digital art worlds by cultivating, presenting, and publishing multi-disciplinary, collaborative work. We are currently seeking submissions for our Spring issue, launching digitally in April. Submissions are open from January 17th to March 7th. Please read our submission guidelines.
We only consider previously unpublished works. Our reading fee is put towards the free and accessible programs that the Poetry Society of New York offers. We hope to make our selection process as equitable and diverse as possible. That being said, BIPOC, queer, and gender non-conforming folks are especially encouraged to apply.
Reading fee: $5
DEADLINE: 3/14
The Passionfruit Review: Issue 18
Our general submissions are always open, always free, and always about love: the romantic, the familial, the platonic, the intimate, the lost, the young, the wretched. Above all, Passionfruit seeks to be a home for that which illuminates something of the human spirit – pieces that explore what love is (or isn’t, or might be), when we love, how we love, what we love, and why we love. Our focus is on poetry, but there are no restrictions on genre, type, or style. We also consider poetry, prose, and visual art for each issue. Take a look at some of our recent issues to get a feel for the journal before you submit – they are all freely available.
POETRY
- Submit no more than three poems at a time
- There are no set restrictions on length for poetry submissions, but we will be looking for writing which shows meticulousness in its use of language, whether across 2 lines or 200.
Reading Fee: none
DEADLINE: 3/25
nw{p} is a trans and gender-expansive poetry and hybrid journal, but that doesn’t mean work must be related to those topics. we publish work from emerging and established trans* poets all over the world. we want polished work that makes us stop mid-poem to catch our breath and linger. we want words that surprise us; words that make us catch fire. in addition to more traditional forms of poetry, nw{p} is a place for experimentation and hybrid process– work that mainstream journals won’t publish. ultimately we want nw{p} to reside in the spectrum of life. see issue one, two, or three to get an idea of what we’re interested in. We never charge a reading fee. Expect 2-4 weeks for a response, though it’s often much faster than that. Payment is $15 + one copy.
POETRY
- Up to 3 poems
- No more than 8 pages total. Each poem should begin on a new page.
EXPERIMENTAL
- Up to 3 poems
- No more than 10 pages total.
- Erasure work, experimental forms and language, shape poems, or whatever else. We’re interested as long as it can be printed.
HYBRID
- Up to 3 pieces
- No more than 10 pages total.
- Color art is accepted
Reading Fee: none
DEADLINE: 3/30
Black Fox is accepting submissions for our winter writing prize. The theme for this round is “Rise or Ruin.” We are open to loose interpretations of the theme in any genre, as always.
Good reputation or bad? Reputations can mold destinies, define legacies, and/or echo through history. We invite writers to investigate a reputation’s power, potential, and frailty. Will your hero rise or will your legends fall? Give us themes of redemption, scandal, honor, or betrayal—where truth or lies can shift the direction of a life or shatter a legacy in a single moment. We’re looking for work that will uncover truths behind personas and reveal the complex layers of how we are perceived and remembered.
Please submit your strongest fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, and we will choose one winner that we feel interprets the theme best. The prize is $325 and print publication in the Summer 2025 issue. All submissions are considered for print publication in the Summer 2025 issue. The contest entry fee is $12, and submissions must be submitted before midnight (EST) on March 30, 2025.
Reading fee: $12
DEADLINE: 3/31
The London Magazine: The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2025
The London Magazine is the UK’s oldest literary magazine, proud to have published some of the biggest names in poetry including T. S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Philip Larkin. Past winners include Kathryn Bevis, Jay Gao and Isabelle Baafi.
Now, continuing that tradition, we launch our 2025 Poetry Prize. We are delighted to announce that entries will be judged by: Fiona Benson, Jason Allen-Paisant and Mai Serhan.
Established to encourage emerging literary talent, the award provides an opportunity for publication and recognition. While there is no criteria as to theme, form or style, judges are looking for resonant and accomplished work.
Poems must be previously unpublished and no longer than 40 lines. Submissions are open for international entries.
All three prize winners will appear in a print issue of The London Magazine. Prize winners will also receive cash prizes, and will be celebrated at a prize-giving event in the summer.
This year, in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, all profits from the entry fees will be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians.
Information
Entry fee: £10 per poem
Subsequent entries: £5 per poem
Student/Low Income Entry: £5 per poem (Must be submitted with a valid university email address)
Note: There is no limit to the number of entries you can submit.
First Prize: £500
Second Prize: £300
Third Prize: £200
Reading fee: £10 per poem (£5 per poem for subsequent entries)