About Palette Poetry

Palette Poetry is an online literary journal that endeavors to uplift and platform emerging and established poets.

The world is eager for poets. In 2016, more people spent their hard-earned money on poetry books than in any other year on record. When times are dark, the world often turns to poets for insight and for language reanimated. Palette Poetry is here to paint our small part of the world with truth through poetry, as imaginative, eviscerating, and provoking as truth can be.

Our mission is to create a nourishing and brave space for poetic voices, whether new, emerging, or established, especially those that often go unheard or unrecognized. Our goal is to recognize and publish the most innovative and exciting poetry we can.

Palette firmly believes writers should be compensated for their work and is a paying market. We pay $50 per poem accepted. We do not charge fees for Featured Poetry submissions and offer a quick-response submission option for writers of historically marginalized identities. All creative work published in Palette comes through our submission windows; we do not solicit poetry whether for Featured Poetry or for our contests.

Check out our submission guidelines here. Send us your best, unpublished work.

See our previous contest info and winners here.

For questions regarding submissions, please visit our FAQ page. If you didn't find the answer there, you can reach out to us at contact (at) palettepoetry.com.

 

Our Masthead

Editor in Chief: Marcella Haddad

Founding Editor: Joshua Roark

Associate Editor: Elyssia Nguyen

Guest Editors (for editorial feedback):  Heather Derr-Smith, V.B. Borjen, Joanna Acevedo, Meredith Herndon, Lizzy Ke Polishan, AT Hincapie, Flora Trameri, Jolie Lisenby, Clare Labrador, Lauren Crawford, Raiya Shaw, Katelyn Garcia, Wenmimareba Klobah Collins

Readers: Olga Rukovets, Abdulrazaq Salihu, Brooklyn Dooley, Elezanbee Vue, Angela Gabrielle Fabunan, Yide Cai, Swapnil Dhruv Bose, Javier Calero, Megan Hegenbarth, Bridget Kriner, Dylan Drongesen, Kate Genevieve, Cherish Mathews, Izraq H. Jesen, Ella Deitz, Catherine Kenny

 

Our Values

At Palette Poetry, we believe in championing and celebrating innovative, meaningful, and expansive poetry. In order to do this important work, we must support and uplift poets of diverse backgrounds and identities. We believe in paying for creative work and safeguarding the work and writers we publish. We are also excited to support and develop the wonderful team of talented readers, editors, and working poets who make Palette possible.

We know that the publishing world has been and is a feature of systemic racism and discriminatory practices. At Palette, we strive to improve access to the literary industry by providing experience and paid roles to as many poets as possible. If you are interested in reading for or working at Palette, keep an eye on our Submittable, newsletter, and social media platforms for new calls for applications!

Here are some resources and actions that we offer to support poets who are interested in editorial careers:

• We hold an open call for volunteer readers (approximately once per year).
• Consistent readers are invited to apply for the guest editor position, which is paid.
• Other paid roles, such as associate editor, will have public calls for applications.

One of Palette Poetry’s most important goals is to ensure that every submission gets a fair review. To that end, we use the following process to evaluate submissions:

• Our current reading team was hired through a public call for volunteer readers, and represents a diversity of perspectives.
• Every reader has completed our anti-bias training, which includes extensive reading and written reflection. Here are just a few examples from that training;
  • “The Diversity Baseline Survey” from Lee & Low Books 
  • “When ‘Good Writing’ Means ‘White Writing’” from Electric Literature
  • "The Politics of Gatekeeping: On Reconsidering the Ethics of Blind Submissions" from Poets & Writers 
• Multiple readers share their comments on submissions that make it to the second round of consideration. This process allows for readers to highlight strengths and details in poems that might have been missed by other readers.
• The associate editor and editor in chief have live meetings to discuss the final selection of poetry, with the goal of publishing quality poetry that represents the most variety in form, content, voice, and perspective. This process also applies to curating a shortlist of poems for the judge’s consideration.
• We bring in guest judges so that they will select and celebrate unique poems. During contests, we also will sometimes publish finalist poems that were not selected by the judge, but were well-loved by the editors.

When it comes to safeguarding and advocating for our community, Palette takes the following actions:

• We request that all submitters include content notes in their cover letters, if necessary. This includes topics such as violence, self-harm, or sexual assault. This information helps our reading team prepare for the content of the work they will be considering, or allows them to request a second reader.
• When it comes to political activism and current events, Palette speaks through the poetry we publish and the poets we choose to platform.
• If we encounter submissions that contain overtly bigoted, sexist, derogatory, or discriminatory content, we remove them from consideration to protect our reading team.

We are also passionate about helping poets improve their craft. To that end, we provide:

• A Resources page with craft essays from our editors and fellow poets with specific, actionable advice to draft, revise, and improve your poetry.
• Feedback letters written by our team of guest editors, which provide detailed analysis and actionable advice for poets. This paid service can be added onto any submission to Featured Poetry or a current contest.
• We strive to provide timely responses (within four months) to our submitters, so that they can continue to improve, resubmit, or get published on an efficient timeline.
• When a poem makes it far in our selection process, we make sure to leave personalized comments for the submitter to let them know what about their writing resonated with us. We always hope to see further submissions from these writers.

To tangibly support diverse voices in poetry, Palette offers the following:

• We pay every writer we publish! Featured poets and Craft Notebook writers are paid $50 per poem/essay, and contest winners are awarded $50-$3,000, depending on where they place.
• We are open to submissions of any poetry without content or form restrictions.
• We offer free submissions for BIPOC or writers from other historically marginalized backgrounds for every contest. In order to access these free submissions, look for the free submission category on Submittable at the start of each contest.
• For writers from historically marginalized groups, we have a quick response category that is always open to submissions. We try our best to provide a response within one month, but please note that if your poem is held for further consideration for publication, we may need a few extra weeks to make our final decision.

We are also always open to new ideas and strategies for better supporting poets. If you have anything you’d like to share with us, email us anytime: contact [@] palettepoetry.com.

Whether you are a reader, poet, submitter, or team member, thank you for being a part of our community at Palette Poetry! We love sharing brilliant poems with you, and we look forward to reading your work.

Sincerely,

Palette Poetry