
We only accept work via Submittable. We DO NOT read submissions sent via email.
Yes. You can send one submission for each category open for submissions at any particular time. Multiple submissions per category will not be considered with the exception of our contests.
Our reading periods vary slightly by category. Here’s the full schedule for 2026:
MAIN
Poet of the Week (Fast Response) — Always open ($10)
Poet of the Week (Free) — Jan 15–31 and Jul 15–31
Poem of the Month (Free & Themed) — 1st–7th of every month
ONLY POEMS DAILY (OPD)
Poets Howl — Jan 1–15 and Jun 15–30
Ekphrasis — Feb 15–28 and Aug 15–31
Short Poems — Mar 15–31 and Oct 15–31
Best New Poems — May 1–31 and Nov 15–Dec 15
CONTESTS
Poet of the Year Award — Mar 1–Apr 30
Bob Hicok Fellowship — Jul 1–Aug 31
Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize — Sep 21–Nov 7
Except for Fast Response & Contests, all our submissions categories are free. If you like what we do and are able to support our mission, you can add to our tip jar upon checking out on Submittable. It won't affect your submission status, but we'd be so grateful for the extra love!
Though we often reprint work as part of our poet portfolios, for most of our categories we do not consider work that’s previously published in another journal. We do, however, consider self-published work (work that’s appeared on your blog, personal Substack, social media, etc.)
Yes, we encourage simultaneous submissions.
Typos never affect our decision. There is no need to withdraw your submission if there are a few errors. If accepted, you’ll have a chance to send revised versions of your poems before publication.
We strive to respond to every submission within 12 weeks, often sooner, and rarely longer (but if it’s longer, it usually means we’re seriously considering your work). We understand the frustration of slow responses. The industry average is abysmal, and we’re doing our best to stay ahead of that. We also accept simultaneous submission and previously self-published work so that you can keep sharing your writing in the meantime.
We don’t accept payment for publication, and never will. If we publish your work, it’s because we love it, not because you paid us. In fact, we pay you.
Here’s our current payment schedule:
Poet of the Week: $77
Poem of the Month: $33
ONLY POEMS DAILY categories: $22
Poet of the Year Award: $5000
Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize: $3500
Bob Hicok Fellowship: $2000
We also reward our contributors via complimentary memberships & nominations for awards.
Yes, we nominate for Pushcart, Best New Poets, Best of the Net, Best Spiritual Literature (Orison Anthology), Monarch Queer Literary Awards, and every other award that crops up in the future.
In our first year of nominations, we're honored to have poems selected for Best New Poets and Best Spiritual Literature.
We do not publish fiction at ONLY POEMS. This magazine is devoted to poetry in all its forms. We do, however, edit another magazine devoted to prose: Strange Pilgrims — we’d love to consider your stories, essays, and flash pieces there.
We have spent hours listening to our favorite artists take part in interviews that feel like we're sitting right there in the room with them, as the rest of the world melts away and, for a moment, everything feels clearer. A good interview is another piece of literature in its own right. That’s the feeling we’d like you to have when perusing ONLY POEMS. An interview helps unlock what even an astute reader might miss, but it also carries us past the work — into the mind and heart of the one that conjured it. Ultimately, we want to publish poets, not just poems.
Yes. We ask for first serial rights, meaning we’re the first publication (magazine, press, anthology, book, etc) to feature your piece. We also request archival rights to keep your work up on our website!.
Work you’ve self-published on your blog, personal Substack, or social media is fine to send our way and doesn’t interfere with the above. After the work is published, all rights return to you. If it’s later reprinted in a book or anthology, we only ask that you acknowledge it first appeared in ONLY POEMS.
Unfortunately, we’re only able to pay via PayPal right now. If you don't have a PayPal account, we can send your honorarium to the PayPal account of your friends or relatives. If you’re Canadian, however, we can also do Interac e-transfer.
Right now, our focus is on building a sustainable literary magazine with a dedicated readership. We want the work to be free and accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. That said, we love print as much as anyone. So, once we cross 1000 paid members (or get an angel investor!) we’ll start seriously considering a print edition for those who crave that tangible, analog ritual.
Our membership portal is called The Third Space. Members receive several perks. Check them out here. We're so grateful to our members — they support the possibility of a publication like ONLY POEMS existing at all: open to all, truly independent, ad-free, and alive in the hands of its readers.
We do not publish AI-generated poems. Poetry is the one of the oldest human technologies — breath turned into language, language into prayer, protest, or love. Poetry arises from memory, instinct, and the mystical labor of paying attention. Sure, machines can imitate patterns — what they cannot do is suffer, dream, plead, or scream in ecstasy — the very things that make poems alive. We believe poems are made of the small, unrepeatable accidents of being alive, and for that reason, we only publish work written by humans.
All the artwork on our website and socials is created by humans: either by great artists of the past, our wonderful illustrator Mariam Chagelishvili, or our Creative Director, Shannan Mann.
We want to be a magazine for readers as much as for writers. While sometimes it can feel that there are often more people practicing poetry than those out there seeking to read it. This is also our greatest challenge. We want to cultivate a community of readers who step through our doors first and foremost for the joy of reading.
Yes, provided you hold the translation rights. Please include the original author’s name and confirm you have their permission. We welcome translated work—it expands the conversation across languages, which is what literature has always done.
We publish a poet every week, featuring a portfolio of poems and an extensive interview. We also publish a Poem of the Month around a different theme or form each time. Additionally, we publish/reprint a poem a day on ONLY POEMS DAILY. If this changes or evolves, we’ll be sure to let you know!
