Submissions

These submission guidelines apply to both the website, which acts as an online journal, and our annual print journal, which uses works selected from the website.

Some type of meter, such as iambic pentameter, is preferred but not absolutely required.   An easy way to give your poem some structure is to count the number of syllables per line and make sure they are the same (give or take a syllable).

If you want feedback on your submission, please indicate so on your submission (“feedback please” is fine).

We generally only accept submissions on five themes:

1. Beautiful & Sublime: Beauty in human nature, culture, the natural world, classical art forms, and the divine.
2. Humor & Children’s Poetry: Clean humor only please.
3. The Issues of Our Age: (A) China may very well be the civil rights crisis of our era. As our two economies become enmeshed, people there still face the kinds of systematic persecution that were faced by African Americans, Jewish people, and Native Americans many decades ago. The persecution of the peaceful meditation practice  Falun Dafa (aka Falun Gong) is emblematic of the plight of the Chinese people under the Communism Party. (B) Terrorists plague the world like a hate-filled cancer that does not seem to go away. (C) Though debate remains over climate change, environmental pollution and genetic modification obviously compromises our water, food, and air.
4. Great Culture: Good figures, stories, and other elements from classical (pre-1900) history and literature.
5. Essays & Translations: Essays on the above and translations of poetry from the Romantic era or earlier.

Notes:

-You will receive email confirmation that we received your poetry within a fortnight or so. If your poetry has been selected for publication you will be informed in that time as well. If it has not been selected, you will receive no further contact beyond the confirmation. Thus, all should be known within two weeks.
-Currently, there is no payment for submissions.
-By submitting your poetry to Classicalpoets.org, you are giving the Society permission to publish your poetry on the website and potentially in the annual print journal. You, however, retain rights to your poetry.
-By sending in a submission your email address will be automatically enrolled to receive the Society’s email newsletter. You can choose to not subscribe after receiving your first email.

Email to [email protected]