Glass: A Journal of Poetry Submission Guidelines

Glass: A Journal of Poetry

We are not bound by any specific aesthetic; our only mission is to present high quality writing. All styles, forms and schools of poetry are welcome, though easy rhymes and “light” verse are less likely to inspire us. We rarely accept poems about poetry or poets. All submissions will be judged on the quality of the content of the poem. We like poems that show a careful understanding of language, sound, passion and creativity and poems that surprise us.

Glass: A Journal of Poetry accepts submissions between September 1 and May 31.

Each issue of Glass will contain two sections: general submissions (any topic, style, form, etc...) and a featured theme section. Submissions for themed sections are accepted during our regular submission period (September 1 through May 31). Submissions for each theme will close one month prior to that issue's publication. Themes can and should be interpreted broadly. Upcoming themes are:

Featured theme for Volume Six Issue One (Spring/Summer 2013): Rebirth. (submissions for this theme must be sent by May 31st, 2013)

Featured theme for Volume Six Issue Two (Fall/Winter 2013-2014): Great Lakes Poets. (submissions for this theme must be sent by November 30, 2013)

The Great Lakes Poets theme will focus on poets with a close connection to the Great Lakes. This includes poets who grew up around the Great Lakes, even if they later moved away, and poets who currently live around the Great Lakes. The poems for this section, though, do not need to be about the Great Lakes. If submitting for the Great Lakes Poets theme, please include a note in your cover letter explaining your connection to the Great Lakes.

Submissions that do not follow the following guidelines run the risk of being interpreted as spam and being immediately deleted:

Send submissions to glasspoetry [at] yahoo [dot] com (replacing "at" and "dot" with the appropriate symbols). Use “YOUR NAME : Submission” as the subject, replacing the words YOUR NAME with your name. All poems should be typed into the body of the text. NO ATTACHMENTS will be considered; neither will emailed links to poems.

Please limit your submission to no more than four poems at a time. There are no length restrictions. Because our staff is small, we ask that you wait to resubmit until after you have heard from us regarding your previous submission.
Please include a brief cover letter and a bio. Previous publications may be included, either in the cover letter or the bio, but will not affect our decision regarding your work. Be sure to include your email address in your cover letter.
Please indicate, in your cover letter, whether you're submission should be considered for our general submissions or for one of our themes.

Glass: A Journal of Poetry accepts (and encourages) simultaneous submission, but please let us know immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We do not accept previously published work or translations.
We will edit accepted poems for grammatical errors. We also sometimes ask for content edits of accepted poems, but any content edits will be approved by the author prior to publication. We encourage our authors to engage in a dialogue with us regarding any content edits. However, should the author and the editors be unable to come to a final agreement on the content edits, we may decide not to publish the poem.
Be sure that your email account will accept emails from the yahoo domain. If it does not, you will need to change the settings in order to receive our response. When you submit to Glass, please add our email address to your address book so our response will easily reach you.

Although each submission is read closely, we unfortunately cannot give individual comments on each submission.

Our response time is usually four to six months. Most often, we respond within four months but we may take up to six months (occasionally longer) if your work is being closely considered for publication.

For queries, please use “YOUR NAME : Query” as the subject header, replacing the words YOUR NAME with your name. When you query, please include the names of the poems you submitted and the date they were submitted.

We urge you to prepare your electronic submission as carefully as you would a regular mail submission.

Glass obtains first serial rights to the poems it accepts. We also retain the rights to archive all accepted poems on our website. Upon publication, all rights revert back to the author under the agreement that the author acknowledges Glass: A Journal of Poetry as the original publisher of the piece.

To allow Glass to promote as many voices as possible, if your work is accepted, we ask that you not submit to Glass again until one year after your issue appears.

Submissions are closed from June 1st through August 31st.