Resources
From Category:
Poetry Library UK
The Poetry Library at Southbank Centre maintains this page of poetry competition opportunities.
Poetry Magazines Online (Saison Poetry Library)
The Saison Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre maintains this online archive of 20th and 21st century UK poetry magazines, including both active journals and those that are no longer publishing. Not all journals have a complete press run available.
Poetry Northwest: Quarterly Poetry Competitions
Poetry Northwest, the literary journal of Everett Community College in Washington, offers the quarterly poetry competition "The Pitch". Each round features a writing prompt drawn up by a notable writer and work submitted must adhere to the specifications outlined in the prompt. Work can be submitted via email as a Word.doc or pdf attachment to thepitch@poetrynw.org (only these formats can be accepted) and include in the email message your name, address, phone number, and month/year of birth. One entry per person. Please include your legal name in the email address, even if you wish to be represented on our site by a pseudonym. See website for complete rules. Two finalists will be selected by the editorial staff for a public vote. The finalists will appear on poetrynw.org at the end of the quarter for which their pitch submission is received: for spring and summer, September 15; for fall, December 15; for winter, March 15. Voting will last three weeks. The winner will be published on the site in perpetuity, and will receive a one-year subscription to Poetry Northwest.
Poetry of Henry Reed
This website collects critical and biographical information for the poet, radio dramatist, and translator Henry Reed (1914-1986), best known for his antiwar poem 'Naming of Parts'.
Poetry of Resilience
'Poetry of Resilience' is a documentary by Academy Award-nominated director Katja Esson about six international poets who individually survived Hiroshima, the Holocaust, China's Cultural Revolution, the Kurdish Genocide in Iraq, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Iranian Revolution. These six artists present us with a close-up perspective of the "wide shot" of political violence. Each story is powerful, but the film's strength comes from its collective voice: different political conflicts, cultures, genders, ages, races – one shared human narrative.
Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Project
This joint venture of the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts awards over $100,000 in scholarships annually to high school students for memorizing and performing classic poems. Top prize is $20,000.
Poetry Previews
Reviews important contemporary poets and makes it easy to order their books.
Poetry Series on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
PBS and the Poetry Foundation collaborated on this series of broadcasts featuring short-form profiles on living American poets and long-form segments on current debates in poetry. Listen/view past segments on their website.
Poetry Super Highway
Be sure to sign up for the weekly email update highlighting emerging poets and new poetry links.
Poetry Through the Ages
Poetry Through the Ages, a project of the Institute for Dynamic Educational Development (IDEA), is a free online exhibit that showcases poetic forms and movements from different cultures, with examples and instructions. A special feature of the site is a new poetic form called "node poetry", which breaks the traditional linear flow of a poem into branching clusters of words that the reader can read in different sequences. Drawing its inspiration from synthetic and visual poetry, the form is found exclusively online, and enables readers to take the poet's lines and construct the poem as they explore it.
Poetry Through the Ages
Poetry Through the Ages, a project of the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement (IDEA), is a free online exhibit that showcases poetic forms and movements from different cultures, with examples and instructions. A special feature of the site is a new poetic form called "node poetry", which breaks the traditional linear flow of a poem into branching clusters of words that the reader can read in different sequences. Drawing its inspiration from synthetic and visual poetry, the form is found exclusively online, and enables readers to take the poet's lines and construct the poem as they explore it.
Poetry Winner (I & II)
By Jessica Westhead. Satirical chapbooks by one of Poetry.com's innumerable "semifinalists" memorialize her mostly fruitless efforts to contact the contest operators. Email Jessica to obtain a copy.
Poetry.LA
Online video showcase of over 150 poets reading their work at various venues in Southern California. Poets featured include US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan and Anne Carson. The site also includes video interviews with authors and publishers. Poetry.LA was started by poet Hilda Weiss and videographer/writer Wayne Lindberg as a way to bring broader exposure to poets beyond the coffeehouses, bookstores and cafes where most of these readings were taped.
Poetry’s Perilous Popularity
From Slate, A.O. Scott and Katha Pollitt probe the gap between 'official' poetry and poetry's stealth bestsellers, and the challenge of teaching classic work without scaring students away. "I think a lot more Americans read poetry than we think, just not necessarily the poets most admired by Helen Vendler and Harold Bloom."
PoetrySuperHighway Holocaust Remembrance Day Issue
Powerful poems recall the Holocaust in words of grief, anger, love and truth. We particularly like this 2005 issue; see the PSH archives for links to previous annual Holocaust issues. These issues are published annually during the week of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Submissions are accepted during the preceding week only.
Poetryvlog.com
Video archive of contemporary poets reading their own work features a new short video every week. See website for instructions on submitting a video.
Poets & Writers
Excellent classifieds for contests, calls for manuscripts, workshops and services for writers.
Poets & Writers: A Frequent Winner’s Advice
In this interview with Poets & Writers Magazine from January 2009, award-winning poet Cynthia Lowen offers tips for maximizing your success with writing contests.
Poets & Writers: A Frequent Winner’s Advice
In this interview with Poets & Writers Magazine from January 2009, award-winning poet Cynthia Lowen offers tips for maximizing your success with writing contests.
Poets & Writers: Resources for Writers in Support of Justice and Action
Poets & Writers magazine compiled this list of racial justice resources to support protesters against police violence in the summer of 2020. It includes links to anti-racist books, bail funds, activist groups, and author fundraisers.
Poets and Patrons
Founded in 1954 in Chicago, Poets and Patrons sponsors national and international contests such as the Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, along with in-person and online writing workshops.
Poets for Living Waters
Poets for Living Waters is a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico begun on April 20, 2010, one of the most profound human-made ecological catastrophes in history. See website for instructions for submitting your poems by email. Previously published work accepted.
Poets on Adoption
Curated by poet and adoptive parent Eileen R. Tabios, this site is a community for poets to share their experiences as birthparents, adoptive parents, or adoptees. Notable contributors include Jim Bennett, Nick Carbo, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Karen G. Johnston, and Carol Moldaw.
Poets Who Blog
Resource and link exchange site for poet bloggers worldwide. Site also includes news about contests and calls for submissions. Good for emerging writers.
Poets’ Graves
The final haunts of your favorite poets, with special attention to those buried in England. Search by name or region. Includes short biographies and links to classic poems.
Polyphony Lit
Polyphony Lit is an Illinois-based nonprofit that publishes a high school literary magazine edited and written by high school students from around the globe. Since launching in 2005, they have given feedback to over 15,000 submissions from 68 countries. Polyphony sponsors the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards, a free writing contest with cash prizes for high school students.
Pop Sonnets
Updated weekly, the literary humor site Pop Sonnets features popular song lyrics paraphrased as Shakespearean sonnets. Songs that come in for the highbrow treatment include LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It", Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5", the Village People's "YMCA", and 50 Cent's (a/k/a "Sir Fifty Pence") "In Da Club".
Position Papers
By Andrea Lawlor. This chapbook of prose-poems is a playful and uplifting manifesto for a future society where resources are shared and identities and property are held lightly. Published by Factory Hollow Press in 2016 and now out of print, it is free to download as a PDF from their website.
Postcards by Designmodo
Email marketing is a powerful tool for authors, and Postcards makes it easy to create handsome emails. Choose the modules you need, plug in your text and images, and export your finished design. Works with many popular platforms including MailChimp, Constant Contact, WordPress, and Campaign Monitor. In head to head tests, many of our Postcards emails generated substantially more response than our older versions.
Postcards to the Future: A Protest in Place
To support black civil rights activism in the summer of 2020, feminist literary publisher Kore Press is offering an online thematic presentation/installation of work from their 2018 anthology Letters to the Future: Black Women/Radical Writing, edited by Dawn Lundy Martin and Erica Hunt. New selections will be posted from July through November 2020, in various media (print-based text, audio clips, and visual art). The first theme is Legacy, which lays the ground for the arc of the series, followed by Horror, Activism, Joy, and Future. Contributors include Harryette Mullen, Sonia Sanchez, and Yona Harvey.
Pouring Shade
if you had the power to pour shade
what color would you use
the color of honey because you like sweet things
or the oil of menthol because it invigorates the nose
my shade would change with the time
rose red rendering incandescent mornings
pink daffodils rising into a noon shower
an afternoon with an orange mist hanging in the air
at night I would announce the moon's etchings
semi-circles surrounded by colored sunbeads
cast on the flowers of heaven
if I had the power to pour shade
I would add laughter
to see how water looks when it smiles
Copyright 2009 by Hzal (Anthony Fudge)
Critique by Jendi Reiter
This month's critique poem comes to us from "Hzal" (the pen name of the poet Anthony Fudge). In "Pouring Shade", he mingles different modes of sensory perception to create a unique experience of an exuberant life force.
Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which real information from one of the five senses is accompanied by a perception in another sense. For instance, a person may see a certain color when hearing a particular sound, or perceive letters and numbers to be associated with different colors. Researchers have noted the similarity between this condition and an artist's creative process, in that both involve unexpected associative leaps and fresh ways of perceiving our common reality.
Perhaps the most famous synesthetic poem is 19th-century symbolist Arthur Rimbaud's "Voyelles" (Vowels): "A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,/I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:/A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies/which buzz around cruel smells..." More links concerning art and synesthesia can be found on Belgian researcher Dr. Hugo Heyman's website.
In contrast to Rimbaud's extremes of decayed sensuality and spiritual purity, Hzal's synesthetic poem creates a sunnier mood, using the technique of sensory cross-pollination to express a joy and perhaps an affection that exceeds normal descriptive measures. Having a mind that works differently from the rest of humankind can be both thrilling and terrifying. Whereas Rimbaud's "Voyelles" seems to linger in that solitary place where genius and madness meet, Hzal begins with connection to others, and does not seem afraid that this new mode of perception will be a barrier to communicating his essential feelings.
"Pouring Shade" could be read as a love poem, whether or not that love is romantic. "if you had the power to pour shade/what color would you use", the poet asks, like a genie offering three wishes, or a young man promising his lover the moon. His desire to please her is so extravagant that it is unbound by physical laws. We all know that shade is not a liquid, nor does it have a color, let alone a smell or a taste, as the next two lines suggest. But perhaps we can also remember being this enraptured with a person or a project, almost to the point of believing we could do magic with a mere wave of the hand.
After making this fanciful offer, the speaker invites us to view his own ideal landscape, a pleasantly hallucinatory wash of colors that reminded me of the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" ("Picture yourself in a boat on a river,/With tangerine trees and marmalade skies/Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,/A girl with kaleidoscope eyes..."). The recurring water imagery in this poem enhances its misty, blurred, dream-like quality.
I wouldn't change much about "Pouring Shade", being hesitant to break the flow of its stream-of-consciousness narrative voice. I might opt for a more original and descriptive phrase than "because you like sweet things" in the third line. If "sunbeads" is a typo for "sunbeams", it's a felicitous one; I loved the notion of bead-like water drops, turned to prisms by the sun's rays, such as one sees on flowers after rain.
For publication suggestions, below, I've emphasized smaller contests run by and for talented amateurs and emerging writers, as opposed to the university-run journals. While I relished the creative and sensual imagery of "Pouring Shade", I suspect that academically-minded judges would prefer poems with a greater variety of light and dark emotions. The diversity of aesthetics within the poetry world is a good thing, in my opinion. Support your favorite literary journals to keep that diversity alive.
Where could a poem like "Pouring Shade" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
League of Minnesota Poets Annual Contest
Postmark Deadline: July 31
Local poetry society offers top prize of $125 plus 17 other contest categories with top prizes ranging from $20 to $70; publication not included
Poetry Society of Texas Annual Contests
Postmark Deadline: August 15
Prizes up to $450 for unpublished poems in 100 different categories (some are members-only); no simultaneous submissions
Penumbra Poetry & Haiku Contest
Postmark Deadline: October 1
The Tallahassee Writers' Association offers prizes up to $200 and publication in winners' chapbook; no simultaneous submissions
This poem and critique appeared in the June 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Powell’s Books: Children’s Poetry
Portland's famous bookseller offers over 1,500 books of poetry for children and young adults. Recommendations and reviews help you choose. Free North American shipping on qualified orders over $50.
Pratt MFA in Writing Program
The Pratt MFA in Writing is a new and unique two-year program specifically designed to support and encourage intellectually rigorous and inspired writing practices that are philosophically, culturally and politically informed. The premise of the program is that writing can be transformative at all scales, from the personal to the social, and we aim to incubate such radically cosmopolitan, resolutely local, pleasure-filled, and potentially revolutionary poetic practices. Pratt is located in the historic Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.
Prayers & Run-On Sentences
By Stuart Kestenbaum. This affable, Buddhist-inflected poetry collection invites gratitude for the daily rhythms of life. As if through the imaginative, unbiased eyes of a child, Kestenbaum's poems find wonder in ordinary things like clotheslines, oil slicks, and even a plastic trash bag left in the woods.
Pre-Screener’s Suite, 2022
By Anne Mydla
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family left their name on a document bound for an anonymously judged poetry contest in their own way." —[Author name removed]
I. This is just to say
I have removed
my name
from the document
It is a truth universally acknowledged
that a single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in the habit of taking his name off the document
You ain't nothing but a hound dog
leaving your name on the document
The owl and the pussycat went to sea
in a beautiful state of assurance that they'd taken their names off the document
Never gonna give you up
never gonna let you see my name on the document
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
being the only man living who remembered to take his name off the document
Luke
I am your father
and yet even I, a Sith Lord, never, ever neglected to take my name off the document
In the beginning
was the Word
and the Word was with God
and It was not on the Document
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
speaking words of wisdom
"Take your name off the document"
I came
I saw
I conquered my urge to leave the name on the document
Yes, I—
I set a phone alarm
a pre-scheduled email
and several booby traps
to remind myself to take my name off the document
and that
has made
me take my name off the document.
II. Haikus for the Unredacted
Or: Did You Know?
You pay my bills in
Poland—You! who left your name
on the document.
Poet, your carefree,
hedonistic formatting
pays a tidy rent
on an apartment
in a post-Soviet block,
stuccoed in pastels,
wherein I read name
after name after name and
eat my pierogies.
Pretty Machine
By Mara Adamitz Scrupe
You had her longer, rode her
harder, she let you down at least
as often, threw a rod, staggered up mountains
and off again, pushed through deserts,
loaded up now, strapped for the drive
to Annandale, for the man with a bleeding
ulcer which is better than a heart attack,
he wants her, though if his wife were around—
but she's gone, a couple years now, he's adjusted
pretty well but the ulcer didn't come
out of nowhere, a peck and a quick goodbye—
that's how we do it, it's already afternoon,
you'll grab a sandwich on your way
back, I'll eat leftovers tonight you'll tell me
the new owner's turned his wife's house
into a shop moved in bikes in various stages
of tear-down and rebuild, Triumph triage
everywhere, work stands at eye level in the guest
room watching TV he scoots on a stool as he
works, Amal carbs line up neatly on the dining room
table, he never sits anyway but stands slouched paper
plate in one hand folded slice in the other, components
freshly painted dry on clotheslines
strung across the living room, guests sit
on the three-cushion sofa parts skimming past,
yours is the one he'll ride if all goes well
in Emergency, he's waited forty years
while you tore up gravel on the ALKAN,
while you camped the outskirts of Vegas circus,
circus! he dreamed a first kick engine, she dreamed
new floral davenports, matching brocade
drapes, you promised groceries on your way
home, your tread on the stairs pulls me
awake, you sit at the edge of the bed
beside me in the dark, your lips brush
my forehead, you reach for my hand your fingers
spreading mine apart to fit
Reprinted from Beast (NFSPS Press, 2015)
Pretty Tilt
This debut poetry collection effervesces with teen-girl sexuality, its narrator unapologetic in her desire to inhabit this body, this stage of life, this cultural moment, without weighing it down with analysis. Feminism makes a token appearance as a source of self-criticism that she's thrown aside like a bikini top at the beach. Her self may be socially constructed out of crusty panties and My Little Pony hair, but unlike the Gurlesque poets to whom she's been compared, Murphy doesn't seem angry or anxious about the impossibility of some Modernist "authenticity"; for her characters, girlhood holds thrills but no serious dangers. Read it for her fantastic language and perceptiveness about the emotions of this time of life.
Preventing Plagiarism: A Guide for Students and Educators
Software company Adobe's blog offers this useful overview of plagiarism: how to detect it, and how to avoid it. Questionable practices include not only verbatim copying, but summarizing or closely paraphrasing others' work without attribution.
Prima Facie
By Trish Hopkinson
Huddled in the corner
where only a creak of light
cast a thin line 'cross his back.
Belief's blackness pressed into his sympathy
like a fire-heated symbol meant for permanence,
meant for slavery.
Ears marked with indoctrination
and freedom castrated by abstinence,
his hands ached for resolution, for reason,
for something to clean the char
from beneath his fingernails.
His voice strained with the rasp
of each unanswered question
and his teeth bent with the burden
as his tongue tore away at vision.
He saw the brand waiting in the flame.
He saw the labels that it made.
It took him years to leave his religion.
Prime: Poetry & Conversation
Edited by Jericho Brown, this essential anthology brings together a new generation of black gay poets: Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Saeed Jones, Rickey Laurentiis, Phillip B. Williams, and L. Lamar Wilson. The book begins with a selection of poems from each author, after which they interview one another about poetic mentoring, influences, and identities. Publisher Sibling Rivalry Press is known for supporting LGBT literature.
Prism Comics
Prism Comics is a nonprofit organization that supports the creators and readers of LGBT and LGBT-friendly comics and graphic novels. Prism provides networking opportunities for writers, artists, and small publishers to collaborate on new comics and reach a wider fan base. The website includes an online store where indie comics creators can sell their work. They also sponsor the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant to help indie and self-published authors publicize their work.
Prism Comics
Prism Comics is the leading nonprofit, all-volunteer organization supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual and LGBTQIA-friendly comic books, comics professionals, readers and educators. Prism awards an annual Queer Press Grant to help an independent comics creator publish their work of interest to an LGBTQIA audience. Prism also publishes anthologies and hosts panel discussions at comics conventions around the United States.
Prison Writers
Co-founded by journalists from USA Today and CBS News, Prison Writers is a nonprofit organization that advocates for prison reform through sharing true stories by incarcerated writers. The group's goals are to encourage prisoners in learning marketable skills and to educate the public about life on the inside. Volunteer screeners give feedback, edit, and publish work by prisoners on the website. All contributors receive $10. There is often a large backlog of submissions, so more volunteers are always needed.
Prisoner Express
A project of the Durland Alternatives Library, Prisoner Express promotes rehabilitation by connecting prisoners to a community through literature. Prisoner Express began as a program for sending donated books to inmates. In addition to this service, they also coordinate pen-pal and distance-learning programs, and publish prisoners' writing on their website and in an anthology.
Prisons Foundation
The Prisons Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC that promotes the arts and education in prison and alternatives to incarceration. Visit the gallery page of their website to view and purchase original work by incarcerated artists.
Priya’s Shakti
This graphic novel is a collaboration between poet and playwright Vikas K. Menon, artist Dan Goldman, and filmmaker Ram Devineni. The provocative story portrays an Indian female super-hero who fights against sexual violence in a Hindu-inspired mythic reality. The comic's creation was prompted by the December 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student in Delhi. The story can be downloaded for free from the website, which also features videos and information about supporting anti-rape activism.
Professor Roy’s Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal
Satirist "Professor Roy" searches Poetry.com for the worst possible poems, and explains just why they're so bad. Visit his User Info page for warnings about poetry scams.
ProofreadingServices.com
Author services at ProofreadingServices.com include manuscript critiques, developmental edits, line edits and proofreading, e-book formatting, and book cover design. Pricing is transparent and affordable. Affiliated with QueryLetter.com.
Pub Rants at Nelson Literary Agency
Pub Rants is a blog where agents from Nelson Literary Agency offer advice on improving your manuscript and query letter, finding and evaluating an agent, and marketing various genres.
Public Books
Founded in 2012, Public Books is an online journal that aims to "unite the best of the university with the openness of the internet." Featuring accessible articles by scholars in a variety of disciplines, from anthropology and history to literature and television, the journal brings academic research to a general audience. They have an extensive book review archive.
