20 Top Poetry Magazines of 2023
Some of this year's most prizewinning, competitive, popular, hard af to get into poetry publishers, but hell, why not?
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And if you’d like to help us out with this goal financially, we would all greatly appreciate it (especially Karina’s cat who clearly needs attention based on how much he invades our team meetings).
Anyone up for a challenge? This week we’ve got a list of the top-top poetry magazines. How do we know? Because other people said so! And is that the only way we know anything, really?
These magazines have won all sorts of awards, had poems featured in fancy anthologies, and have done particularly well in 2023, landing themselves on Clifford Garstang’s list of top ranked poetry magazines for 2023 based on their Pushcart nominations and wins.
Why would you want to submit to a top-tier poetry magazine? Well, there are more pros and cons.
Pro:
Loads of recognition & prestige.
Solid shot at seeing your work selected for prizes and anthologies.
A diamond studded literary bio
Large payouts.
Con:
Often have long waiting periods.
Several have submission fees.
Luckily, most of these magazines accept simultaneous submissions. So, yes, long wait. But you can submit to several at once.
One pet peeve I had with submission opportunity lists before starting Sub Club was the lack of info. Sure, I’d get a link and nice description of the place, but didn’t have all info I needed to submit. So, I’d waste loads of time clicking and exploring magazines where my work didn’t fit, or they’d be closed.
So, for this list, I’ve included everything you need to know. I even went to every magazine’s page and copied excerpts from their guidelines about submission windows and poetry specific guidelines.
I also included whether they accept fiction or nonfiction because, why not? If they’re top in poetry, they’re likely not too shabby for other genres.
I hope this list is helpful, informative, and gets you published. I’ll will be doing a series of these. This one is for poetry, but in coming weeks I will make one for fiction and nonfiction as well.
*The percentage beside each magazine’s name is their acceptance rate. Keep in mind that many submissions go unreported (mostly rejections) so I’d say most of these magazines have a <1% acceptance rate.
So, here they are. Click on the title of any of these magazines to be redirected to their websites.
Copper Nickel - 1%
Copper Nickel is a US-based magazine founded in 2002 that charges fees, pays writers, and responds within 56 days.
The national literary journal housed at the University of Colorado Denver, publishing poetry, fiction, essays, and translation folios. [CS Listing]
They accept simultaneous submissions. Submit via Submittable.
Genres [Fiction. (Fee: 2) (Pay: Per Page: 30) Nonfiction. (Pay: Per Page: 30) (Fee: 2 Poetry. (6) (Fee: 2) (Pay: Per Page: 30)]
Our records show that they are active on social media.
Copper Nickel accepts submissions of poetry, fiction, essays, and translation folios from August 15 to December 15, January 15 to March 1.
Please submit four to six poems, one story, three flash pieces, or one essay at a time, and please wait at least six months between submissions. For prose we do not have any length restrictions—but longer-than-normal pieces have to earn their space.