I am always a little surprised that poetry doesn’t get equal pay to fiction or essays. Is Moby Dick more valuable than Candide because of how many words are in it? As someone who once took a course called “Moby Dick’s Long Shadow” (yes, really), I’d have to say, no. Probably some psychological thing. Maybe there is some animal-brain stuff going on where we can’t help but pay less for less words. Still, poems have impacted my thinking as much as any story over the years. But I don’t make the rules. God does. Or some editor somewhere, so same-same. (Props to Chestnut Review tho for paying the same ($120) across the board.)
Anyway, I went and pulled all the magazines from our database that pay $50+ for poems. Some pay more, of course, but I’d be quite thrilled to get $50 for a poem. So, I started there. There are 90 total. 70+ of them don’t charge any submission fees.
I included the number of poems you can submit at one time to each place. I also included response times so you can plan your finances for the year. I pulled from our August audit so if any of these folks have shuttered when you get through this list, just let me know and I’ll remove them. This list will stay up for as long as the world keeps spinning (at least 3 more weeks) so I don’t want future folks coming along and getting bad info. Since some folks are not open, I couldn’t confirm a few. For those, I added a note.
Alrighty, here is the list! Enjoy. Share with us if you get accepted, so I can ask to borrow a couple bucks for coffee.
If you didn’t catch Monday’s post on newly opened submission calls, you can find it here:
89 Poetry Magazines That Pay $50+
Our mission is to provide a literary home to stubborn artists and writers. We believe literary markets should be open to everyone, and we are passionate about holding the door open for all writers who wish to enter ours.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 120
• Responds within 30 days.
• Max poems: 3
An online literary journal established in 2020 that publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and art.
Fee: 3
Pay: 75
Responds within 5 months
Max poems: 5
Founded in 1957 by the legendary Barney Rosset. Edited by Dale Peck. Committed to a progressive outlook, the off-beat, the alternative. Publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry and video. Online only and free to read.
• Fee: 5
• Pay: 250
• Responds within 45 days.
A quarterly international literary journal showcasing captivating short stories, personal essays, and poetry from diverse voices.
• Fee: 5
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
Montana's foremost literary magazine, founded in 1973 by the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana and helmed initially by favorite literary son William Kittredge.
• Fee: 5
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
Tahoma Literary Review is based in the Pacific Northwest, but we are international in scope. TLR offers both professional payment and exposure to our contributors by using a substantial portion of our total income to support our authors.
• Fee: 4
• Pay: 55-135
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 6
Literary journal by writers, academics, critics, visual artists, and linguists: work that provokes, excites, and entertains.
• Fee: 4
• Pay: 100
• Max poems: 6
EPOCH publishes fiction, poetry, essays, comics, and graphic art.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 100-500
• Responds within 60 days.
• Max poems: 5
Boulevard strives to publish only the finest in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. While we frequently publish writers with previous credits, we are very interested in less experienced or unpublished writers with exceptional promise.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50-250
• Responds within 120 days.
• Max poems: 5
The Southern Review strives to discover and promote a diverse array of engaging, relevant, and challenging literature—including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation from literary luminaries as well as the best established and emerging writers.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50-200
• Responds within 180 days.
A biannual magazine that seeks to reimagine place. Published by UNC Wilmington's Department of Creative Writing. AWP Small Press Publisher Award winner | ASME Award for Fiction Finalist.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 100
Publishing compelling fiction, poetry, and essays for ten years. Issue 26 available now.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 100
• Responds within 90 days.
Founded in 1892 by the teacher and critic William Peterfield Trent, the Sewanee Review is America’s oldest continuously published literary quarterly.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 300
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 6
A print and online literary magazine based in New York City that has an international focus. This is a re-orienting place that unlearns, confronts, and disrupts euro-centric narratives and aesthetics.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50
Witness seeks original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and photography that is innovative in its approach, broad-ranging in its concerns, and unapologetic in its perspective. The magazine blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to their times.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 5
Creative writing about science
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 70
• Max poems: 3
A quarterly literary magazine publishing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, interviews, illustrations, and more in print and digital formats, with select stories available to read online.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 120 days.
• Max poems: 3
Born at SUNY Plattsburgh in 2004 from a vision to open space for the celebration of many voices. We hope to be a good home for your beautiful, exciting, and surprising writing and art.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
Bard College’s literary journal Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 150
• Responds within 120 days.
In these uncertain times, the Massachusetts Review promotes social justice and equality, along with great art.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 100
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 6
For three quarters of a century, VQR’s primary mission has been to sustain and strengthen Jefferson’s bulwark, long describing itself as “A National Journal of Literature and Discussion.”
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 200
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 4
An online and print journal devoted entirely to writing and art by and for the incarcerated.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
A national literary journal produced by Ohio University’s Creative Writing Program. Now in its fifteenth year, NOR has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and support from the Ohio Arts Council.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 120 days.
Lovely as a goose on a roof. Lit mag with print issues twice annually and a new issue online the first Friday of the month.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 3
New perspectives, enduring writing. Join a conversation 200 years in the making.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 75
• Responds within 240 days.
The Southampton Review has been publishing compelling writing and art since 2007.
• Fee: 3
• Pay: 75
• Max poems: 5
We’re looking for narrative writing and evocative photography from all over the world. Send us work that maps the human landscape, where the light catches on the faintest joy, where darkness sometimes threatens to overwhelm, and where ✗ never marks the spot.
• Fee: 2.5
• Pay: 200
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 5
Publishing established and emergent voices in fiction, poetry, essays, and art since 1948.
• Fee: 2.5
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 6
Eclectica was founded in October 1996 with the goal of providing a sterling quality literary magazine on the World Wide Web. Over two decades later, quality is still the sole criterion in our editorial process.
• Fee: 2
• Pay: 50 for top 3 pieces in each issue
• Responds within 75 days.
• Max poems: 5
For over 40 years, Arc has been publishing the best in contemporary poetry. Arc invites submissions from poets at all stages of their writing careers.
• Fee: 2
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 3
Southern Indiana Review presents a cross-section of emerging and established artists and writers whose work is both regional and national in scope and degree of recognition. SIR is published in October and May by the University of Southern Indiana.
• Fee: 1.75
• Pay: 100-200
• Max poems: 5
diaCRITICS highlights art, literature, and stories from writers, artists, and culture-makers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora, on and from all shores.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50-75
A well-regarded journal of the arts and society which has been published since 1980. Every issue contains excellent essays, stories, poems, and memoirs, plus beautiful black-and-white photographs.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 200-400
• Responds within 60 days.
• Max poems: 5
WFR is curated by students of the Writer’s Foundry MFA at St. Joseph’s University in Brooklyn, NY. We publish literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art that speaks honestly to lived experiences.
• Fee: $3 (but has a waiver for anyone who asks)
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 3
Willow Review is a non-profit journal published annually at the College of Lake County and partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council (a state agency), College of Lake County Publications and private contributions and sales.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100-400 (through prizes)
• Max poems: 5
A weekly web magazine that covers issues facing the American South and the unique culture of the region, in the hopes of building a community where civil conversation can happen.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 350
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 5
Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal, and has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty years.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50-200
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 5
Feminist magazine celebrating poetry and prose by cis women, trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, agender, genderqueer, GNC, and intersex writers.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50-150
• Responds within 105 days.
• Max poems: 5
A literary magazine that has been publishing Canadian Writers & Writing for over 40 years.
Proud presenter of the Wild Writers Literary Festival!
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 150 days.
The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
We believe that something very small can add up to something very big, as in the compressed moment of the big bang. We want to think through compression.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 5 days.
Intersectional feminist mag publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction & art
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
• Max poems: 5
Rathalla Review is the literary magazine for Rosemont College's Creative Writing MFA program. We are in search of vulnerable and honest creative works written by authors with a diverse range of life experiences.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 200
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 3
*could not confirm
Supporting and promoting art, archives, and writing of diasporic, queer, indigenous, and disability communities in Chicago + the Midwest since 2010.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 150
• Responds within 10 days.
An anti-fascist literary publication featuring a diverse collection of up-and-coming artists. Our purpose is to promote potent writers from varying backgrounds and perspectives, pursuing the same fervent joy with words as us.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 60 days.
• Max poems: 3
A poetry magazine for poets writing advanced poetry, real poets, real poetry, real life.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 150
• Max poems: 3
Bacopa Literary Review is an annual international print journal published by the Writers Alliance of Gainesville.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 200
At 34 Orchard, we like dark, intense pieces that speak to a deeper truth. We’re not genre-specific; we just like scary, disturbing, unsettling, and sad.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 45 days.
• Max poems: 3
Air/Light is an online literary journal published by the English Department at the University of Southern California. We showcase both traditional and innovative works. We are firmly of the West Coast, but also national, international.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 30 days.
Looking to shake up the publishing industry with a bold new format: comic book magazines
• Fee: none
• Pay: 200
• Responds within 42 days.
Is this real? A joke? A literary psy-op? We don’t fully know. We just decided to write about Taco Bell. We are absolutely not affiliated with Taco Bell and make no profits. We can’t even get extra sauce in the drive-thru.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
Artists in conversation, since 1981. Quarterly in print & every day online.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
Literature with marrow. We here at Lammergeier look for the beautiful vulture, the wonder uncovered digging through the grotesque, the sustaining viscera inside the carcass.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 350
• Responds within 56 days.
• Max poems: 5
A Literary Magazine by the Youth and for the Youth. Give us writing that stains our tongue and leaves us begging for another taste.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 14 days.
*could not confirm
We aim for content that reminds us that our lenses matter—they focus, distort, clarify, conceal. We value and emphasize relationships between the literary and visual arts, pairing the majority of the pieces we publish with original work from a variety of contributing visual artists.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 5
Founded in 1948, The McNeese Review is an annual publication of the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of English and Foreign Languages, and the MFA in Creative Writing at McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 3
Based out of Ames, Iowa, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art exploring the many complicated facets of the word environment – at once rural, urban, and suburban – and its social and political implications.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
*could not confirm
A Nashville-based national magazine of literary arts, faith and culture.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
A new Hobart-adjacent site devoted to fiction and poetry and cnf and weird miscellaneous undefinable writing about sports!
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 3
A DC-based literary print magazine
• Fee: none
• Pay: 75
• Responds within 90 days.
The White Review (uncertain about their status)
An arts and literature magazine, published three times a year, with monthly online editions. It publishes fiction, essays, interviews with writers and artists, poetry, and series of artworks.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
A literary magazine publishing poetry and prose with an environmentalist perspective. Channel also features visual art from artists based in Ireland/Éire.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 4
The Four Faced Liar Literary Magazine
A new Cork-based print literary journal.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
• Responds within 42 days.
• Max poems: 1
Literary magazine publishing fiction and poetry.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 120
• Responds within 72 days.
• Max poems: 3
The Fiddlehead is Atlantic Canada's International Literary Journal. Celebrating 75 years of literary foraging in 2020!
• Fee: none
• Pay: 60
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 6
Existere: Journal of Arts and Literature
York University's literary journal since 1978.
We publish new, emerging, and established writers of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
an indie publisher bringing passionate writers and curious readers together
• Fee: none
• Pay: 125
A Quebec-based online literary magazine published by the Quebec Writer’s Federation that presents eclectic narratives in all forms and supports Canadian and international writers and artists
• Fee: none
• Pay: 75
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 3
At OKD Magazine, we like to read the odd, the off-kilter, and the just plain weird. We like things that are funny, things that are sad, and things that are funny and sad at the same time.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 60 days.
• Max poems: 1
*could not confirm
Torch Literary Arts: Friday Features
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100 (if selected for Friday feature)
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 5
Exploring the American idea through ambitious, essential reporting and storytelling. Of no party or clique since 1857.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 3000
One of Canada's leading literary journals, featuring poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and book reviews.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 70
• Responds within 270 days.
• Max poems: 5
Electric Literature’s second weekly magazine, The Commuter, is publishing strange and diverting poetry, flash fiction, and graphic narratives every Monday.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 6
Cloud Lake Literary is committed to supporting the creative pursuit and publishing literary excellence and skill from writers across Canada in the fields of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and children’s literature.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics
poems and other writing about or related to poetry
• Fee: none
• Pay: 75
• Responds within 14 days.
• Max poems: 5
Apparition Lit is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features original short stories, poetry, and artwork.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 30 days.
• Max poems: 5
Cutleaf seeks the best in contemporary writing in prose and verse from emerging and established writers.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 7
A small independent Irish publisher established in 2014. We publish a print literary journal, Banshee, as well as a select list of books. We love exciting, accessible, contemporary writing in all forms.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 4
*could not confirm amount
Shenandoah was founded in 1950 by a group of Washington and Lee University faculty members and undergraduates, Tom Wolfe among them. We’re excited to consider short stories, essays, excerpts of novels in progress, poems, comics, and translations of all the above.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 5
a student-curated literary journal out of the Creative Writing program at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
*could not confirm
The mission of The Baltimore Review is to showcase Baltimore as a literary hub of diverse writing and promote the work of emerging and established writers.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 3
A source of critical study and creative response to the corpus of Thomas Ligotti as well as associated authors and ideas
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 60 days.
• Max poems: 5
*could not confirm
Italian Americana Cultural and Historical Review
Italian Americana is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal dedicated to exploring the Italian emigrant/immigrant experience through both scholarly and creative works.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
*could not confirm
We love prose poems, traditional forms (ghazals, villanelles, sestinas), love poems, sex poems, speculative poems, and experimental questionnaires, but we are not married to a style or genre. Send us your most exciting work. We want poems that make us go: “God, I wish I had written this!”
• Fee: none
• Pay: 55
• Max poems: 10 pages
A literary biannual featuring poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews by authors from around the world.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 5
A literary magazine that believes we can better engage with our pasts, presents, and futures through stories that explore what-ifs and could-bes.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 60
• Responds within 60 days.
• Max poems: 5
Here at Tales & Feathers Magazine, we're committed to the cozy, the comforting, and the sentiment "no plot, just vibes." Every month, we'll release a new short story of 2 500 words or less that luxuriates in the slice of life fantasy genre.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 60
• Responds within 56 days.
• Max poems: 5
Putting faith into action for social justice.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 56 days.
• Max poems: 3
A publication that seeks to represent writers from, living in, or writing about Northern Appalachia
• Fee: none
• Pay: 100
• Responds within 45 days.
• Max poems: 5
*could not confirm
Book XI: A Journal of Literary Philosophy
An online journal publishing poetry and prose with philosophical themes. Housed at Hamilton College's Levitt Center.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
A thrice-yearly magazine of poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 120 days.
• Max poems: 6
Hunger mountain is created by the faculty and students in the Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 5
*could not confirm
Ryga: A Journal of Provocations
ryga showcases the work of outstanding emerging writers. Our editorial team is comprised of faculty and creative writing students in the English department at Okanagan College.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 28 days.
FIVES: A Companion to Denver Quarterly
FIVES is a digital journal for innovative creative and critical work, released in 1-2 annual issues.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 90 days.
*could not confirm
a premium Australian literary magazine of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and arts features
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50 (175 for print)
the other side of hope: journeys in refugee and immigrant literature
We are UK-based literary magazine edited by refugees and immigrants. We publish fiction, nonfiction and poetry by refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 4
*could not confirm
Brings North Carolina poetry and poets to the public eye.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Max poems: 3
*could not confirm
Barrelhouse bridges the gap between serious art and pop culture. It's an annual print journal featuring fiction, poetry, interviews, and essays. Barrelhouse Books publishes 2 books (1 poetry, 1 NF) per year.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 180 days.
• Max poems: 5
We wanted to make a space that feels like a place—one where people can come together, share words, and seek knownness. Here, we gather to shine a light into the vast chasm of human experience.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 50
• Responds within 90 days.
• Max poems: 1
Heartland Society of Women Writers
An inclusive writing community.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 60
• Max poems: 1
*could not confirm - running a contest
A journal of literature and art that engages with identity politics, including but not limited to: race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and intersectional identities. We feature fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art.
• Fee: none
• Pay: 60
• Max poems: 5
*could not confirm
Great list!! The Good Life Review pays $75 per piece published in their seasonal issues. Not sure why it did not show up on this list.