Beginning January 20, 2021, the Indolent Books website is posting a poem-a-day to celebrate the resurgent spirit of truth, justice, and democracy that awoke in our nation at noon on that day. We want poems about what we are seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, hoping and fearing at the dawn of this historic presidency. Let’s use poetry to engage in a rich and layered conversation about the ongoing polarization of this nation and the opportunities for bringing the nation and its people together, for moving forward, for making a difference.
NOTE: This series succeeds Poems in the Afterglow. We will no longer be posting new poems under the Poems in the Afterglow rubric.
We value poems that use all the resources of poetry, especially in ways that are innovative, provocative, and risky.
IMPORTANT: Poems submitted for this series must be previously unpublished.
SUBMIT up to 3 poems or 3 pages of poetry in a Word file. NOT PDF. Word.
INCLUDE a brief bio that includes in the following order:
- Any books published (including publisher and year of publication);
- Any journals in which poems have appeared;
- Any anthologies in which poems have appeared (including publisher and year of publication)
- A few other personal or professional details of your choice.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a poem-a-day series, and as we work our way through the Submittable queue, we pick a poem and post it immediately without notifying the author beforehand. You’ll get your acceptance email via Submittable within a few minutes of the poem being posted, but generally not in advance of the poem being posted. Please be sure you are comfortable with that modus operandi when you decided to submit work.
A NOTE ABOUT DONATIONS: At the end of the submission form, we provide an option to donate from $2.00 to $100.00 to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press. Submissions are treated the same whether accompanied by a donation or not. We urge you to donate as generously as you can. Plain and simple, your donations make it possible for the press to continue its work. The more revenue we have, the more poems and books we can publish. If we don’t have revenue, we cannot publish poems or books. It’s as simple as that.
Click here to submit via Submittable.
We look forward to receiving and reading your work.
SUBMIT to A River Sings via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value our online series, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.
Editor’s Note: The series title A River Sings is borrowed from “On the Pulse of Morning,” the poem read by Maya Angelou at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
