Publishing Poetry
DEVELOPING AND SUBMITTING YOUR FIRST BOOK OF POETRY FOR PUBLICATION Don’t think about submitting a book for publication until you have at least 8 poems in 5 or 6 journals, magazines, or ezines. It would be great to publish in LaGuardia’s The Lit , but a poem in that publication is tied to a college, so it doesn’t quite count as a professional publication. If you look at the publication credits on the acknowledgments page of most books of poetry that list previously published poems, there are rarely fewer than 8 poems listed, and some books only include the names of publications (not the poems), and, in the case of poets who had not published a book before, there are rarely fewer than 4 publications listed and often many more. Assembling a first book of poetry is usually not dumping poems into a Word file/PDF as though putting ingredients in a stew. Often, the poets rigorously select poems that have no discernible weaknesses, even if it means creating a relatively short book o...