Submitting a poem

Every part of that sentence is doing work. One file, because editors read in batches and a chase of attachments loses the poem. Currently open, because most magazines read only in stated windows and anything sent outside one is deleted unread. And exactly as the guidelines ask, because guidelines are the only instruction a stranger gives you, and following them is the cheapest possible way to look like somebody worth reading.

How a submission actually works

A submission works as a sequence of 7 small decisions, and none of them involves knowing anybody. Ways a poem reaches other people sets the 5 routes side by side, and this is the first of them, the one that happens quietly at a kitchen table rather than on a stage.

1. Choose one place, and read what it has already published before deciding it fits.
2. Read its guidelines twice, noting the window, the limit on poems and the file type.
3. Prepare the file: title, then the poem, single spaced, in a plain typeface.
4. Write the covering note, which is 5 lines and not a pitch.
5. Send it through the route the guidelines name, which is often a form or a platform such as Submittable rather than an email address.
6. Record the date, the title and the place in a list, so that nothing is sent twice.
7. Start the next poem, and leave the sent one alone.

Where a young writer can send a poem

A young writer can send a poem to more places than they think, and the useful ones are almost never the famous ones. Young Poets Network, run by The Poetry Society, publishes work by young writers and sets challenges with real editors reading. School and college magazines, sixth form anthologies, local library and council competitions, youth zines and the youth strands of literature festivals all take work and all of them are read by somebody. The magazine shelves themselves are catalogued at the National Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre in London, at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, and through the National Library of Wales and Poetry Ireland, and long running titles such as Poetry Wales show plainly on their own pages when they are open. Anthologies covers the book shaped version of the same act.

Two answers people arrive looking for are worth giving straight. Poetry, the magazine published by the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, and The New Yorker both take unsolicited poems through their own submission systems, and both are among the most competitive places in the world to be read; they are also American, and a young writer sending work to a United States magazine should check that magazine's guidelines for a rule about entrants under eighteen, because some carry one. Sending there is not forbidden and it is not a plan. A poem that has been in a school magazine, a local competition and a national youth award has a history; a poem that has only ever been sent to The New Yorker has a story about waiting.

What a magazine wants in the file

What a magazine wants in the file is dull on purpose, because the editor is reading a great many poems and anything decorative slows them down. Send a document or a paste in the body of the message, whichever the guidelines specify, containing the poem in a plain serif or sans serif typeface at a normal size, single spaced within stanzas, with a blank line between stanzas and a page break between poems where more than one is allowed. Keep the layout the poem actually needs, since an indent or a broken line that carries meaning is part of the writing rather than decoration. Leave out images, borders, coloured text and a page of biography.

The covering note carries 5 things and nothing else:

• The writer's name, spelled as it should be printed.
• The titles enclosed, in the order they appear in the file.
• One line on publication, saying the poems are unpublished or naming where they have appeared.
• One line of biography, which at this age can honestly be a town and a school year.
• The writer's age, where the scheme is for young writers and needs it.

There is no need to explain the poem. An editor who has to be told what a poem is about has already been told what they needed to know.

Simultaneous submissions, response times and rejection

A simultaneous submission is the same poem sent to more than one place at the same time, and whether it is allowed is stated in the guidelines of every magazine worth sending to. Where it is allowed, the obligation is simple and absolute: tell the others the moment a poem is accepted somewhere, and withdraw it. Where it is not allowed, the poem is out of circulation until that magazine replies. Replies are slow, in weeks and often in months, because most poetry magazines are edited by people doing it around a job, and many guidelines give a period after which a polite query is welcome.

A rejection is a decision about one poem, in one magazine, in one reading period, by one person with a full issue to fill. It is not a verdict on the writer, it is not a score, and it carries no information about the next poem. Rejections outnumber acceptances for everyone who publishes, at every age, which is why the seventh step above is to start the next poem rather than to wait. A rejection that comes with 2 lines of comment from an editor is worth more than most feedback a young writer will get, because it comes from someone who owed them nothing.

The submission that asks you for money

A submission that asks a young writer for money deserves suspicion by default. A magazine does not charge to read work. A competition may charge a modest, clearly stated entry fee towards judging, and the schemes built for under eighteens generally charge nothing at all. What is never legitimate is the invitation that arrives after the poem has been accepted, offering the anthology it will appear in for sale to the writer, the family and the school, sometimes with a certificate or an award dinner attached. Publishing a poem sets out how that model works and what publication is actually worth. A family being sold a book on the strength of a child's poem is a consumer matter as much as a literary one, and the report goes to the Citizens Advice consumer service, which passes it to Trading Standards.

None of this replaces the live route, and a young writer who only ever posts envelopes is missing the part of the practice that made the poem. The stage and its circuit covers the rooms where the same poem gets said out loud, usually to more people than a small magazine reaches, and usually within a fortnight rather than within a year.