Submissions for Zingara Poetry Review will reopen on June first, 2025 for original poems written in response to any prompt posted in April 2025 for National Poetry Month.
Guidelines:
- Send 1-2 previously unpublished poems inspired by any prompt posted during National Poetry Month April, 2025 in the body of an email to ZingaraPoet(at)gmail.com with the NAME OF THE PROMPT included in the subject line. Please include a few sentences about your writing process (how you got from prompt to final draft) in your email.
- Feel free to also include an image to accompany your poem.
- Poems may be overtly related to any of the prompts, or have only a thread of connection. If you wrote a poem in response to a prompt and threw out all but one line during revision, that counts. Surprising is preferred to the predictable.
- Include a brief professional biography of 50 words or fewer, also in the body of your email.
- Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let ZPR know immediately if submitted work is accepted elsewhere.
- Published poets receive bragging rights and the chance to share work with a diverse, ever-expanding audience.
- Submissions which do not follow guidelines will not be considered.
- If accepted work is later published elsewhere, please acknowledge that the piece first appeared in Zingara Poetry Review.
- There are no fees to submit, though donations are welcome via PayPal. All submitters will be subscribed to Zingara Poetry Review newsletter.
- Zingara Poetry Review retains first digital rights, though rights revert back to the author upon publication.
- Deadlines for each category of prompt are listed on the 2025 Poetry Prompts page
What I’m looking for in a poem:
Like all editors, I like to see interesting poems that do what they do well. Whether traditional, conceptual, lyrical, or formal, they should exhibit the poet’s clear understanding of craft and, just as importantly, revision. Very elemental poems that have not undergone effective revision will probably not make the cut. Likewise, poems which are contrived, sacrifice meaning for the sake of rhyme, feel incomplete, do not risk sentimentality (or are too sentimental), or lack tension when tension is needed, will also be dismissed. I am a fan of rich, vivid imagery, cohesive discursiveness, and surprising metaphors. Finally, poems which perpetuate harmful stereotypes of gender, race, or class will most certainly not be considered.
Zingara Poetry Review seeks poems written from the heart by practicing poets across demographics and around the world. We do not charge submission fees but welcome donations through Paypal (zingarapoet(at)gmail.com). Donations do not influence publication decisions.
For a very good discussion on the elements of effective poetry, take a look at Slushpile Musings by James Swingle, publisher and editor of Noneucildean Cafe’
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