Dear Reader,
Welcome to the beginning of our third year! I’m pleased to say that we’ve built a following that continues to grow with each issue, both in our website page views and our SubStack following. In fact, we’ve reached the point where in order to continue to grow, we need more staff. More details about this can be found below.
I’m grateful to Poetry Readers D.W. Baker, Danielle McMahon, Lynn Wagner, and Herb Kitson for their help with this issue. In our first call allowing submissions from outside North America, we received 803 poems from 202 poets in 28 countries across the world. We chose 25 poems from 8 poets, for an acceptance rate of around 3%. We are open for original poetry submissions for the Spring issue and beyond until March 15. Click here for the call details and form link.
Accepting Applications
After two years of running almost all of the behind-the-scenes activity by myself, I’m pleased to have built something of literary value. Starting with the Summer 2026 issue, my title will change to Managing Editor, and I am currently looking for section editors, production staff, and fiction readers. All positions are volunteer and unpaid. I will be accepting applications for the positions below until March 31, 2026 with the intention of completing the process by the end of April.
The position details are described below. I look forward to reviewing your applications.
Warm regards,
Aiden Hunt
Editor & Creator
Applicants: Click here for the Google Form.
Note: All positions except Social Media Manager need to be comfortable with Google Forms, Spreadsheets, and Docs or similar programs. All positions require online communication and interpersonal skills to work with an entirely remote staff.
Poetry Editor
Estimated Commitment: 1 year, 15-30 hours/month
Description: The Poetry Editor manages a small team of readers to rate and comment on all submissions and send timely responses. They report to the Managing Editor with whom they collaborate to decide what poetry is published. (PCR averages 175 to 200 submissions of 3-5 poems—accepting 6 to 10 submissions—for each month and a half submission period.) The ideal candidate will have experience as a reader or editor at a literary magazine and be an active poet.
Skills: Experience as an editor or reader at a literary magazine desired. Familiarity with a variety of contemporary poetic styles and techniques.
Reviews Editor
Estimated Commitment: 1 year, 10-15 hours/month
Description: The Reviews Editor is a contributing editor who helps to identify promising chapbooks for review, manages calls for reviews of those chapbooks as well as unsolicited submissions, and publishes at least one review per issue. If no reviewers are available, as sometimes happens, the editor is responsible for writing the review.
Skills: Experience as an editor or reader at a literary magazine desired. Must be able to write an essayistic critical review and should have samples.
Fiction Editor
Estimated Commitment: 1 year, 15-30 hours/month
Description: The Fiction Editor manages a small team of Readers who rate and comment on all submissions and send timely responses. They report to the Managing Editor with whom they collaborate to decide what fiction is published. The first Fiction Editor will screen Readers as needed and help put out PCR‘s first fiction call. We hope to be able to publish at least one piece of fiction in each quarterly issue. The ideal candidate will have experience as a reader or editor at a literary magazine and be an active prose fiction writer.
Skills: Experience as an editor or reader at a literary magazine desired. Familiarity with a variety of contemporary short fiction styles and techniques.
Production Assistant
Estimated Commitment: 1 year, 10-20 hours/month
Description: A Production Assistant helps the Managing Editor to gather information and media for our weekly and monthly book posts. They also help manage the general PCR email address, including responding to form submissions.
Skills: Some experience on staff at a literary magazine (including high school, college, or internship) preferred. Ability to use WordPress and Outlook Webmail important.
Social Media Manager
Estimated Commitment: 1 year, 10-20 hours/month
Description: The Social Media Manager will create and post engaging content on PCR‘s social media accounts (including Facebook, X, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Instagram) in order to help grow our following.
Skills: Demonstrated social media skills. Some experience on staff at a literary magazine (including high school, college, or internship) a plus.
Fiction Reader
Estimated Commitment: 1 year, 10-20 hours/month
Description: A Fiction Reader’s job is to read, rate, and comment upon submissions of original fiction. They are part of a team reporting to the Fiction Editor.
Skills: Some experience on staff at a literary magazine (including high school, college, or internship) a plus. Familiarity with a variety of contemporary short fiction styles and techniques.
Contents
“Managing [my husband’s] pain became fraught in the last week of his life when he could no longer swallow the medications that had kept him comfortable…The poem explores the vulnerability and intimacy found in such a crisis.” Read five poems by Amy Riddell, our first biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Reading the Body.”
Chapbook Poem: Aphasia by Robert Allen
“Ultimately this is a poem of love and recognition, of finding the right words for the right listener, to the one who listens and understands.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for January 2026, “Aphasia,” along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: The Egg of Anything by Paula Bohince
“The poem is filled with moments of ‘O’ sounds and ‘Ah’ sounds, mimicking the O of the egg and the Ah of the open jaw. I like that the poem is compact in its little form, also a bit egg-like.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for January 2026, “The Egg of Anything” from A Violence by Paula Bohince, along with a few words from the poet.
Three Poems by Abraham Aondoana
“Instead of providing any solution to the issue, the poem is ready to be open to the ambiguity that can enable doubt, tenderness, and resilience to co-exist. By so doing, it points to survival not as victory, but as endurance…” Read three poems by Abraham Aondoana, our second biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Surviving a Country That is Also a Question.”
Five Poems by Colleen S. Harris
“I am always struck by the juxtaposition of the biology and science of illness versus the life of the person living with it, and how those two spheres constantly interrupt and flow into each other.” Read five poems by Colleen S. Harris, our third biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Inflammation As Girl.”
Chapbook Poem: Offering by Richard Jordan
“In my mind, the narrator recognizes that Harper’s fate could very well have been his own, and I hope that readers can relate, in the sense that we all have done reckless things, especially in our youth…” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for February 2026, “Offering,” along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Passage by Paul Hostovsky
“When she’d call me on the weekends, I was high half the time, impatient with her, and unforthcoming. It’s one of my greatest regrets. The tears well up just thinking about it. I didn’t grieve her properly. I’m grieving her now.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for February 2026, “Passage” from Perfect Disappearances by Paul Hostovsky, along with a few words from the poet.
“The poem captures us both there in the dreaded check up appointment: me clenching crinkling paper, scared of what the lab reports say; him…lab reports in hand like some mysterious document…” Read three poems by Mary Whitlow, our fourth biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Examined.”
February ’26: Section Editors & Staff Wanted
Editor Aiden Hunt begins year three with a call for applications for section editors and other editorial and production staff in this editor’s note.
“I am most comfortable in a chair with a pen looking at nature through a window. And yet nature is something my mind is also totally immersed in…So I think it’s a bit of a paradox.” Poet Lisa Low discusses her latest chapbook in this interview with Contributor Saudamini Siegrist.
“My work has always found a focus in the bodies of women, and watching the mix of strength and fragility in women as they face illness and pain has been a topic that I keep coming back to.” Read four poems by Betty Stanton, our fifth biweekly poet of the Winter 2026 issue, along with a few words about “Vein Song.”
Chapbook Poem: Found in the African Art Collection… by Rohanna Ssanyu
“It is laborious to hold on to a culture removed, one for which I am a perpetual novice. I do, however, try, and I bring my children with me. … Can this space, this culture, only be ours if cut up and reimagined?” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for March 2026, “Found in the African Art Collection of a New Haven Gallery After the Guard Asks Whether My Son Knows the Rules,” along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Targeted by Frances Klein
“The poem focuses specifically on the way that online algorithms ‘read’ a person’s internet history related to pregnancy or trying to conceive, then deliver the most painful possible ads…” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for March 2026, “Targeted” from Another Life by Frances Klein, along with a few words from the poet.