We are open to original poetry submissions of three to five poems for our Winter 2025 issue and later from now until December 15. Full details can be found below.
Original Poetry
Original Poetry (CLOSED): Submissions reopen 2/1/2026.
We’re looking for serious poetry that has something important to say. This can mean poems about topics important to you, poems telling us about who you are or what you think, or an unusual or clever creative style. Poems don’t need to deal with weighty subjects, but should be meaningful.
Our feelings about form have evolved to only avoid what we perceive to be tired forms: metered verse with end rhyme in the English style, short forms made popular in the U.S. over a century ago like haiku, tanka, etc. Forms like non-rhyming sonnets, ghazals, pantoums, and others where serious work is still being done are now welcome along with our primary focus on free verse. We also like to feature a poet rather than a poem, so submissions must include at least three poems. Each submission is judged as a whole. Poems must be 40 non-space lines or less.
A small honorarium ($10) will be paid for first serial and archival rights for accepted submissions and all contributors get a Meet Our Contributor post. All original poetry will be considered for Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations at the end of the year.
While simultaneous submissions are permitted, we try to send first-round decisions–which account for over 90% of responses–within 1-2 weeks. If you can give us this time, we greatly appreciate it.
There is no fee to submit, but please read and follow the guidelines below:
- We have transitioned to submissions via Google Forms rather than email. Please complete this submission form. If you have difficulty with the form, please email info {@} phillychapbookreview.org.
- We are now pleased to accept submissions from poets anywhere in the world. Submissions must be at least 50% English.
- Only literary poetry, please. This doesn’t mean that poems can’t fall into a genre, but if they do, they should be meaningful to serious poetry readers.
- Any entries that denigrate another person on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual preference, or disability will be discarded. We are a small publication run by a disabled person who loves the great variety of voices in poetry.
- Poems may not be previously published in a periodical. (We define periodicals as magazines, websites, blogs, or social media feeds with more than 500 followers.)
- To allow others a chance, if we’ve published your work before, please wait two full issue periods after the one in which you appear before submitting again.
Contents
Chapbook Poem: When I Was Straight by Dustin Brookshire
“‘When I Was Straight’ prompted me to think about a common queer experience—how most parents assume their children are ‘straight’ and expect their children to live a ‘straight’ life.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for October 2025 along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: American Girl: Fort Hood, 2023 by Thea Matthews
“[W]eaving in and juxtaposing the lyrics of Tom Petty’s ‘American Girl.’ The song’s themes of desperation, wanderlust, and longing are subverted by Ana’s life and tragedy at Fort Cavazos, previously known as Fort Hood, Texas.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem for October 2025 along with words from the poet.
“It seems such a shame that a beautiful location is just gathering dust and overgrowth, and I wanted to lean into the juxtaposition of that.” Read three poems by Bryana Fern along with a few words about “Women on the Wall.”
Bodies in Transition: Sacred & Perishable by Carissa Natalia Baconguis
“There is a muscular intimacy to the ecosystem of these poems, each one of them creating as vivid a world individually as exists in the collection as a whole.” Read Gray Davidson Carroll’s full review.
“In ‘No Breaks’ I was writing about something I hope I never have to experience. … I tried to keep despair at bay and show some defiance and resilience.” Read two poems by Gerald Yelle along with a few words about “No Breaks.”
November ’25: New Staff, Issue Archive & Donations
Read a note from Editor Aiden Hunt about our new Poetry Readers, the additions of an Issue Archive and a Contributor Fund, Fall poetry submissions, and Gaza.
Chapbook Poem: Two egrets at the edge of a tidal marsh by Rebekah Wolman
“Settling on the mirror form opened the way into the parallels between the original image of the egrets, their reflection, and their ambiguous relationship and the shifting, even reversing, roles of an adult daughter and her aging mother…” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for November 2025 along with words from the poet.
Three Poems by Alexandra Burack
“Subsequent drafts enabled me to … uncover the metaphor of exile, whose meanings are intended to move readers from an experience of alienation to one of discernment of the liberating qualities of outsiderhood.” Read three poems by Alexandra Burack, along with a few words about “To Know Blue From the Color of Snow at Dusk.”
Book Excerpt: Rondo by Yamini Pathak
“The sculpture gardens are located on … the native land of the Lenape people. The poem is a conversation between sculpture, land, and its human and more-than-human inhabitants.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for November 2025, “Rondo” from Her Mouth a Palace of Lamps by Yamini Pathak, along with a few words from the poet.
Two Poems by Yasmin Mariam Kloth
“As I shaped the poem, the olive trees became a witness to a deeper experience—to a region’s ongoing, collective pain. It was the land I wanted to make speak in a place where I did not have words.” Read two poems by Yasmin Mariam Kloth, along with a few words about “Before.”
A Conversation with Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes
“We wanted something that was alive, highlighted an ever-expanding list of books by these poets, and that will hopefully survive the both of us and flourish under the curation of a fresh set of poets.” Read the full interview about the New-Generation African Poets Chapbook series.
Chapbook Poem: Red Tide by Mary Gilliland
“Reflection, research, a public service announcement, an old Zen koan, and 3 weeks of bicycling for groceries with a bandana tied around my nose and mouth inform ‘Red Tide’.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for December 2025, “Red Tide” from Red Tide at Sandy Bend, along with a few words from the poet.
Three Poems by Veronica Tucker
“’You Left the Fridge Open Again’ transforms an ordinary domestic moment into a meditation on tenderness and decay. The open refrigerator becomes a quiet altar, its hum a hymn to what lingers after love’s warmth has cooled.” Read three poems by Veronica Tucker, along with a few words about “You Left the Fridge Open Again.”
Book Excerpt: The Samadhi of Words by Richard Collins
“Zen poets, past and present, who experience deep absorption in the grandeur of this world may even gain wisdom through the way of poetry, Shidō (詩道). This is the samadhi of words.” Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for December 2025, “The Samadhi of Words” from Stone Nest by Richard Collins, along with a few words from the poet.
December ’25: Pushcart Prize Nominations
Editor Aiden Hunt announces Philly Chapbook Review’s 2026 Pushcart Prize anthology nominations in this editor’s note and provides links to, and a carousel of, the nominated poems.
“From the height of the camel, I could see the ruins of Palmyra and a medieval castle on a hill. Present day Wadi Rum in Jordan has no evidence of an ancient civilization in the desert until one arrives, by car not camel, in Petra.” Read two poems by Sandy Feinstein, our sixth and final biweekly poet of the Fall 2025 issue, along with a few words about “Souvenir.”