How to Submit Your Poetry for Publication
Plus how to decipher legal jargon about your rights as a poet
Meet 2River View
Last time, I mentioned the publication 2River View. This is a literary journal that accepts poetry submissions yearly! If you are someone who is looking to get their poetry published, then you might just have found the future home of your work!
The editor and publisher of 2River View is Richard Long, so if you want to write a killer cover letter, you can now address him directly!
The publication has been around since 1996 and publishes quarterly. If you want to submit your poetry, here are the deadlines:
May 1- July 31 for the Fall Issue
August 1- October 31 for the Winter Issue
November - January 31 for the Spring Issue
February 1- April 30 for the Summer Issue
(Hint: It may behoove you to submit early…)
This is one of those publications that only accepts unpublished poetry. (😅 too bad, I really wanted to submit some of these poems).
You might also be interested in knowing that 2River View only publishes 10 poets per issue and that they receive about 300 submissions for each issue.
That’s a 3.33% acceptance rate. It’s actually easier to get into Harvard than it is to get published here. That’s not meant to deter you, it’s meant to encourage you to keep on submitting! After all it’s free, and you only have to be right once.
Do I still own my poetry?
In their guidelines, they say that “If accepted, 2River claims First Electronic Rights and First North American Rights, meaning that publications here at 2River must be the first publication to feature the work online and/or in print.”
What does this mean?
You hold the rights to your work. Because you wrote it, your ownership over your poetry is covered by copyright law. No one else can take it, publish it, claim it as their own, or make money off of it.
However, when you get accepted (when, not if!) you grant 2River View the right to publish your poetry FIRST online and FIRST in American Territories.
They do not own your work, but they are permitted to publish it first. This doesn’t mean that the poem is no longer yours.
In fact, you may include the poem in a future poetry collection (It doesn’t matter if it’s self-published or traditionally published). You may publish it on your own blog. You may have it be published in another literary magazine (that doesn’t require unpublished poems). BUT you may only do all this after 2River publishes it FIRST.
Many literary journals operate this way, they want new, fresh stuff that has never been seen before. They want exclusivity on the PREMIERE of the poem— that’s all.
When you get accepted, do not under any circumstances publish your work elsewhere! You will probably not encounter any legal problems, but you can bet that the publisher will no longer work with you, even on future submissions! Don’t burn bridges.
Questions? Go to the comments box!
Or if you are reading this in your inbox, simply hit reply and ask me directly. (If you want to get these posts sent to your inbox you can subscribe now!)
Do your research!
Before you submit, it will behoove you to read the past couple issues. This is the part that most people forget. It probably has something to do with it being the most time consuming aspect of the whole process.
As of writing, the last issue that was published as of this writing was the Winter 2022 issue.
It’s really important to familiarize yourself with not just classics, but modern poetry as well.
Which poem is your favorite from this bunch? Comment below!