Submission Guidelines

Yearling publishes unsolicited poetry and poetry from our community of working writers once a year in December.

Submissions are open year round and each submission receives feedback from our editors.

Yearling encourages simultaneous submissions for previously unpublished work. We do not consider sharing your poem on a blog, social media account, or online group as published.

If your work is accepted by another online or print publisher, journal, or magazine please withdraw your submission through submittable.

Contributors will receive 1 copy of the journal upon publication. We hope to be able to pay poets by the end of the third year of publication.

Poems

The poems that move us most are the poems that make us forget that we are reading a poem. We believe any style, tone, form, subject matter has that potential.

Please send us 1 poem at a time. If you’d like to send us more, we charge a fee to pay the editors who are providing feedback. It’s $5 to submit 3 poems and $10 to submit up to 6.

The working poet is of particular importance to us. We define a working poet as a poet who doesn’t make their living from writing or the teaching of writing. Each issue will include 20 poets from our community of working writers and 20 poets from outside of that community, including those who happen to make their living from writing and teaching writing.

If you are interested in joining our community, check us out here.

Response Time

Yearling’s readers and editors are shooting for the quickest possible response time. Since we provide feedback to every submission, we cannot say for certain how long this will take. 

Feedback

Aside from a chance to be published, Yearling provides poets who do not have access to a workshop or a community the opportunity to get feedback on their work. Please do not submit to us unless you are comfortable hearing constructive feedback on your work.  We value the time and energy you put into your work. Please be aware that we do not participate in an ongoing dialogue about a poem, but you are welcome to resubmit a piece as many times as you would like.

Rights and Rules

We require First Rights (the first publisher to publish these poems publicly). All rights revert to the authors upon publication. We also require Non-Exclusive Electronic Rights, so that we can share your poem through our digital platforms. 

Our Team

Managing Editor: Manuel J. Grimaldi

Manny Grimaldi is from Louisville, Kentucky. He appeared online in Club Plum Literary Journal Vol 2 Issue 1, 2021. He appeared on Laverne’s Writing Workshop on RADIOLEX as a guest poet on two occasions, and works with Workhorse Writers generating feedback for submitting poets, and as managing editor for The Yearling. He loves to tell stories.

Editor: Meredith Dill

Meredith was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. She is an English teacher at Lafayette High School and believes that all students have a story to share with the world. She likes to write about love, grief, family, and her two dogs: Ivy and Wicket.

Editor: Christopher McCurry 

Christopher McCurry grew up right outside of Lexington, Kentucky in the small town of Paris. His poetry has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and featured on NPR's On Point as a Best Book of 2016 for his chapbook of marriage sonnets Nearly Perfect Photograph. A graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College and a high school English teacher, he spends his time playing board games, skateboarding, and going on adventures with his daughter Abra and his partner Meredith. In 2015, Christopher co-founded Workhorse, a publishing company and community for working writers. He believes everyone should write poems and that everyone can. You can find him online at workhorsewriters.com.

Submit 3-5 poems in one attachment. Poems must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are OK as long as you notify us immediately if accepted elsewhere. 

Poems may be written in any form and style, rhyming or not, traditional or contemporary. 

Include a brief bio (3-4 sentences).

 
Guidelines

• Open to all poets nationally
• Any topic, any form 
• 30 lines or fewer, including titles, spaces, stanza breaks
• 1-3 poems per submission
• Members may submit to both contests
• Must be the original, unpublished work of the entrant
• Must be titled or numbered
• Do not include your name or any identifying information on the poem(s)
• Must be received by June 30, 2023, 11:59 pm ET

Prizes

• 1st Prize: $100
• 2nd Prize: $50
• 3rd Prize: $25

PLUS

• Invitation to read your winning poem at the KSPS Annual Conference
• Publication in KSPS literary journal Pegasus

Judge: Kathleen Driskell

About

The Kentucky State Poetry Society seeks to inspire, encourage, and develop Kentucky’s poets through a wide variety of workshops, lectures, and publishing opportunities. The Kentucky State Poetry Society publishes the biannual literary journal Pegasus, offers a student and adult poetry contest, and hosts an annual conference.