Thank you for your interest in Here: a poetry journal!

Here: a poetry journal is currently reading for its seventh annual issue. For those new to our journal, here's our mission statement:

"Here seeks to present in each annual issue diverse, wide-ranging, and powerful responses in poetry to the essential and endless questions related to “being here” that are implied by the journal’s title. What does it mean to be here, truly, or to have been here, back from “there,” against whatever odds and forces? The journal is open to work written in all forms and encourages those writing from the margins, whatever those may be, to submit their work. We've published poems by established, award-winning writers such as Margaret Gibson, José B. González,  Lois Roma-Deeley, Steve Myers, Julia Paul, Harry Humes, Sitara Gnanaguru, John Bargowski, Cait O'Kane, Frederick-Douglass Knowles II, Barbara Crooker, and Bruce Weigl alongside stunning work by writers (including high school students) making their first appearances in print.

Along with the questions the title raises, we hope, too, that a generosity of spirit emanates from the journal and the poems within it. Here, the title says to you, take this. May it be a good companion for you over a beverage or two, on a road trip, and perhaps far beyond that."

A guiding thought behind the journal comes from Seamus Heaney's distinction, offered in an interview shortly after winning the Nobel Prize, between the words "herd" and "heard." He said "I always like to make a play on two words that sound the same––“h-e-r-d” and “h-e-a-r-d.“ I think in writing poetry, especially in times of crisis, political crisis, you’ve got to beware of “h-e-r-d” feelings as opposed to individual "h-e-a-r-d.“ The writer is there to be “h-e-a-r-d” singularly, not to be part of the tribe, although, at times of crisis, this is a very fine and important distinction."

You may submit up to five poems (within a single Word or .pdf file) each reading period. 

Payment for accepted work is two copies of the journal in which an author's work appears.

Again, thank you for your interest in Here: a poetry journal!  

Daniel Donaghy, Editor