Are you ready to gather your poems into a collection? In this micro course, each day for 15 days, you will receive a new prompt to help you write, organize, or edit your in-progress poetry collection. Don’t worry if you don’t have a lot of poems to work with yet—at the end of the course, you will receive all of the prompts for future review, so you can continue to revise and collect your poetry.

Many brilliant presses are looking for full collections of poetry, chapbooks, and micro chapbooks (including Palette, later this year!), but gathering enough poems for a collection might seem a daunting task. Throughout the 15 days of the micro course, the editors at Palette will offer their advice on compiling an effective collection of poetry. At the end of the micro course, you’ll also receive a curated list of poetry collection submission opportunities!

You can look forward to micro lessons focused on setting your poetry goals, organizing your body of work, identifying your “twin” and “turning point” poems, finding the title of your collection, choosing the order of the poems, deciding on the length of the collection, and much more!

Your micro course lessons will be sent via email every weekday for three weeks, starting November 11 and ending November 29. Palette Poetry will open for micro chapbook (a ten-page collection of poetry) submissions on December 9, so we hope this micro course will help you prepare your poetry for submission!

The micro course costs $15, or $1 a day. When you register below, you can first expect to receive a confirmation email through Submittable. Then, you will receive your micro course lessons in November sent directly to the email account you used to register.

We’re excited to help you collect your wonderful poetry!

This category is always open for free submissions!

We are looking for both pitches and completed drafts of poetry craft essays. We love work that engages with specific elements of poetic craft, and welcome any writing that dives deeply into the nuts and bolts of how poetry works. We’re also interested in hybrid craft essay forms, and welcome work which is not easily classifiable, including work with a personal essay element, experimental forms or formatting, or anything that explores the boundaries of genre—as long as it has a clear craft focus and aims to educate, inform, and inspire working poets.

We are especially interested in craft concepts inspired by books from independent publishers, writing advice that puts more than one text into conversation with another, or essays that highlight underrepresented or marginalized voices. We would prefer that at least one of the texts that you are engaging with was published within the last year, although this is not a hard-and-fast rule.

Our ideal length for these pieces is between 1,000 and 3,000 words. If you need additional space, please leave us a short explanation in your cover letter.

For pitches, please submit:

• a brief (500 words or fewer) summary of what element of craft you would like to explore, and what writers or books you are planning to highlight;
• a biographical statement (100 words or fewer) with any relevant credentials; and
• 1-3 samples of similar work, if possible.

If you would like to send a finished draft, please indicate your word count at the top of your submission. We would especially love to work with emerging writers on drafts, so if you’re not sure if something is publication-ready, send it along and see if it’s a good fit—we’d be happy to work on it with you! Drafts should be double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, with regular margins, unless specific formatting requires otherwise.

Accepted essays pay $50.

We can’t wait to read your work!

Palette Poetry is delighted to continue our tradition of celebrating previously published work. We appreciate the curatorial work of our fellow literary magazines, and we want to support poets as they continue to expand their publishing careers. Submissions to the Previously Published Poem Prize must have been already published in a literary magazine or an anthology. 

The winner will be awarded $3,000, publication, a brief interview in Palette Poetry, and a limited edition broadside of the poem. Second and third place will receive $300 and $200, respectively, as well as publication. Winners will be selected by Palette editors. Learn about last year's winners here.

Submission Guidelines: Please read carefully!

• For this prize, we are only accepting previously published work. Please indicate in your cover letter which literary magazines the poem(s) first appeared in. When we narrow down our shortlist and winners, we will be checking the original publication to make sure we can give credit.
• Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English—inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely written in English.
• We accept simultaneous submissions. If your previously published poem happens to be selected for a different reprint or anthology during this contest, please do not automatically withdraw, but contact us because we may still consider it for this prize.
• Your submission must be no more than three poems and under ten pages. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. Please begin each poem on a new page and include each poem’s individual title.
• We do accept multiple submissions (of one to three poems apiece), but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.
• Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with a list of where your work was first published. If you select the editorial feedback option, this cover letter is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on. To safeguard our reading staff, please include content warnings in the cover letter, if applicable, as well.
• Writers from historically marginalized groups are invited to submit for free until we reach the fifty free entries budgeted for this particular contest.
• Review our FAQ page for frequently asked questions.
• NOTE: If after submitting you notice an error in your submission, please message us rather than withdrawing and resubmitting your submission. We can open it to editing once so you can correct the error.
• Palette Poetry does not accept AI-produced work.
• Contest closes on December 8, 2024. Submitters will be notified of their submission status 8-12 weeks after the close of the contest.

Included Unique Opportunities and Discounts

As a thank you for your support for Palette, we’d like to offer a 10% off discount code on a writing class from The Writing Salon. Find a class and use the code included in the confirmation message at checkout.

Editorial Feedback Option

This option costs $59 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions. The three-letter option costs $149 and will provide you with six pages of detailed and actionable feedback on a poem of your choice from the submission, including suggestions for future submissions, from three separate guest editors. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and are all incredibly astute poets.

Palette Poetry is delighted to continue our tradition of celebrating previously published work. We appreciate the curatorial work of our fellow literary magazines, and we want to support poets as they continue to expand their publishing careers. Submissions to the Previously Published Poem Prize must have been already published in a literary magazine or an anthology. 

The winner will be awarded $3,000, publication, a brief interview in Palette Poetry, and a limited edition broadside of the poem. Second and third place will receive $300 and $200, respectively, as well as publication. Winners will be selected by Palette editors. Learn about last year's winners here.

Submission Guidelines: Please read carefully!

• For this prize, we are only accepting previously published work. Please indicate in your cover letter which literary magazines the poem(s) first appeared in. When we narrow down our shortlist and winners, we will be checking the original publication to make sure we can give credit.
• Submissions are open internationally, to any poet writing in English—inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely written in English.
• We accept simultaneous submissions. If your previously published poem happens to be selected for a different reprint or anthology during this contest, please do not automatically withdraw, but contact us because we may still consider it for this prize.
• Your submission must be no more than three poems and under ten pages. Please submit all your poems in ONE document. Please begin each poem on a new page and include each poem’s individual title.
• We do accept multiple submissions (of one to three poems apiece), but each submission will include the $20 reading fee.
• Please include a brief cover letter in the cover letter box with a list of where your work was first published. If you select the editorial feedback option, this cover letter is also where you can name which poem you’d like feedback on. To safeguard our reading staff, please include content warnings in the cover letter, if applicable, as well.
• Review our FAQ page for frequently asked questions.
• NOTE: If after submitting you notice an error in your submission, please message us rather than withdrawing and resubmitting your submission. We can open it to editing once so you can correct the error.
• Palette Poetry does not accept AI-produced work.
• Contest closes on December 8, 2024. Submitters will be notified of their submission status 8-12 weeks after the close of the contest.

Included Unique Opportunities and Discounts

As a thank you for your support for Palette, we’d like to offer a 10% off discount code on a writing class from The Writing Salon. Find a class and use the code included in the confirmation message at checkout.