Episode 329 - A Poet’s Guide to Craft, Publishing, and Community with Robert Lee Brewer

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Robert Lee Brewer discusses A POET’S GUIDE TO CRAFT, PUBLISHING, AND COMMUNITY, including how to recognize when an idea wants to be a poem, two very different approaches to revision, the publishing landscape for poets from journal submissions to full collections, how to handle rights and track simultaneous submissions, the annual Poem-a-Day challenge on WritersDigest.com for National Poetry Month, and why reading and writing poetry is a valuable exercise for writers working in any form.

Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of Writer's Digest and author of SMASH POETRY JOURNAL, THE COMPLETE GUIDE OF POETIC FORMS, and the poetry collection SOLVING THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS. He leads daily poetry challenges on WritersDigest.com in April and November and shares weekly poetry prompts the rest of the year.

Episode Links

https://www.writersdigest.com/

https://www.facebook.com/robertleebrewer

Here are some novel-in-verse examples:

Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds: https://bookshop.org/p/books/long-way-down-jason-reynolds/3a721799d05f3717?ean=9781481438261

The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-poet-x-elizabeth-acevedo/137b923eb6b14fc3?ean=9780062662811

Other Words for Home, by Jasmine Warga: https://bookshop.org/p/books/other-words-for-home-jasmine-warga/7961402

Summary & Transcript

Robert Lee Brewer is the senior editor of Writer’s Digest and the author of SMASH POETRY JOURNAL, THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO POETIC FORMS, and the poetry collection SOLVING THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS. He leads daily poetry challenges on WritersDigest.com in April and November and shares weekly poetry prompts for the rest of the year. In this conversation, Robert covered the ground from first poem to published collection—the craft of writing poetry, the editorial process, the publishing landscape, and the community rituals that keep poets connected.

HOW A POEM FOR A GIRL BECAME A CAREER

Robert traced his start in poetry to a high school crush: he wrote a poem for a girl he was attracted to, and when she asked about his other poems, he started writing more to prove he was serious. The relationship did not last, but his relationship with poetry did. By the end of high school he was self-publishing a fanzine containing his poems, other people’s work, art, and music reviews—an early sign that publishing was in his future, even if he did not recognize it at the time. In college he expanded into fiction and won several undergraduate awards for short stories, but poetry remained central. He described himself as someone who loves all types of writing, from poetry to email craft, which is part of why working at Writer’s Digest has been such a natural fit.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A POEM AND A STORY

Matty asked how Robert knows when an idea wants to be a poem rather than a short story. Robert identified two triggers. The first is language: a line or sentence whose sounds feel inherently poetic, where he follows the sounds before he even knows the meaning. The second is image: something observed on a walk—in nature or in a city—that he wants to capture. Some of his published poems do tell stories, he noted, but they tell them in the compressed way that poetry allows, without backstory or extensive development. The result is closer to a single scene than a narrative arc. Free verse and prose poetry have blurred the line between poetry and fiction even further, and Robert suggested that the forms feed each other in ways writers do not always recognize.

TWO STYLES OF REVISION

Robert described two approaches to revision that he and his wife—also a poet—represent. He is a quantity writer: he generates a large volume of first drafts and then mines them for lines and images worth developing. His wife spends a long time crafting a poem in her head before writing it down, then revises the same piece extensively, saving every version in a single Google Doc so she can compare drafts. Robert works on paper, collecting poems in composition notebooks that go all the way back to high school. When enough accumulate, he transfers the most promising ones into a new notebook and leaves the rest behind. Sound is his primary criterion for knowing when a poem is done—if the sounds work and the meaning is right, the poem is finished. If not, he may salvage a line or two and start a new poem built around them, a process that can stretch over years.

PUBLISHING PATHS FOR POETS

Robert outlined several routes to getting poetry in front of readers. Self-publishing is straightforward with current technology, and social media—particularly Instagram—offers a visual platform for sharing poems paired with images. He mentioned a series he did with Virginia Quarterly Review in which editor Jane Friedman paired his poems with images for an InstaPoetry series. Audio and video platforms, including YouTube and podcasts, offer additional outlets, particularly for poets drawn to slam and performance work.

For traditional publication, Robert emphasized that publishers of full collections typically expect the poet to have already placed individual poems in journals and magazines. He recommends starting with the directory at pw.org (Poets & Writers), which lists hundreds of publications across literary and genre-specific niches—including journals devoted to science fiction, fantasy, and other genre poetry. He noted that novels in verse have gained increasing recognition over the past decade, with several reaching the finalist stage for major literary awards.

RIGHTS, SUBMISSIONS, AND RECORD-KEEPING

Robert’s advice on rights mirrored standard short fiction guidance: give away only first publication rights, ensure the contract matches what the publisher actually does (an online-only publication should not hold print rights), and do not sign away more than is necessary. His own poetry collection was published by a press that did not produce digital editions, so the contract covered print rights only, leaving him free to pursue a digital version independently.

On submissions, Robert described the standard practice of sending three to five poems per batch. Most journals accept multiple submissions (several poems in one batch) and simultaneous submissions (the same poems sent to other journals at the same time). He stressed the importance of meticulous record-keeping: a master spreadsheet tracking which poems went where, when, and what the outcome was, supplemented by notes in his composition notebooks on each individual poem. The reason is practical—when a poem is accepted, the poet needs to immediately notify every other journal that still has it under consideration. Failing to do so can leave an editor with a hole in a layout they have already finalized.

NATIONAL POETRY MONTH AND THE POEM-A-DAY CHALLENGE

April is National Poetry Month in the United States and Canada, and Robert described the annual Poem-a-Day challenge he runs on WritersDigest.com—now in its nineteenth year. Each morning he posts a prompt and writes an example poem. Participants share their work in the comments, comment on one another’s poems, and often continue the conversation on Facebook and other platforms. The challenge draws poets from the U.S., Canada, India, the U.K., and beyond. Some participants have told Robert that entire published collections grew out of these prompts. The Academy of American Poets also organizes Poem in Your Pocket Day, which in 2026 falls on April 30. Robert closed by encouraging even writers who do not consider themselves poets to read poetry during April—the close, word-by-word attention that poetry demands is a craft skill that transfers to any form of writing.

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This transcript was created by Descript and cleaned up by Claude; I don’t review these transcripts in detail, so consider the actual interview to be the authoritative source for this information.

[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to the Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Robert Lee Brewer. Hey, Robert, how are you doing?

[00:00:06] Robert: Doing good. Thank you so much for having me,

[00:00:09] Matty: I am pleased to have you here and just to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you. Robert Lee Brewer is Senior editor of Writer’s Digest and author of SMASH POETRY JOURNAL, THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO POETIC FORMS and the Poetry Collection, SOLVING THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS. He leads daily poetry challenges on WriterDigest.com in April and November, and he shares weekly poetry

And so. I realized that in, I’m looking back on the many, many episodes of the Indy Author Podcast I had out there, and I realized that I had really, I had, under, addressed poetry and, I was working with Robert on some other things and I thought he would be the perfect, person to address that, gap in my, in my list of episodes.

[00:00:50] Matty: So Robert, I think it would be fun to find out

[00:00:57] Robert: Yeah. Uh. I first got started in poetry writing a poem for a girl that, I was attracted to in high school, and, gave the poem to her. And then luckily, like she wanted to talk later that night, and then she started asking me about my other poems, and I was like thinking to myself, what other poems? So, I started writing poetry to, Kind of show that I wasn’t just a, a fool that would write one poem for one girl. And,the relationship, with her, did not last. But my relationship with poetry grew over time from there. And, I got so into it in high school that, I even started self-publishing a fanzine, with my poems, other people’s poems.

art and music reviews and all kinds of stuff, which means like, it makes sense now looking back that I’m in publishing, but at the time I was

[00:01:57] Matty: And did you, dabble in other forms of fiction? Did you ever, take a crack at like short stories or novels, novellas,

[00:02:05] Robert: Oh yeah. in high school it was more, it was more poetry When I got to college, you were not supposed to take, any kind of creative writing. Classes as a freshman. And of course I took like all the poetry stuff as a freshman on top of my regular course load. And, by the middle of my sophomore year was kind of burned out on poetry and, Then started doing fiction and that was a lot of fun to do, to, to get the short stories and, won a couple undergrad awards, writing stories there. And that, was great. And then I also took like, business and professional technical writing was in college. Like I’ve just found, and I think this is why working at Writer’s Digest works so well for me, is like, I’ve just found that I love all types of writing,

Poetry fiction, making instructions, crafting the perfect email to somebody like all of it, to me is a fun, challenge. So like every day that I have, a chance to do any kind of writing, is, is a happy day for

[00:03:10] Matty: And do you find that there are certain things that make you sit down and say, you know, today I want to work on a poem today, I want, want to work on a short story. Like are there ways that, poetry feeds your, your creative urges in a way that other forms don’t?

[00:03:24] Robert: Yeah, it is, it’s interesting like with, fiction, , because I, I do still like write, stories. it’s more of a,A planned type of attack. Like I’ve got, story ideas and like outlines that I’m working off of. And, I try to make a certain time to be able to work on, the fiction. Whereas with poetry, a lot of times, like outside of, my win state, outside of the April and November when I do

And then on Wednesdays when I, share poetry prompts. On Writer’s Digest, like I ha I also, in addition to writing the prompt, do an example poem, so it like forces me at least once a week, to try to write some kind of poem. but outside of that, like a, all of the poetry, it’s like more like just being ready for when like the lightning strikes and.

sometimes that might mean that I go several weeks where I just write my example poem on Wednesdays. But then, like recently, and I find this usually happens in March and April, just naturally. but the poet side of me starts to wake up and, I’ve had several days recently where I’ll

you know, these are all first drafts, so I’m not saying like these are ones that I’m going to get published, but, But it just starts to like, you know, there are different times of the year where it starts to kind of ebb, ebb and flow as far as like my creativity.

[00:04:49] Matty: Yeah. Since I write about, the business side of short fiction, I often get. Questions that are more related to craft, which I always try to deflect, but not always successfully. because, you know, I’m, I’m pleased with the short stories I write, but I, I haven’t gotten my mind around it in a way that I can share that in a

And one of the questions always is, when you have an idea, how do you know if it’s a short story or a novel? And I always find that that very difficult to answer. And I can imagine the same, you know, if I, if I were writing poetry. I think I’d have the same answer. Obviously I

[00:05:26] Matty: But, is one of the defining things for you, the actual language, let’s say, as opposed to the, I dunno if the storyline you want to convey? You can tell I’m coming at this more from a, a short

[00:05:39] Robert: Yeah. It’s interesting because, a lot of times it is one of two things for me. It’s usually either is the language, like there’s a, a line or a sentence that just sounds very, poetic to me. a lot of, sounds that are bouncing off of each other and, and that. In itself might just start a poem going where I don’t even know where the poem’s going, what the meaning is behind it.

I just start following the sounds and see at the end like, what do I have, what can I revise out of that? And then other times it’s an image. I like to go for, walks, whether in nature or in city areas. I just love, walking around and exploring. And sometimes like that in itself, I can see different images that I want to try to capture in a

that said though, like some of the poems that I’ve had published are actually kind of telling a story, but they’re telling it in a very concise manner where, you know, if, if I wanted to, to be a short story. You need to get a lot more developed, but with poetry, you can kind of tell a story without giving all the backstory, all the other stuff.

It’salmost, actually, it’s more likea scene, that you would have in a

[00:07:01] Matty: Yeah. I can imagine some like micro fiction and maybe not even, maybe. Longer than micro fiction, you know, feels very poetic. And sometimes it’s even presented in a format that visually suggests, poetry to me more than it visually suggests, you know, just, narrative fiction. and so I imagine the, the dividing line there is probably less clear than it would’ve been decades or hundreds of years

[00:07:30] Robert: Yeah,

[00:07:31] Matty: was more defined.

[00:07:33] Robert: yeah. And I, I think, free verse and, prose poetry, both like help blur, blur that line even more because, like you said, poetry used to be like all end rhymes and, and, and different like rhyme schemes, which you can still have, but,Free verse and, and prose poetry, both, like, kind of open it up a little bit.

what, what you can do there and, and blur the lines. And, I don’t know, like, I, like I mentioned, like I love all types of writing and, and I feel like there’s a lot that they, they all feed into each other. there

[00:08:07] Matty: Yeah, it would be a fun exercise to take the same, inspiration and see what you do with it. if you want to write it as a poem or write it as a piece of micro fiction or write it as a short story. Write it as a novel if it took you in that direction. But just seeing like the differences in how, that got expressed in those different formats and those different expectations of, of the writer and

[00:08:30] Robert: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I mean, you know, there are poets who will take, a how to list or a grocery list and turn that into a poem. So I mean, you, you can really, get very, creative with, the shells that you’re using.

[00:08:44] Matty: I think that that’s, a great sort of creative palette cleanser in the same way. Micro fiction can be that, you know, maybe you’re slogging through 150, thousand word novel, but, and you’re feeling a little bogged down and taking a moment to, to play in

[00:09:02] Matty: You had talked about the fact that, you know, you might write, Several poems in a day, but they were just, first draft. So talk a little bit about what editorial process you bring to

[00:09:12] Robert: Yeah. it’s interesting, like I am, I’m more of a, and I’ve found like a lot of poets like fall into two categories. I’m more of a poet who likes to suggest. Write a lot and then come back through and like find pieces out of the poems that, that I can work with. my wife is also a poet and she’s more of one who, will spend a long time kind of crafting the poem in her head before she writes it,

Just working on that same poem. And you know, even if she’s written a few other poems, she just keeps coming back to it. Where, a lot of times I’m more of a, a quantity poet for, lack of a better term. And I just like to keep coming at like the different ideas until finally like, I find something that, a lot of times, like for me, like sound is a very important part of how I write and if I’ve got, all the sounds down, how I like ’em, and then, the meaning out of it that I want out of it, I feel like the, the poem is done and, and that might.

It might mean that I go through revisions on a poem like five times through of really changing stuff and moving stuff around. But then it also might mean that I do it five times and then I’m still not happy. But I like a, a line or two in there, but then I go and write a new poem

Go through the same process and maybe I’ll like that and maybe I won’t. And, I, you know, I’ve got some lines that have been around for years and years and years that I hope someday I get a poem that I’m happy with to that, that does service to the line or the image that’s doing it because, like I feel like you just know if, if the, the more that that you write, if you’re getting the effect that you want or not.

And, I, I feel like that’s a big thing with all writers is you’ve got the thing in your head and what you want to do, and then actually

[00:11:28] Matty: Well, I’m going to.

[00:11:34] Matty: A very logistical question, which is that when you’re having all these ideas, and you had talked about being ready when lightning strikes, I find this with my longer writing that I’ll have an idea for a, a novel and then I’ll have an idea for a scene, or I have an idea for a fun line, I’d want to put in someone’s mouth, and I

I still haven’t come up with a good way to sort of organize all those so that they’re available to me when I need them. And I can imagine the same thing, even though the works are shorter. So in that sense, might be easier to manage. You probably have more of them. So do you have any system where you’re capturing those things like you found the perfect

you know, the light in this particular environment and, you want to use that someday, but you haven’t found the, the place to put it. Do you, do you have a, a management system for that kind of creative output?

[00:12:21] Robert: Yeah, not quite, that well where I could almost see like a database type thing where you’ve, and I. Love made some databases, but I’ve never really done it that way, with my poetry. But what I do, how I do handle like my poems is that uh, whether I am happy

I collect them all into composition notebooks. I’ve got, I don’t even know how many over the years to build up. I mean, they go all the way back. I still have like the first one I did when I was in high school. And,I just collect them in there. And then I, I’m always going through

witch poems, I feel like still have like a possibility of turning into something. and then, you know, and some of the poems that are in there are actually poems that have gotten published. And, and then once that’s done, like I’m done moving them over into new composition notebooks. But when I, get so many build up, I start to move.

Stuff into a new composition notebook and then kind of leave the past in the past. And, that’s just the way that I, I handle it for myself, but, it would, it would be interesting to try to collect, the ideas. uh, the thing that I, I have trouble with though, whenever I try to just do ideas and I, I do have.

plenty of journals that just have random bits and pieces. I have lots of, post-it notes with lots of ideas all over the place. and, and sometimes what they end up in is like a gallon size, baggy

[00:13:53] Matty: Yeah, my gosh.

[00:13:55] Robert: you know, but,Yeah, when, when you have lots of ideas, sometimes it gets a little unwieldy and, and you just have to try, try your best to organize it how you can, but

[00:14:06] Matty: I think if I were in that position, I’d have to get it into some electronic form, but I can imagine just having one enormous Word document or whatever, where I would put these things in unless they were like. If they sort of fell into the category of here’s a way of describing light that I want to be sure to use someday.

Or here’s like a line whose rhythm I like or whatever. Because I kind of think that I’d remember enough to say, oh, I made a note about that light description. I’m going to go look for light. and have it all there because I know that I would not be good either about remembering something from a physical journal from years ago or,being diligent about carrying forward the gold nuggets that I wanted to make sure that I

[00:14:49] Robert: Yeah, that, that’s actually interesting , because my wife, how she drafts, it’s like each poem is in a Google doc and she actually saves. Older versions of the poem and kind of like works her way down the document that way. I am just personally, like, I like working with paper. It’s a just kind of how, how I am.

but, but she actually does that where, she can go and look like five drafts earlier within the same document. Like, this is what it looked like then and, and then, and then she just starts going into this loop of. It better here or is it better here or is it better there? Somewhere in the middle, like and, and it’s fun to watch , because she always ends

[00:15:37] Matty: Yeah, yeah. being able to look through earlier versions would not only be interesting for other people, but probably also educational for the writer because you can kind of see how things are evolving. And I’m definitely a, a, an electronic content person, but, If I were to, to go to writing things out, it would definitely be with poetry because I think that that like active tactile interaction

And also just the fact that oftentimes the, the way the words are presented on the page is more important than they are in like a novel or something like that. You know, the placement or the spacing or, Things like that. So yeah, I would definitely, experiment with that. I would try to tear myself away from the keyboard a bit more if I were working

[00:16:24] Robert: Yeah. And I mean, for, for me, I just like drawing like little arrows everywhere and circling things and putting

[00:16:32] Robert: Well, and the other thing that you’re, you had mentioned about just the sound, the words, obviously brings to mind the idea of sharing an audio. do you have audio platforms where you share

I don’t, but,there are poets that do that. I mean, there are a lot of poets, especially that do like slam poetry. Uh, great thing about YouTube is you can find a lot of great slam poets on there who. Are more, into doing that. I personally hate the sound of my voice when I

So, so I just can’t do it because I can’t go through the process of editing myself, because everything that I hear just sounds like, nails

[00:17:15] Matty: You just have to do a lot of podcast episodes

[00:17:19] Robert: right. Yeah. If I, if I could get used to the sound of my voice. I could do it because then I would be, I think that’s the main thing is like just being able to go back and, and revise, like, and improve my performance.

I can do that on paper. I can look at the paper and go back and, and see the bad poem that I wrote and, and rework it. But, hearing it back in my own voice, not so much.

[00:17:44] Matty: Yeah. Well, I can imagine it would be a very useful editing pass because I think of any. Kind of, written content, the consumer is more likely to be saying it out loud than in any other format. And so, previewing what that experience is going to be like for the person who, who likes to read the poetry out loud to themselves, could be a, an a useful pass.

[00:18:05] Robert: Yeah. Now I, I will say,I do like to read poems out when I’m going through the editing process. I just don’t like recording it and hearing my voice played back to me. But,it’s helpful not only for, for writing it, like you said, like knowing how people might hear it, in their head, whether they’re reading it out loud or not, but also.

as part of the process of promoting my, collection of poetry, SOLVING THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS, it became apparent very early in the promotion process when I’m going to places and reading the poems that, it’s like a different experience when you’re, you’re up there reading it, the

And I would actually make revisions to poems. As part of that process and, it became a part of my revision process moving forward to, to go through that because I want it to sound a certain way on the page, but then also I want it to sound a certain way when it’s being read or

[00:19:15] Matty: Very interesting.

[00:19:18] Matty: Well, I think that, this conversation about how people are absorbing, the poetic work is sort of a nice lead into another angle. We, you know, we’ve, delved into the sort of craft side a little bit, but let’s talk a little bit about the, we’ll say business side of poetry and, different ways that people can get their

So. Just talk a little bit about what’s available out there, for people who are writing poetry and they’re, they are looking for a readership

[00:19:48] Robert: Yeah. with poetry, there’s so many different ways to write poems, but then there’s also so many different ways to distribute your poetry. as I mentioned earlier. When I first started writing poetry in high school, I ended up, self-publishing a fanzine that had my poetry. So, even though I didn’t think about it as the time as like self-publishing, like self-publishing is definitely like a route that, all posts can take.

you know, you, you can do that, with technology that we have. Now, you, you have poets who, who share their poems on Instagram, Facebook, all social networks. You have poets who, can share their work on YouTube.

[00:20:31] Matty: in a more audio type way, they could do it through a podcast. Can you give an example of, people who are sharing on social media like Instagram or something like that? do you have experience in terms of, is it normally a video of them reading it? Are they presenting the words like along with an image or music, or like how produced is it, I guess?

[00:20:52] Robert: yeah, yeah, actually,both ways.

there are poets that will,read their work, and, and have the audio. But then also poets who like Instagram is a lot better for, like the image with the poetry. I actually, At one point, I was doing a series for a

Jane Friedman had invited me over to collect some poems and then she would put images with the poems. it was called like a InstaPoetry

And then there’s like the traditional route, for people who are interested in that. one of the things I, one of the questions I get asked a lot is like, how do I get my book of poetry published traditionally? these, the, usually the people who ask are people who

And usually, it’s expected if you’re going to get a whole collection published that you’ve already had individual poems published in different places. So usually what I will tell these, writers who ask about this is like, instead of thinking about getting that whole collection published, start off submitting to like journals, online publications, And, poets and writers website, pw.org. It’s got a, like kind of directory in there of, different journals where people could submit their poetry. And, usually like for most of those publications, like they’ll have their own guidelines that specify exactly, but of. I expect poets to submit like three to five poems at once in a batch.

And, and if any get accepted, it might be one, but they might also accept a couple. And of course a lot of rejections, like that’s just part of submitting, Anywhere

[00:22:50] Matty: I did have a question about submitting to those kinds of platforms that I know when I’m advising people about submitting short fiction to platforms. One of the things I emphasize is make sure that you are, you understand at a deep level, what rights you’re signing away and for example, make sure you’re going to, get the

At some point you could pursue reprint opportunities and things like that. Is there any, is, is the world of poetry pretty much the same, or would you provide different advice to, poets who are trying to get there or published? Is it a matter of usually once it’s published there aren’t the same reprint rights or there are reprint rights?

What’s the, what’s the, scenario there?

[00:23:28] Robert: Yeah. I mean, usually you want to make sure that, you’re only giving away like the rights, like the first publication rights and,

as far as reprint rights, that can get, it can be a little fuzzy because, you know, maybe to the publisher, like when, when they’re talking about reprint rights, it’s just they want to have the ability to reprint, If they do a magazine, they want to have the ability to reprint it on their website or, or something like that.

I think it the short fiction world, that would be, there’s like the archive rights clause where, you know, that gives them the right to retain a poem on their website, for example, after they’ve published it

Yeah. you know, I’m sure it’s the same with, fiction as like, you know, you, you don’t want to give away all rights or, Any kind of rights that like, don’t make sense for them to have like TV rights or

[00:24:21] Matty: Yeah. Like audio, if they’ve never published

[00:24:24] Robert: right. Yeah. And if

[00:24:25] Matty: Canada, if they don’t have any presence in Canada, yeah.

[00:24:28] Robert: yeah, if it’s a online publication only, you know, you would only want to give them the online rights. You wouldn’t want ’em to have, first print rights. my collection was actually published by a publisher that did not do digital copies. So, in the contract it just, specified for print, publication writes that if, I ever wanted to do a digital version, I could.

so, so, yeah, I mean, you always. want to think about like, not giving

[00:25:07] Matty: Okay. And, are there any other roots that, people should be aware? Of, other than, poets and writers, maybe for specific, like genres within, within poetry or there are certain platforms that specialize in, you know what I’ll call poetic genres,

[00:25:25] Robert: yeah, so for poets and writers, like the main thing. For that side is that they have this kind of database of all these different publications. And within those publications there are a lot of them that are probably like more, they’re like kind of considered literary journals or, or poetry journals.

but then within the poetry journals there are like. Some that may only publish, poems that are like science fiction related or fantasy related. in a former life, I used to be the editor of, Writer’s Market and Poet’s Market and, and Guide to Literary Agents and like, for all those big market books, There was so many different opportunities where like some of ’em are literary, but then some of them are definitely like

[00:26:15] Matty: Well, I can also imagine that people who are writing. Longer poems shouldn’t overlook the opportunity of submitting to short fiction markets because I know having judged the Writer’s Digest short, short fiction contest for several years, I do get a certain number of, submissions to read that just like visually look more

you know, and I’m assessing those along with all the under 1500 word stories that I’m reading. So there might be more overlap there than people would. Initially think even, you know, as we were saying, people who are writing micro fiction might be able to be submitting to, platforms that are advertising themselves as poetry platforms.

[00:26:55] Robert: Yeah, and I, I’ve noticed, the past decade or so, I’ve noticed more and more examples of novels and verses that have been published, and quite a few of them have actually like, you know, been, finalists or even winners for like the, the major like literary

so, I don’t want to say that it’s ever going to like overtake, regular prose, but it’s a certain flavor that, I, I think there’s always going to be a market for us, like something a little different.

[00:27:24] Matty: so if people are going to these reputable sources like, poets and writers and, the other guides that you mentioned. and they’re getting ready to submit their poetry, like what expectations should they go into it with? What mindset should they go

What are some best practices that they should be following for those

[00:27:43] Robert: Yeah. Uh, so, you know, guidelines can vary, but I’m just going to go off like the, the most typical version is that a lot of places will ask for like three to five poems submitted. So usually what you’ll do is you’ll have your three to five poems each, like in their own. file. it could be like Word or a PDF or, or whatever.

And sometimes they’ll ask you to put them all in the same file. So, so yeah, all that’s always like specific guidelines, but then usually they’ll have like a cover letter. And in the cover letter, all you need to do you, it’s not like a query where you have to sell them on your story. Just have to say, you know, thank you for considering.

These five poems, I always like to list out the five poem titles in there so that there’s no confusion about, which poems, they’re looking at. And then, if I’ve published stuff before, I might just say like, I’ve been published in X, Y, Z, and not go on about it. , because it’s just basically letting them know that I’ve been published before.

And then thank you so much. , because what they’re really going to be judging you on in most cases, is your actual poems. And, depending on which publications, a lot of times they’ll give, poets a heads up on how fast they get through stuff. Some places will respond within a month. Some places will, like a year later, reach out to let you know

they like your work. for myself, I always tell people just expect, the rejection and then if you can accept, it’s great. And I’ve been accepted a lot of places, but I’ve also been rejected from a lot of places. with the one exception being my, my wife who always gets

So, she, she probably should be the person that you’re talking to on

[00:29:36] Matty: That’s.

[00:29:37] Robert: she is actually, she’s actually had publishers

[00:29:42] Matty: Oh my gosh. That’s got to be very unusual, I

[00:29:45] Robert: Yeah. It is very unusual, but that’s how she

[00:29:48] Robert: Um, so, um, but,

the process of submitting three to five poems at once, that’s called multiple submissions to, the one publication. So a lot of them accept multiple submissions and in fact encourage it. And then a lot of them also, allow simultaneous submissions, where they just expect that

So, and I, and I always like encourage poets like, if you know you’re doing that, like go ahead and take advantage of that. Submit to lots of places, because some places do get back to you in less than a month, but some do take longer than a year. So you don’t want to just be sitting around for a year with your poems, not doing anything.

and this is why I think it’s so important to keep really good records of your submissions when you’re doing poetry, because you have like three to five poems going here and three to five poems going there. And some of ’em might overlap to which publications you’re going to. And as soon as one gets accepted, you need to be able to know which places

To let those editors know that this is poem is now off the market because it’s been accepted somewhere else. And, you, you just, you have to have really good records to, to keep track of all that. So, like what I do personally is I’ve got kind of like a master sheet of, the publications that I’ve submitted to when I submitted to them and what I

I have like a date for when I submitted, and I have, columns for whether it’s gotten accepted or rejected and like what those dates are and if they’ve been accepted, what’s been accepted there. But then also on the individual poems in my back, in my composition notebooks, I also

Where have I submitted this poem and when, and I keep that up to date as well, so that. If the poem is accepted somewhere, I can reach out and say like, this has been accepted somewhere else. Please don’t consider it anymore. because there’s nothing worse than the, the horror story I hear from editors is, I’ve accepted this poem, ready to get it published because, you know, I’ve gone through all the submissions and

It’s the right page count. And now this poet’s letting me know that they’ve. It’s actually been published somewhere else already, so.

[00:32:30] Matty: Yeah. Being proactive about letting people, know that is very important. As you’re talking about that, I’m realizing the equivalent for me is nonfiction articles and, I do all the things you’re saying, but I also have the, the axis of, version of a

on a particular topic and I’m submitting it to one platform, so I’m. Kind of, you know, skewing it toward whatever the audience of that platform is. And then I write a slightly different one, and I wouldn’t

so if it got, if that got accepted in one, I would probably notify the others that like, something that’s close enough to what I submitted to you has gotten published. You probably don’t want this anymore.

[00:33:10] Robert: Yeah. And I’ve, you know, as an editor, I’m trying. Search of like content on WriterDigest.com and I run into that situation at times where, you know, people send me a pitch and and then like a day or two later they let me know that it’s already been accepted. I’m like, okay. Cool.

Awesome. And, and also thank you for letting me know,editors are totally fine with stuff getting accepted elsewhere. Like we’re happy for that, but we’re not as happy if we find out like. That, it’s already been published, you know, somewhere, and,

[00:33:46] Matty: Yeah, your centerpiece poem.

[00:33:48] Robert: in my case, I don’t think it’s as bad.

Like I, I’m not really flexible with the website, but if I had to print publication and I can accept like, let’s just say 40 pages of poetry, and I find out that two of the pages that I accepted are all of a sudden. not, not there anymore. And I’ve already gone through all the, acceptance process and I’m like, well, how do I fill these two pages?

[00:34:16] Matty: Yeah, you have to go through all the two page submissions now. Now you’re, uh, judging based on length that’s

[00:34:24] Robert: right. Yeah. And I, I don’t think like editors really want to like. Go back to poets who they’ve rejected and say, Hey,

Actually, we had somebody back out, so yeah.

[00:34:39] Matty: Um, so we’re coming up to kind of a, a, a milestone, a yearly milestone for poets, in April. So, Robert, let us know what’s coming up in April and what people can be doing to

[00:34:53] Robert: Yeah, so April is really big, uh, in the poetry world, for being a national poetry month, and, and I say poetry world, I I’m talking about, here in the US also in, in Canada. I believe in the UK National Poetry Month might be like October or something, and I don’t know how other places celebrate, but, one of the things I like to do in April, we actually are going to be celebrating our 19th annual April Poem-a-Day challenge, starting April 1st on the WriterDigest.com

there are other places that also, do Poem-a-Day, things as well. And, and they’re all great. I mean, there are people that participate in ours that, will extra challenge themselves by trying to do fit like two or three prompts together each day, which I think is fun and, and,

But, basically on WriterDigest.com each morning. I share a poetry prompt and I have an example poem that I write because I figure if I’m going to ask other people to write poems, I should do it as well. sometimes I’m happy with the poems and sometimes I’m not, and I feel like

but we have poets every year, that are based in the us, based in Canada, based in India, UK. Like it really is like kind of a world event. some people, share their poems in the comments on each post. Other poets have reached out to me to let me know that they like, just like to write along, silently along some who like to get their poems, published, in

even though like, I think a lot of editors are fine if you share in the comments of a, a post, but I’ve had poets who have told me like, almost like their whole poetry collections come from these prompts, during the monthly challenges. But,that’s how we celebrate national poetry Month. There are, other ways to do it.

basically like if you’re online and you’re a poet, like you’re, you’re getting hit with all kinds of poetry stuff all month. But, there’s a poem in your Pocket Day, which, the Academy of American Poets does, and this year, I believe it’s on April 30th. And, some people celebrate that by actually carrying a, a poem in their pocket.

I know my kids when they went through school, like they would always have, an elementary school, I should say there’s still a couple of ’em are still in school, but, When they were in elementary school, they would do actually, like, make little poems, fold it up and put it in

but, uh, it’s a great month for poetry. of course we can celebrate poetry throughout the year, but it is good to have this month where everything just like kind of builds up and. And it’s okay to be, it’s okay to be a poet, around normal people, so,

[00:37:55] Matty: Well, I do like the idea of there being more of a community opportunity. maybe it’s a virtual community opportunity, but it’s probably the month where there’s more of a grouping of people online talking about similar topics, you know, expressing similar interests, asking similar questions, and that’s a nice opportunity to sort of get, have that concentration at some time of the year, to enjoy

[00:38:17] Robert: Oh yeah, definitely. and that’s actually one of the great things about the Poem-a-Day challenge on the. Writer Digest site is, it is free. It’s free to do, like, we don’t, you know, it’s just fun, fun thing. But, you have all these poets that will share their poems and the comments and then they like, comment on each other’s

a lot of them also interact on Facebook and other. Social platforms, like they start on the site and then take it elsewhere. it is, it’s a

[00:38:51] Matty: I can imagine, we were talking before about reading one’s own poetry, and I can imagine, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t like to listen to yourself being recorded, it would be fun to partner with someone who’s comfortable with that kind of performance aspect and have them. Read it. And that would not only be an outlet for getting a workout there, but I think it would also be very informative in the same way that I’ve learned certain craft tips by listening to my audiobook narrator, narrate my novels, and she’ll, you know, every once in a while she’ll hit a sentence and I was like, whoa, I, that’s not how I heard it in my mind.

but that would be even more concentrated and valuable I think, for

[00:39:27] Robert: Oh, yeah. I, I think that’s, that’s a great exercise to have because yeah, you can hear if somebody, hits a line and they’re like really struggling through it, it, it might be like, it’s so easy for us when we know what we mean. To just be like, oh, this is easy to, like, this is the easy thing to read.

But, but other people can definitely like, clue, clue you in or, or give you a different emotion than, than what you had in your mind. Like you’re, you’re thinking of it in a, a certain, a mood and then it

[00:39:58] Matty: Well, maybe that can be an assignment for people who don’t think of themselves as poets, A national poetry month. They can go read some poetry, go, you know, like get out your, your high school poetry book or whatever and read some poetry because I think we would all have something to learn, even if we decide not to go ahead and then write a poem as a result, there’s lots of good craft learning that can be, Gained from reading work of, from people who have spent that much time word by word, making sure it’s saying exactly what they

[00:40:26] Robert: Yeah, I love that idea.

[00:40:28] Matty: So, Robert, thank you so much for coming on and sharing some, insights into poetry, filling that gap in the, in the episode, backlog. And please let everyone know where they can go to find

[00:40:40] Robert: Yeah, the best place, just WritersDigest.com. We’ve always got lots of stuff happening there. Like of course we’re excited about poetry month coming up, but we’re. Helping writers with nonfiction, fiction, getting published, finding agent, all that fun stuff. Uh, it’s the, it’s the place to be. Yeah. Thank you.