Ten Outstanding Literary Magazines for Poetry
The author of How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published With Literary Magazines and Small Presses names top journals offering visibility, community, and meaningful pay to poets.
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Genre: Poetry
Waiting and Waiting
“Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?” In Samuel Beckett’s 1952 play Waiting for Godot, which has a new production on Broadway starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, Vladimir and Estragon spend their days waiting for the arrival of someone named Godot, who never shows up. They pass the time with repetitious exchanges of banter, arguments, and musings. The ambiguity of their exact circumstances, as well as who Godot is and what would happen with Godot’s arrival, creates a tragicomic exploration of the nature and purpose of existence, and the significance of friendship and faith. Write a poem that uses the idea of an eternal waiting—for someone, or something—as an entry point to reflect on larger themes of life’s big questions.
2025 Jackson Poetry Prize Reading: Cyrus Cassells
Caption:
In this Poets & Writers event, 2025 Jackson Poetry Prize winner Cyrus Cassells reads a selection of poems from his first book, The Mud Actor (Henry Holt, 1982), and his most recent book, Everything in Life Is Resurrection: Selected Poems, 1982–2022 (TCU Press, 2025), and joins Pádraig Ó Tuama for a conversation about his evolution as a poet.
Genre:
Alaska Pacific University
MFA Program
Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction
Anchorage, AK
Application Deadline:
Wed, 04/01/2026
Application Fee:
$35
O‘ahu Writers Mini-Retreat
The O‘ahu Writers Mini-Retreat will be held on November 29 and November 30 at a historic vacation property in the town of Waialua, on the North Shore of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. The retreat features generative writing workshops, critiques, and arts and crafts breaks for poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. The faculty includes poet Tamara Leiokanoe Moan, fiction writer Tom Gammarino, and creative nonfiction writer Constance Hale. Tuition is $120 for one day and $200 for both days; lodging is not included, but lunch is.
Type:
CONFERENCE
Ignore Event Date Field?:
no
Event Date:
November 29, 2025
Rolling Admissions:
ignore
Application Deadline:
December 2, 2025
Financial Aid?:
yes
Free Admission:
no
Contact Information:
O‘ahu Writers Mini-Retreat, 1040 56th Street, Oakland, CA 94608. (617) 909-1439. Constance Hale, Director.
Constance Hale
Director
Contact City:
Waialua
Contact State:
HI
Country:
US
Banned Books Week From the Big Chair
Caption:
In this video from the Sage-sponsored “Banned Books From the Big Chair” booth at the American Library Association’s 2025 annual conference, authors and attendees respond to the dangers of book banning and the importance of supporting public libraries and the freedom to read.
Alta California Chapbook Prize
Gunpowder Press
Entry Fee:
$15
Deadline:
November 17, 2025
A prize of $1,000, bilingual publication in English and Spanish by Gunpowder Press, and 10 author copies will be given annually for a poetry chapbook by a Latinx poet who is a c
Elizabeth Bradfield: SOFAR
Caption:
In this Alaska Quarterly Review virtual event, poet and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield reads from her collection SOFAR (Persea Books, 2025) and discusses the relationship of her poetics to ocean ecologies, memories of queer love, and both human and natural histories.
Genre:
Effort
For the Poetry Society of America’s “In Their Own Words” series, Suzanne Buffam writes about her poem “Trying,” which circles around the effort to conceive a child. “The poem became, in a sense, a meditation on effort, in which the suspension of effort was the aim of my efforts,” writes Buffam. “I gave myself one constraint. Each paragraph I wrote would have to contain some form of the verb ‘to try.’” Taking inspiration from Buffam’s constraint for her piece, compose a poem that explores your process trying to reach a goal, whether big or small, tangible or more abstract. Play around with different forms of the verb “to try,” or another verb that gestures at effort, paying careful consideration to how the word conveys a sensation of persistence over the course of time and through various obstacles and setbacks.
George Takei for Banned Books Week
Caption:
In this video, George Takei, honorary chair of Banned Books Week 2025, talks about how “access to books and knowledge is essential to democracy” and how reading provides a way to see ourselves reflected in stories and to discover the stories of others. To learn more, visit the Banned Books Week website.
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