During the third quarter of 2019, several paying journals and anthologies are open to submissions of speculative poems that engage with set topics.
Below, you'll find listed a handful of opportunities to contribute to upcoming collections of themed SFF poetry. These are (as usual) given in order of nearness of submission deadline.
You'll notice a couple deadlines fall at the start of July--that's why I'm putting this post up now.
This time around, though, I'd like to especially draw everyone's attention to the final item on the list: the upcoming call for submissions to the 34th issue of Eye to the Telescope. This project--built around the theme of trickster gods, heroes, anti-heroes, and villains of myth and folklore--is especially near and dear to my heart, because I proposed the theme and will be serving as guest editor for the issue!
This will be my first time editing for a paying poetry journal. Once things get going in mid-July, I'm hoping to get submissions from poets working in a wide variety of styles and traditions. I'm also very interested in seeing poems by writers who are just starting to put their work out there, so if you don't yet have a publication to your name, don't hesitate to submit on that account. No matter where you are as an author, if you have a trickster-themed poem, I hope you'll send it on in!
Submissions for ETTT 34 don't open until mid-July, and won't close until mid-September, but there are other deadlines for SFF-inclusive projects of possible interest coming up throughout July, August, and September. Be sure to give these a look, too:
Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels (anthology) Theme: Bruce Springsteen songs Deadline: 1 July 2019 What they want: "[P]oetic looks at the characters from various Springsteen songs," including "horror, sci-fi, magical realist, or spec-fic" poems inspired by Bruce Springsteen's work.
THEMA Literary Journal Theme: The Clumsy Gardener Deadline: 1 July 2019 What they want: Poetry of any form and genre that takes the premise of a "clumsy gardener" and runs with it.
FIYAH Lit Mag (Issue #12) Theme: Chains Deadline: 31 July 2019 (submissions open July 1st) What they want: "[W]eird, complex, honest and challenging [poetry] with a clear speculative element from black authors" that addresses the topic of chains, literal and/or metaphorical.
Apparition Lit (Issue #8) Theme: Euphoria Deadline: 31 Aug. 2019 (submissions open mid-August) What they want: Original poems with “obvious fantasy or sci-fi elements” that incorporate the theme of euphoria.
Timeless Tales Magazine (Issue #11) Theme: The Abduction of Persephone Deadline: 3 Sep. 2019 (submissions open late August) What they want: Poems reworking the ancient Greek myth of Persephone and Hades or retelling comparable stories (with obvious links to the Persephone-and-Hades body of tales) from other bodies of mythology.
Eye to the Telescope (Issue #34) Theme: Tricksters Deadline: 15 Sep. 2019 (submissions open mid-July) What I want: Poems of any form and of any length centering on trickster figures of myth and legend (or on original characters inspired by such figures). Character studies from the point of view of trickster or trickee, retellings of old tales in traditional settings, reworkings of trickster stories in modern contexts, imagined futures, alternate universes--all are welcome!
Hopefully one or more of these prompts will get the writing gears turning. And to those of you planning to submit to Eye to the Telescope 34: I look forward to seeing your takes on the "tricksters" theme!