Poetry In Our 155th Anniversary Year

‘The People’s Friend’ has been in publication since January 1869.

In over 155 years of publishing stories and poetry, we never forget that what’s most important is to publish what will appeal to our readers.

And poetry often emerges as one of our readers’ favourite parts of the magazine.

Poetry Throughout The Years

When the Fiction Team were researching in our archive for our 150^th anniversary publications, something surprising was how hard-hitting poetry in our earliest days was.

It reflected our readers’ lives – which included happy times, as well as heartache and loss, and the early death and illness that was part of day-to-day life for people at that time.

We didn’t shy away from trickier subjects, but also featured poems about the seasons, friendship, and family life, just as we do now.

And we encouraged everyone to submit – from all walks of life.

Poetry Today

At the moment, we’re accepting poems only from established poets.

This is because we have limited openings for our poetry, but receive many more times what we can publish in submissions.

The good news is that we do plan to open our poetry window to submissions later in the year. Watch this space!

Tips On Submitting Poetry

Poetry Editor, Tracey Steel, has the following advice for poets:

*Please make sure your name is included directly under your poem.

*Seasonal poetry is always welcome.

*One poem appears in the first and third weekly issues of every month.

*Specials feature around five poems each issue.

*Poems of 12 or 16 lines are preferable, please.

Poetry In Our Yearly Publications

We can be more flexible on poem length in our Annual – up to 20 lines is acceptable.

We feature around ten poems in each annual.

Poetry in our Friendship Book is set to a template, which you can check by clicking here.