Shutterstock / WAYHOME studio©Working on the poetry for a magazine can be quite strange because we work so many months in advance.
We’re often planning summer issues during winter and vice versa. So when special occasions and holidays really do come around it feels like déjà vu!
“Didn’t we just celebrate Christmas a few months ago?” I think as I desperately search for gifts for friends and family.
So when is the best time to send in a Christmas poem, or a springtime poem?
We do accept poetry for all occasions at any time of the year, so don’t worry if you post a Christmas poem a little too late.
I’ll just keep your poem on file until the next time we need something festive.
But if you’d like to be more timely when you have a poem intended for a specific occasion, I hope this guide helps!
Weekly issues
We publish one poem in the first weekly issue of a month and one poem in the third issue of the month. They tend to be more traditional.
You can read them on our “Between Friends” letters page.
It’s a good idea to submit these poems two to three months ahead of the season or occasion you’re aiming for.
For example, a good deadline to aim for when submitting an Easter poem for our 2021 weekly issue would be early February.
However, please be aware that we typically only need one poem per weekly issue — just two a month.
So it might be worth sending a poem even earlier to be considered for our Specials, too – see below!
Remember to keep poetry intended for the magazine between 12-16 lines due to space constraints.
Specials
Each Special features four poems — and occasionally we need a few more for extra special issues.
I plan the poetry for our Specials around four months in advance. So, if you have a spring or Easter poem in mind for our Special, my deadline will be late November.
And if you have a Christmas poem it should ideally reach me by late August. However, if you miss this deadline then you still have a couple more months to submit it in time for our weekly issue — see above!
Again, please keep in mind that poetry meant for the magazine should be 12-16 lines.
Annual publications
Each year, we also publish “The People’s Friend” Annual, The Friendship Book and The Fireside Book and we need poems for all three.
Around 10-12 for the Annual, 30 for The Friendship Book and 60 for The Fireside Book.
The deadlines for these are usually around the end of June, so it would be best to submit any poems you have in mind for these by spring to be considered.
We’re already talking about the Annual for 2023, so I’ll be starting to squirrel away poems for these books soon.
We accept longer poems for our Annual and The Fireside Book, but 30 lines is long enough!
The Friendship Book has a strict template and we can only accept poems of specific lengths for it, so please do take a look at the template here before submitting a poem for this.
Finally, please don’t worry if you submit a poem a little too late – as I said, we accept poems all year round no matter the season!
Please click here to see our submission guidelines.
Abigail Phillips Abbie is the newest member of the fiction team at the "Friend." She loves how varied the role is - every day is different and there is always a new story to read. She is keen to work closely with established writers and discover new writers, too.
