APJ 11.1 Now Open For Submissions

Submissions: open 28 April 2020. They close at 11:59pm 1 June.

Australian Poetry Journal 10.2 ‘tribute, observations’ is now available. You can purchase a copy here.

If you would like to support Australian Poetry, receive print copies of Australian Poetry Journal biannually, along with Australian Poetry Anthology annually, please subscribe to Australian Poetry below.

SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN FOR APJ 11.1 – ‘local, attention’. POETRY GUEST EDITED BY CLAIRE GASKIN AND STUART BARNES.

Published with the support of Australia Council for the Arts Projects Grant 2020 and Creative Victoria multi-year funding. The volume will also include other articles. Designer is Stuart Geddes. Publisher is Jacinta Le Plastrier.

A Note from the Guest Editors, Claire Gaskin and Stuart Barnes:

 

In Forms of Poetic Attention (Columbia University Press, 2021) Lucy Alford writes, ‘The notion that attention—and specifically vigilant attention—might be trained through practice was of vital importance to Simone Weil. Reading Weil, Maurice Blanchot writes, “Attention is the reception of what escapes attention, an opening upon the unexpected, a waiting that is the unawaited of all waiting.”’

 

Our attention over 2020–2021 has become suddenly and palpably localised, deepening attention to our own environments and communities, without undermining our insistence in remaining in a global connectivity. The lockdown experiences of Melburnians/Victorians, for example, were wildly divergent to those of Brisbanites/Queenslanders. How, in the wake of these, have local customs changed? Gatherings with beloveds at locals—and other spaces, e.g. places of worship? The human body itself is a ‘local’ territory. How have we adjusted the ways we attend to our bodies? To others’ bodies?

 

At any great historic moment, like a worldwide pandemic, we tend to reflect on who we are, who we have been and who we could be, at the same time as questioning if there is anything stable on which to base these questions.

 

Political leaders tend to want to reduce an experience to a few phrases, often succinct but reductionist. The effects on the individual are unpredictable and multiple. Acknowledging that a poem is something not necessarily about something, send us your poems that will inevitably illustrate your perspective in some one, by their experiment with language, in their form or innovation of form or by their content.

Submissions: Open 28 April 2021 and close 1 June 2021.

Email your submission to:  apjsubmissions@gmail.com

Formal Guidelines

• Submissions sent outside the set reading dates will not be read or considered.
• Poets, both Australian-born or international, are invited to submit, in one email, up to three poems. Requirements for consideration are: each poem must be sent in both doc and pdf formats. A bio must be included. We suggest you alert the guest editors to your identity in this regard in the email body, if you wish to. The pdf versions are used for proofing purposes. Only three poems will be considered by any one poet so please do not submit more. The word.doc bio would be up to 50 words and includes your contact (phone, postal address, email) details.
• Also please specify, for our statistical purposes, if you are a subscriber to Australian Poetry. Poems are chosen by the editor/s on merit and there is no advantage given to subscribers. Subscription however is strongly encouraged as it makes our publications viable and vital. If you are not yet a subscriber, please subscribe here.
• We are committed to prompt turnaround on the reading of poems. All poets who submit within the guideline submission dates will be contacted with acceptance notices ONLY. If you are not contacted, this means regrettably that your poetry was not selected.
• Published poems will be paid at $127.50 flat rate per poem.
• APJ in 2017 introduced a submissions policy, with its new guest editor model, where the guest editor/s can organise submission for a number of poets directly each volume.
• All poems submitted must have been previously unpublished in print and not currently submitted elsewhere.
• APJ requires that the use of any other work by another author in a submitted poem is clearly acknowledged and cited. The responsibility for this remains with the poet.