Submissions: open 16 March 2021. They close at 11:59pm 30 June.

Information and enquiries

Emma Caskey
Associate Producer
Telephone: 03 9094 7826
Email: associate@australianpoetry.org

SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN FOR BEST OF AUSTRALIAN POEMS VOL 1, 2021– POETRY GUEST EDITED BY ELLEN VAN NEERVEN AND TOBY FITCH.

 

Published with the support of Australia Council for the Arts Projects Grant 2021 and Creative Victoria multi-year funding. Designer is Stuart Geddes. Publisher is Jacinta Le Plastrier.

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Formal Guidelines

  • Submissions sent outside the set reading date will not be read or considered.
  • Australian poets, whether based in Australia or overseas, are invited to submit, via bestofaustralianpoems@gmail.com, up to three poems. A bio of 50-100 words must be included. Only three poems will be considered by any one poet so please do not submit more. The bio should include your contact (phone, postal address, email) details.
  • Poems can be both previously published and unpublished, but need to have been published and/or written between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021.
  • Poets are able to simultaneously submit to BoAP and other AP publications. This is to cover the event that a poem, for eg., might appear in both an AP subscriber publication, and BoAP, but without there being any conflict of interest as poems are chosen by the editor/s on merit and there is no advantage given to subscribers. Poems will also be selected from this time period as published by Australia’s incredible poetry publishing sector-its other journals, magazines, individual collections and anthologies.
  • Subscribers do not receive a copy of BoAP as part of their subscription (as it is a new additional publication) but will be offered discount rates at the time of publication.
  • We are committed to prompt turnaround on the reading of poems. Published poems, selected from submissions, will be paid at $127.50 flat rate per poem. Acceptance notices only will be sent, as is standard procedure with notification expected in August. Publication date has been set for 10 November 2021 with a live/livestreamed launch in partnership with the Wheeler Centre.
  • AP 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.

Ellen van Neerven writes fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. An award-winning Mununjali Yugambeh writer and editor, their highly celebrated books include the experimental fiction collection, Heat and Light, and a book of poems, Comfort Food. In 2020, they released their second poetry collection, Throat, which explores love, language and land, and interrogates the colonial impulse.

Toby Fitch is poetry editor of Overland, editor/curator at large for Australian Poetry, a sessional academic in creative writing at the University of Sydney, and the director of AVANT GAGA and the Poetry Night at Sappho Books. He is the author of seven books of poetry, including Where Only the Sky had Hung Before and, forthcoming with Giramondo in 2021, Sydney Spleen. Image by Tim Grey.