P – Call for Submissions to Rattle on the Theme: Tribute to Rebels

Our Spring 2026 issue will be dedicated to literary rebels—those poets who run counter to the literary mainstream. What that means is up to you. We want to hear from poets who publish in non-traditional ways, who hold unusual beliefs, who write what isn’t popular, or feel that they don’t fit in. If you’ve been shunned or canceled by the establishment, this is a chance to tell your story. The poems may be any length or subject, but should be rebellious in some way. We no longer publish essays, but always include a contributor notes section, where we ask in this case why you consider yourself a rebel.

Submit up to four previously uncurated poems (or four pages of very short poems) at the same time, either in a single file or up to four files. Do not include your name or contact info within the file(s) content.

Overview:

• Rattle does not accept work that has been previously curated, in print or online—poems may be self-published on social media, blogs, or message boards, but cannot have been published in books, magazines, or similar collections open to the public. We want to be the first publisher to highlight the poems, but never want to discourage anyone from sharing their poems themselves. For more on this, read “Uncurated: The Case for a New Term of Art.”
• Rattle does not accept work that has been predominantly generated by artificial intelligence. Poetry is a tool for expanding the human spirit, which means poems should be written by humans. It is possible to use A.I. toward that aim in some cases, so if used A.I. to assist in the writing process, please explain in the notes to your submission.
• Simultaneous submissions are encouraged.
• Contributors to the print magazine receive $200 and a complimentary one-year subscription. Poems for “Online” categories receive $100.
• All submissions are automatically considered for the annual Neil Postman Award for Metaphor, a $2,000 prize judged by the editors.
• Separate from general and themed (and always free) submissions, we also offer the annual $15,000 Rattle Poetry Prize and the Rattle Chapbook Prize—for each of those, a submission fee of $30 includes a one-year subscription to the magazine.

VERY IMPORTANT:

1. Submissions cannot be revised after submission. Note that typos and minor changes never affect our decisions—proofreading is what editors are for. If you’ve made a significant mistake, use the internal messaging system to send a new file as an attachment.
2. To withdraw a single poem from a submission of multiple poems, just log in, click on the submission, and send a message to let us know which you’d like removed. Do not withdraw the entire submission—if you do, the submission will no longer be active and we won’t see it.
3. Don’t include any contact information in the file(s) that you submit. Your name and contact info will be included in the Submittable fields, and this will make it easier for us to read fairly.

For more detailed information about rights, rules, privacy, and payments for publication, see our full guidelines.

NOTE: Please don’t query to ask if we have a reply to your submission yet. If the status says “received” or “in-progress,” then it’s received and in-progress. We always go as fast as we can, but we’re only human and the submission flow waxes and wanes, so response times vary considerably.