P – Harpur Palate – Poetry

The entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Harpur Palate.

Harpur Palate accepts original, previously unpublished poems in any style, form, or genre. We accept submissions of 1-5 poems per reading period–no more than 15 pages total. Please send no more than one poetry submission per reading period. We prefer poems with a strong lyric voice and sense of urgency. Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as you withdraw your piece immediately should it be accepted elsewhere.

Aesthetic statement from Co-Editors Cole Depuy and Macaulay Glynn:  “We are looking for poems with fresh perspectives that surprise us, poems that draw us in and make of us commiserators or co-conspirators. Our favorite poems have a strong lyric voice and a sense of urgency that drives the poem forward toward a conclusion that feels simultaneously inevitable and unexpected. That urgency can derive from the speaker’s audibly intense desire to communicate or a sense of play, tracking the speaker’s ideas as they move associatively and intuitively from one to the next. We love poems that dive deeply into the speaker’s psychological response to a situation, idea, or what Richard Hugo calls the “triggering subject.” We love poems that dramatize the brain’s work of making meaning. Some contemporary poets we love include: Kim Addonizio, Chen Chen, Ross Gay, Ada Limón, Sharon Olds, Kay Ryan, sam sax, Danez Smith, Patricia Smith, Tracy K. Smith.”