P – Call for Submissions to Contemporary Verse 2 (CV2): The Birthday Issue

We’re excited to announce a call for submissions to our next themed issue:

THE BIRTHDAY ISSUE!

In 2025 CV2 Magazine will turn 50 (!!) years old, and we’ll be celebrating with a whole year of special events and issues. We’re kicking things off with the Birthday Issue (coming out in January 2025), and we want your poems!

Do you have lingering thoughts about the MTV show My Super Sweet Sixteen? Do you feel like the person who chose the birthstones for each month was probably born in April (whose stone is DIAMONDS)? Do you find it mildly offensive that Wikipedia refers to astrology as a pseudoscience? We want your poems about it!

We want to know if you were born in the Year of the Dragon or the Ox, the Rooster or the Dog. We want poems that explore aging, milestones, parties, presents. Astrology, celebrations, birth order, cake. About giving or witnessing birth. About loving or hating being the centre of attention.

Find out what the Hubble telescope saw the day you were born and turn it into a poem. Revisit the time you told someone it was your birthday, but it wasn’t. Tell us about a time you felt reborn.

Sing us a song. Cry if you want to. Make it happy or sad, funny or bittersweet. Blow out your candles and, just this once, tell us what you wished for.

 General Submission Guidelines:

Any submissions that do not follow correct guidelines or do not include full contact information will not be considered for publication and will not receive a reply. Please read the submission guidelines before sending us your work.

Length of Submissions

• Poetry submissions: no more than 6 pages.

We strongly prefer that work be submitted in a Word doc, not a pdf.

We prefer that you do not send us work for this themed issue that has also been submitted elsewhere.