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P=Poetry, N=Nonfiction, F=Fiction

 
 
 
 

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P – Cordite Poetry Review Seeking Submissions on the Theme: Fit

January 10 @ 8:00 am - 5:00 pm

Are you fit? For the job? For a run? A gender? For life? Are you fit for purpose? Not fitting is maybe part and parcel of being a POET. But we still want to fit into the culture in which we live. Do we? Or be extremely unfitting. I read articles about middle aged people who want to still be able to fit into their old jeans / bathers / wedding dress. I don’t know where I fit anymore, they seem to be saying. Let me return to an (imagined) past where things fitted me and I was fit. I saw my father fit once and was frightened. We must stay fit to fend off illness, aging, death. We must! Mustn’t we?

What fits inside a poem? What is unfit for poetry? My questions stem from my own uncertainty. I procrastinated going for a run while I wrote this and now the weather is inclement. You might share such messiness. Equally, you might have beautifully crafted paeons that match your resting heart rate. Odes to your Strava goals. Sonnets of hatred about the fitness industrial complex. The awkward, terrible feelings of being a person. Forever not quite fitting. Can we provide succour for ourselves, for others, in whatever outfit, unfit, fitful ways we bring words to the page?

 

Submissions

Submission to Cordite 119: FIT, with poetry guest-edited by Emilie Collyer, closes 11.59pm Melbourne time on 10 January 2026.

We celebrate 29 years of publishing in 2025. Please consider making a DGR tax-free donation.

*Submissions for Cordite Scholarly are always accepted.

Submissions of poetry in translation can be sent to our Translations Editor at any time: alice [@] cordite.org.au.

The following conditions apply to all other poetry submissions:

  • Please do NOT print your name or contact details on your submission document.
  • Cordite only accepts unpublished work.
  • Cordite maintains a hybrid submissions policy. This means that the guest editor may invite five (5) Australian and five (5) overseas authors directly to submit to the issue. In addition, the guest-editor will anonymously select an additional 30-35 works from Australian authors and use their discretion to select further overseas works. For each issue, the guest editor does not know the identities of the online contributors (via Submittable) until after the final selections have been made.
  • Simultaneous submissions? Sure. Just inform us or withdraw if the work is accepted elsewhere.
  • Please send a maximum of three (3) poems in one (1) Word or RTF document.
  • We are not able to offer feedback on individual poems.
  • Submissions will only be accepted via Submittable …
  • Submissions may need to be developed to adhere to our Guide for Indigenous Editing and Writing.

 

Details

Venue

  • Cordite Poetry Review

Organizer