Poetry presses

How submitting actually works

• Read the magazine. If you would not be proud to appear beside what they print, do not send.
• Follow the window, the line limit, the simultaneous-submission policy and the file format. Editors can tell.
• Send three to five poems, your best first. A covering note of four lines is plenty.
• Keep a simple record (poem, venue, date, response). Do not submit the same poem to two exclusive venues.
• Expect silence and no. A personal rejection is a gold star. Revise or send onward.

Do not begin with Faber. Begin with a magazine whose poems you already love. Credits accumulate. A pamphlet press will later be able to see that someone else has already risked paper on you.

Magazines

• The Poetry Review

  The Poetry Society’s quarterly. Among the hardest UK magazine acceptances, and among the most useful credits when a publisher later asks where you have been.

• Poetry London

  A major triannual. Also runs a pamphlet prize and an apprenticeship scheme.

• Magma

  Themed issues, a rotating editorial team, and a competition. One of the most approachable serious magazines.

• The Rialto

  A handsome print magazine with a reputation for discovering poets who later become unavoidable.

• PN Review

  Carcanet’s journal of poems, essays and argument. More than a magazine — a long conversation.

• The Dark Horse

  Scottish-edited, transatlantic, with a taste for technical accomplishment. Print, and proud of it.

• Anthropocene

  Online journal of new poems. A realistic target while you build a publication list.

• The Friday Poem

  A weekly poem plus reviews. Fast, visible, and a pleasure to appear in.

• And Other Poems

  Josephine Corcoran’s long-running online magazine of individual poems. Many first publications started here.

Publishers and pamphlet presses

• Faber & Faber

  The most famous poetry list in British publishing. Unsolicited collections are rarely the route in; magazine credits, a pamphlet and a competition win still matter.

• Jonathan Cape / Picador Poetry

  The big houses’ poetry imprints. They take on few new poets a year. Treat them as a destination, not a first submission.

• Carcanet

  Manchester-based, international, formally curious. Also home to PN Review. A serious list for poets who read as widely as they write.

• Bloodaxe Books

  The great democratic list of contemporary poetry in Britain and Ireland, plus the Staying Alive anthologies. Open to a wider range of voices than the London houses.

• Seren

  Wales’s leading literary publisher. Poetry, fiction and essays, with a strong Welsh and international list.

• Nine Arches Press

  Independent, attentive, and one of the best homes for a first full collection. Also publishes Under the Radar magazine.

• The Emma Press

  Pamphlets and themed anthologies with a distinctive visual identity. Regular open calls — watch their site.

• The Poetry Business / Smith|Doorstop

  Pamphlets, the Book & Pamphlet Competition, The North magazine, and decades of midwife work for new collections.

• HappenStance Press

  Helena Nelson’s pamphlet press, famous for handwritten rejection notes that actually teach you something. A model of editorial care.

• Peepal Tree Press

  The major British publisher of Caribbean and Black British writing, including a substantial poetry list.

• Shearsman Books

  A wide, internationally minded list with a taste for the exploratory and the modernist inheritance.

• Bad Betty Press

  Pamphlets and collections with a live-literature energy. A good fit if your poems work in a room as well as on a page.

• Broken Sleep Books

  Prolific, fast-moving independent list spanning pamphlets, collections and essays.

• Offord Road Books

  A small, carefully edited London list. Quality over volume.

• Verve Poetry Press

  Born out of Birmingham’s Verve Festival. Strong on performance-literate page poems.

Lists go stale; houses close; windows move. Always check the current submissions page before you attach a file. Last reviewed 2026.