Submissions open year round. A new poem is selected for our publication on our Substack each week.
February's theme: Obsession
"Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe." -Adrienne Rich
"Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." - Carl Sandburg
We are looking for poems that uniquely explore each month's theme and perform Olympic feats with language that leave a reader in wonder while still referring back to the basic things that make us human. We want powerful imagery and enjoy the juxtaposition of images in interesting and unexpected ways, like Sandburg's hyacinths and biscuits.
We want poems that make the reader think and feel, work that humbles us with its joy, humor, embarrassment, anger, hope, grief, or all of the above, and gravitate toward writing that has something important to teach us--something that readers really need to know, but might not have understood this was a need until the last word of the work.
One poem will be selected each week for publication on our website. See the guidelines below.
Upcoming Themes:
March 2026: Movement (Submissions open 3/1-3/1)
April 2026: Blossoming (Submissions open 4/1-4/30)
May 2026: Permission (Submission open 5/1-5/31)
June 2026: Slowing Down (Submissions open 6/1-6/30)
July 2026: Unraveling (Submissions open 7/1-7/31)
August 2026: Turning Points (Submissions open 8/1-8/31)
September 2026: On Being Alone (Submissions open 9/1-9/30)
October 2026: Shapeshifting (Submissions open 10/1-10/31)
Guidelines:
- Work submitted to this project is only considered for online publication.
- Only previously unpublished work will be considered.
- Submit up to 3 poems as one submission in a single Microsoft Word file. List the title of each poem as the title of your Submittable upload).
-Include a clear title for each poem.
-Please single space all poems.
-Include a cover letter and a short 3rd person biography of no more than 150 words. In your cover letter, briefly explain how you think your poems resonate with the current theme.
-Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please let us know immediately if the work is published elsewhere.
-Writers may not submit more than once in a three-month period.
To be considered for this special weekly online publication, submissions must be uploaded to the "Trill: Poems That Resonate (Weekly Publication)" Submittable project at the following link:
Submissions that do not meet guidelines or eligibility requirements will not be considered.
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