Call for submissions – takahē 83 (the birthday issue)

As you will have gathered from my previous post, takahē is this year celebrating 25 years survival in the perilous wilderness that is the world of the Little Magazine. Hooray!

Work is underway on the final issue for this year – #83, due out in December. It’s going to be big. Very big. Fifty percent bigger than usual. Which means I need more poems – I’m hoping to publish work from between 20 to 30 different poets in this one, so there will never be a better time to send me your stuff. I’m especially keen to hear from people whose first publication was in takahē, however long ago that was.

We usually only accept poetry submissions by post, but for the next two weeks only, I’m willing to consider emailed submissions. So send me your best. Up to six poems, preferably as a pdf attachment (*see below), with the first page being a covering letter including your name, address, and the titles of your poems. Put the words “takahē submission – my name” in the subject line, (with your name replacing “my name”), and email it to poetry at takahe dot org dot nz. You have until September 19th to do this: after that time I’ll bounce the submission back unopened. (Check my takahē page for details about standard submission requirements, as well as an FAQ on the whole submissions whys and wherefores thing.) If it all goes well, I might look at opening it up to email submissions on a more regular basis.

I know there are a few people out there who have reservations along the lines of yes, but you aren’t going to publish work from [insert school] poets, are you? Bollocks to that: I’m publishing poems, not poets. Convince me that I’m wrong about the sort of thing you think I don’t like. Be the poet who converts me!

I suppose I’m going to have to get used to doing this three times a year now, aren’t I? Sigh …

* To create a pdf from a text file:
Mac Users – select ‘print’, and then ‘save as PDF from the PDF box on the bottom left side of the print pane. Done!
Everyone else – a bit more complicated, unless you have a PDF maker on your computer already. Have a look at this WikiHow page for suggestions.