What we're looking for

The online writing community is a wonderful space for creativity, questions and general support. So it comes as no surprise that this section of our website was prompted largely by a simple tweet from a user asking:

'Dear Reader, what kind of poems are you looking for?'

The answer to this question could get a little too long-winded, so in the interest of keeping things short and sweet: I (Charley) am looking for something that makes me feel. It might seem like an abstract answer, but anything that looks at something in close detail, or looks at something anew, anything that gives away a little piece of the author and leaves me with a, 'Hm', feeling, is exactly what I'd like for Dear Reader.

To give something a little more concrete, here are some please do's for submitting:

Make sure that your work is edited and proofed, because it breaks my heart to turn down a poem just because it hasn't been cooked for long enough
Have a look at what has been published so far; it's very early days for the site so I'm publishing things that really stand out and pull me in, so previous publications is a great way to start
Try to be respectful to others, because while I want Dear Reader to be a place of free expression, I also want it to be a gentle place for readers as well
Pick work that you're comfortable sharing, and that you're proud of; ultimately, what you submit is your decision and it has to be work that you stand by
Provide a little cover letter, but don't feel that you have to write an essay; it's just nice to have a note from the author rather than an attachment and a blank email

There's every chance that this post will see one or two further updates as the weeks and months roll by, but for now, these are the immediate thoughts in response. If you have any queries and concerns, you're welcome to contact Dear Reader by emailing: dearreadersubmissions@gmail.com

I look forward to reading your work soon!

Comments

Home by Jessa Forest

Home scratches at her shingles with tree branch fingers, pulls the air conditioning unit close to her grimy aluminum siding, and keens an empty song of mourning. We found her wandering the tornado snarled wild three months ago, starved and lonely. She doesn’t know how to take care of herself, you see? We fed her shards of dining room tables, kindling for the fireplace, and cast iron bathtubs clawed feet first. She was slow to recover so we gutted her plumbing, ripped out her nerves, and rewired the electricity. She let the water in every time it rained so we put a new roof on her and let her out for regular walks around the wolf pen. Let her mingle with the vultures, I said, let her feel useful and clean up the dead but no one wanted to listen. We found rot an mold in her corners, infused her insulation with antibiotics, and quarantined her for two weeks while she belched ladderback chairs, sofa cushions, wind chimes, and broken bookcases. She still has her bad days. After feeding time

“Are You So Tired Then, Stranger?” by Ace Boggess

—Dick Allen, “B&B” Wind exhausts with its icy fists. Knives of rain wear me down, & leaves in their helicopter swirls like leaflets dropped from a plane. October depletes me, & November. They’ve too much busyness. They send me spinning, dancing, lonely with the rake, the broom. I surrender, collapsing like an old barn, debris of me piling in a chair with clear view of the television. News is on. It spends me. Talk of politics, also. I’d like to shut up the voices that fatigue. They hum like a B-flat in the pipes. They bicker & scold, condemn. They expend me like carrying groceries up a flight of stairs until I’m too drained to care which side they’re on. --- Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So , and The Prisoners . His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-c

Examples Of Resilience by Jen Feroze

Look to the city’s forests. Those monoliths and museums, cathedrals and palaces and theatres whose stories have sunk deep under the pavements, have rooted themselves in the silt at the bottom of the river. Think of the architects spreading sketches across tired wood, holding up samples of mosaic tile, wondering what sort of mark they’ll leave. Think of the tongues of flame, the sirens, the silence before the shells fall. Think of the thousands and thousands of feet that have walked here. The myriad secrets whispered across the vast blue dome, where the apostles keep them safe. Think of the nightingale you heard here that night in November, wrapping its song around St Paul’s in ribbons of winter. Tiny in the face of all that history. Dauntless, nonetheless. --- Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex with her husband and two small sleep thieves. Her work has recently appeared in Atrium, Ink Sweat & Tears, Ekphrastic Review and The Madrigal, among others. Her first collection, The C

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