Poetry at The Canberra Times
June 15, 2021
I am very happy to be starting as Poetry Editor at The Canberra Times. Submissions are open now UNTIL 30th June. Please read the guidelines below before submitting, and send only to the email given. Any poems or queries sent through to another email will not be read. At the moment, I am unsure if overseas people can be paid, so poems from people in Australia only at this stage please. I am very much feeling my way into things, but have already received some wonderful poems.
Canberra Times Submission Guidelines June 2021
ALL CORRESPONDENCE REGARDING THE CANBERRA TIMES/PANORAMA POETRY SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO THE CANBERRA TIMES POETRY EMAIL ADDRESS:
poetrycanbt [AT] gmail.com
POETRY SUBMISSION PERIODS: Usually MAR 15-31, JUN 15-30, SEPT 13-30, DEC 15-31 (These are subject to change, and submission may become half-yearly.) Do not submit until there is a call-out. The Poetry Editor Penelope Cottier will be making selections.
· • Poems suitable for a general audience in most styles and on most subject matters are welcome.
· • Please send up to 3 UNpublished (includes blogs etc) poems of up to 24 lines, to
• The 24 line maximum includes quotes/notes/references (but not title and stanza breaks).
· • Attach all poems in one Word file — please include your name in the document title. (You are welcome to also attach a PDF if you are concerned that formatting might slip in the Word doc. But do not send only a PDF. Pasting into an email, if you have to, is fine too.)
· • Please submit poems during designated submission periods only.
• Poems should not be on offer to other print or online publications.
· • You will be notified by email either way, 6-8 weeks after close of submissions. (Some will be notified much sooner.)
· • If selected, your poem should generally be published — in the Panorama arts section — during the following several months.
• Poets selected for publication are asked not to submit during the next submission period.
NB While everything possible is done to reduce the risk of a selected poem not appearing The Canberra Times cannot guarantee publication. Poets who submit poems should understand there is a chance their poem may not appear, even if selected.
Hints
• Send your stand-out poem(s). Don’t feel you have to send in three!
• Send a variety.
• Be strategic — remember that poems are selected months in advance of publication.
• Please note that sometimes poems are published in a smaller font due to space limitations — if you have an issue with this you might prefer to submit shorter poems.
• For the same reason it is better not to send poems with very long lines or elaborate formatting.
Bio
A biographical note is not necessary but is of interest — just one or two sentences will do.
PLEASE KEEP READING:
The Canberra Times publishes one poem per week in its Saturday Panorama arts section, pending space availability. Payment is $60 per poem.
The aims are to ensure a diversity of voices, and to publish poems on a wide variety of subjects.
Poets selected for publication are asked to skip the next submission window.
Please note The Canberra Times receives hundreds of poems and has space for just a fraction of those. Many quality submissions have to be declined each time.
Submission periods are now quarterly (subject to change). Submission calls will be promoted to the list of poets who have previously submitted or enquired, and through social media and poetry networks — thank you for passing the word on.
If you can access The Canberra Times where you live, please buy it every Saturday. Or you can subscribe to the on-line paper, to support fellow poets and a major newspaper that still publishes poetry.
Penelope (PS) Cottier
The Canberra Times Poetry Editor
Tuesday poem and story
March 31, 2020
Both via link this time. One is to the Microflix festival, where my story ‘Makeover’ is one of the selected texts that someone may decide to make a film from: http://microflixfestival.com.au/2020/03/11/makeover-by-ps-cottier/ .
The other is to Not Very Quiet, where my poem ‘…scribbles, comments, glosses (annotations), critiques, doodles, or illuminations’ can be read. This one is about people standing (or sitting) at the side of history. https://not-very-quiet.com/2020/03/30/scribbles/ A recording of it may be posted too. Recordings are there in lieu of a launch, which was originally scheduled for last night, pre-virus.
Tuesday poem: Monstrous poetry
May 5, 2019
If you click this link, you’ll find my snappily named poem ‘The creature runs through the Arctic ice, pursued by Doctor Frankenstein’, just published at Cordite. The issue has the name ‘Monster’ and was edited by Nathan Curnow. I’ve been sitting on that monster of a poem for ages, so it’s nice to see it out and about.
There are some wondrous monstrous things lurking there, so do have a read. If you dare. (I always wanted to write that sentence.)
Tuesday poems: via links
September 21, 2017
A new online women’s poetry journal, based in Canberra and edited by Sandra Renew and Moya Pacey, has been launched called Not Very Quiet and I have three poems in it, covering such topics as homelessness — and the middle class desire to avoid the homeless — depression, and the way that depressed people are patronised, and annoying editors, and what should be done with them. That links to the last mentioned poem, which is the funniest one. Writing humorous poetry that also has more than laughs to it is quite an art, I think, and one type of work that I like to write. Have a look around at the journal, which contains a lot of interesting poetry.
Another newish journal is Mnemosyne: South Coast Women’s Journal which is edited by a group of women from, or living on, the south coast of NSW. I wrote a poem called ‘Going to the Coast’, which was published as part of their ‘Flash Fiction Friday’ initiative. A very lovely journal with a lot of ideas behind it.
If anyone is wondering how the name is pronounced; it’s a bit like Penelope. Which does not rhyme with antelope.
Tuesday poem: On editing
September 11, 2017
Irma Gold has written a thoughtful piece about writing her story ‘The Line’ that appears in this year’s Award Winning Australian Writing.
My poem in this book, which covers both prose and poetry, is three lines in length, although I did not write it as a ‘real’ haiku. It won a contest for a poem in 50 characters or less, which means that the emphasis was on what was not spoken as much as the words that appeared. Editing and writing become virtually inseparable when the poem is so short.
I took the ‘How Tweet It Is’ title of the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ contest literally and wrote a poem called ‘The Cat’s New Beard’ which is not in the least bird-friendly. It’s about a cat eating a bird. I won’t post it here, as the book just came out, and I can’t really post an extract of a tiny poem. But here’s another short poem about the process of editing a wee poem about a bird.
Plucking words
too many feathers —
bantam or robin?
Now a bantam is bigger than a robin, just as Batman is bigger than the Boy Wonder, so robin is probably the better option.
I am enjoying reading the book, which contains everything from evocative stories (Irma) to dead canaries (me). Why not purchase one? The editor is Pia Gaardboe.
