Submissions: Regular Issues

NOTE: Beginning in 2025, we will be moving to a mixed-genre format to include single-line poems, concrete poems, sequences, multi-ku, text hybrids (haibun, tanka prose, and other mixed genres), visual hybrids (haiga, shahai, vispo, etc.), and visual art.

Reading schedule:

ISSUE 12 — Jan 1-7, 2025 (optional theme: Stream of Consciousness)
ISSUE 13 — May 1-7, 2025
ISSUE 14 — Oct 21-27, 2025

What to submit:

TEXT

Individual single-line poems -

Please submit 4-5 one-line poems of any variety, including monostich haiku, senryu, nanoku, one-line tanka, poetic fragments, one-line micropoems, or lyrical lines. Be creative: Poems may be one word in length up to a column’s width, written horizontally, vertically, or as a concrete poem* in any shape a line may take (e.g. circle, squiggle, arrow, square, etc . . .) For vertical one-liners we are looking for poems with ONLY one word or part of a word per line. Such poems must work as single-line poems with the display enhancing the meaning.

Sequences & Multi-ku -

Please submit up to 5 sequences and/or multi-ku comprised of two - eight single-line poems. Poems may link and shift between each one (or poet, if collaborating) but are not required to. Feel free to submit any format you like. Titles are optional.

Text Hybrids (haibun, tanka prose, or other hybrids) -

Send a total of 2-3 that include single-line poems in any form a single line can take. The only requirements are that they are under 300 words and include at least one (1) single-line poem (of any shape). They may, in addition, contain enjambed poems.

Send us poems that are an expression of how you see or interpret the world—poems only you could write. We love communion with nature, journeys of transformation and healing, personal explorations and boundary-pushing, and honest experiences of the poet. While we do publish senryu and humancentric poems, most of the poems we publish incorporate nature elements or are grounded in nature.

We will consider found poems that take on their own meaning and veer significantly from the source work. Please provide source info and screenshots or erasures of the areas where you selected your choice words.

*A note regarding formatting:

Our default formatting is double-justified with a space between each paragraph. If your work is not to be formatted this way for concrete reasons related to the content of the piece, please note that in your email. For those creating concrete pieces, our journal is landscape orientation (8 1/2 x 11) using 1" margins and 1.15" line spacing; we use Nunito font in size 12 (titles in size 14 bolded).

Text submissions may be a mix of any of the above, up to 5 in total.

ART

Cover Art -

Please submit 3-5 pieces and you may include a link to your website if you’d like us to link back.

Visual Hybrids (haiga, shahai, vispo, etc.) -

Please submit 3-5 pieces. Please ensure your font choices (letterform, size, shape) are legible against the background.

Art submissions may be sent separately, up to 5; if you send text and art, you may submit up to the maximum of each category.

How to submit:

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Individual single-line poems -

Submit your poems via the Google form using the Submit button below.

Sequences & Multi-ku -

Submit your poems via the Google form using the Submit button below but type title in place of poem and email your sequence (paste into body of email for simple formatting as well as in addition to any images you may send of any special formatting).

Text Hybrids (haibun, tanka prose, or other hybrids) -

Submit via the form and enter the title in the “poem” space. Then email your submission below using the "Submit attachments" button. Send your submission in a .doc, .docx, or Google Doc; if the formatting is complex in nature, also attach a .pdf. Make sure your name is in the file name. If you email your submission but don't fill out the form, we cannot process your submission, so please be sure to take both steps.

FOR CONCRETE POEMS, complete the Google form and choose the selection indicating that you will be sending image files. Then email your submission below using the "Submit attachments" button. If you use imaging software with letters only, please use a transparent background and send jpeg or png in 600 DPI. If you use Google Docs or MS docs to make your poem, please send as a Google Doc or .doc/.docx. The font we use is Nunito size 12 (titles size 14 bold), so you may want to consider if it will affect your presentation.

IF YOUR POEM HAS COMPLEX SPACING, all spacing will shift when we change the font and size so we need an editable file emailed.

ART

Visual Hybrids (haiga, shahai, vispo, etc.) -

Complete the Google form and choose the selection indicating that you will be sending image files. Then email your submission below using the "Submit attachments" button. If you use imaging software with letters only, please use a transparent background and send jpeg or png in 600 DPI. If you use Google Docs or MS docs to make your poem, please send as a Google Doc or .doc/.docx. The font we use is Nunito size 12 (titles size 14 bold), so you may want to consider if it will affect your presentation.

Cover Art -

Complete the Google form and choose the selection indicating that you will be sending image files. Then email your submission below using the "Submit attachments" button.

Response time: No simultaneous submissions, please. We will respond to all submissions. We aim to do so within 4 weeks; please check your emails. Also, double-check that there are no typos in your email address when you submit.

NOTE: Please double-check your submissions to ensure your poems are ready and are the versions you wish us to consider. We realize mistakes happen, so if you have accidentally sent the wrong thing or a different version of a piece you want us to consider, please email us within the submission window and let us know. No edits will be accepted and no changes to your submission will be accepted past the window's closing.

Submit attachments

Link will go live when the submission window reopens.

We do not publish any of the following:

anything racist
anything misogynistic
anything xenophobic
anything homophobic
anything transphobic
anything ableist
religion flaming
violence or graphic death (including animals); death as a topic is fine in a memorial sense (e.g. grief, longing, etc.).
pornographic imagery
appropriation of any kind

Rights and terms:

All submitted work must be your original and previously unpublished work. This means poems have not appeared on social media or personal sites or blogs as we want to be the first venue to present your poem to the public (closed/private workshops are fine). This also means the work was written by you and not in any part by any AI program. Include your name as you wish it to appear in publication.

whiptail retains the right to publish your work on our website and social media accounts. All rights return to the author upon publication. whiptail reserves the right to reuse work that has appeared in the journal, with proper citation, in any future print or electronic collections or anthologies. If the author wishes to later republish the work, whiptail requests that you cite the journal as the venue of first publication.

Payment:

whiptail is a non-paying market.

Accolades:

whiptail considers all of the poems we publish for awards such as The Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award for Individual Poem, Best of the Net, The Pushcart Prize, Red Moon Anthology, and more.