March 2017 Vol. II No. III
Not your ordinary poetry magazine!
If good coffee (or just the concept of coffee), great books, sharp wit, and great authors excite you, we are for you!
![poetry magazine, Better than Starbucks logo](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/176fed_16a81a5d9b044b1291a17724a2306058.jpg/v1/fill/w_63,h_63,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/176fed_16a81a5d9b044b1291a17724a2306058.jpg)
How to Submit
CONTACT
Due to a temporary lack of funding, we will not be able to pay for poetry or fiction until further notice.
We do not keep copyright on any work by anyone in this publication. The exception being work published by the publisher, including interviews.
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Submit your poem or story in the body of your email.
If you want to add it as a word or pdf you may, but unless the submission is in the body of the email, it will not be considered for publication. Along with your work of art, short story or poem, please send your return address and the name you would like listed for the work and the name you want to check made out to, if different from your creative name.
Free Verse Poetry Page
Poetry Submission Guidelines
The good news is this page is not run by committee. You do not need to impress a host of readers. You just need to impress me. What I love in a poem is that it surprises me, moves me, astounds me with the thoughts edged into existence by its words. Publication credits, prizes and awards tell me a great deal and they can certainly be impressive. With that said, not having publishing credits or prizes takes no one out of the running. A great poem can come from anywhere and I don’t want to miss a single one.
What you won't see on our General or Free Verse Page:
Rhyming Poems
Long Poems
Haiku (and other 2-3 line poems)
Limericks
​We can’t accept epic poetry (roughly 30 lines tops should do it).
Please send in rhyming poetry to our formalist/rhyming page editor, Vera (also accepts limericks)
Please send in haiku poetry to our haiku page editor, Kevin.
We are also always on the look out for great translations, those, you may send to S Ye and the translations page.
And if your work fails more into the experimental category, we even have a page for that!
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Send in all manner of poetry. I am always starved for good poetry.
-Suzanne Robinson
email only to: betterthanstarbucks2@gmail.com
We DO accept previously published work.
If previously published, make sure you have the rights to it. Most places do not keep the rights to poetry.
We do not, we retain the right to use them in anthologies or promotional material as we see fit in the future, but we do not retain any copyright to your work.
Do tell us where it was previously published so we can credit them. If you self publish it or post it to an open group, we do not consider that published, so no mention need be made.
We do send rejections, (though I find it completely pointless, apparently some poets enjoy being told "No")
If we are going to publish,we will send a notification of publication.
Due to a temporary lack of funding, we will not be able to pay for poetry or fiction until further notice.
If you have submitted work, and it has not been published within 60 days, feel free to send a followup note.
Submit up to 3 poems, one short story or image, or up to one of each.
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If you are submitting free verse for our General Poetry Page, or a combination of forms, please put Poetry Submission in your email subject line.
If you are submitting flash fiction (under 1000 words) please put Flash Fiction Submission in your email subject line.
If you are submitting a short story, please put Short Story Submission in your email subject line.
(Short stories of over 2000 words will be serialized.)
If you are submitting an image, please put Image Submission in your email subject line.
If you are submitting haiku, or other extremely short poems please put Haiku Submission in your email subject line.
If you are submitting formal poetry, rhyme, or lighthearted verse, including limericks, please put Formal Poetry Submission in your email subject line.
If you are submitting translations of poetry, please put Translations Submission in your email subject line.
If you are submitting experimental poetry, please put Experimental Submission in your email subject line.
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If you are submitting haiku, limericks or other extremely short poems, you may send a half dozen as our Haiku page editor sometimes publishes a block of haiku and short poems together. Our Formalist may choose to do the same occasionally with limericks.
If we like it, we will publish it. If you are a Nobel laureate and we don't like it, we won't.
(Note: We have yet to reject a Nobel Prize winner)
Send one submission no more often than once every 3 months.
The subject matter is up to you.
We rarely publish long poems (over 50 lines), we do, but rarely. We publish mostly free verse in our main poetry page. We have a soft spot for limericks (and haiku, speaking of short poems). In fact, we have a soft spot for short poems. We will publish somewhat longer pieces on occasion, but nearly always under 200 words.
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We will publish any good short story, that we like. Full length short stories, up to 7000 words will be serialized.
In both the poems and the short story, we aren't prudes, but we aren't looking for gratuitous sex, violence or crude language. We will accept any of these things if we feel they are important to the story. We will not publish anything that we think can be construed as hateful.
That does not mean you can't tell the story of a terrible event, murder rape, beatings or whatever, but make sure you are not glorifying the evil. We love a good story. We love a great poem. Just make sure you don't give us a reason to not like it.