How To Submit Your Work

Heron Tree is currently closed for submissions. The information for our past submission window is given below for reference.

Between 25 August 2022 and 15 February 2023 we will be accepting submissions in the following categories:

1. Found poems created from any source material(s) published in or before 1927.
2. Found poems created from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper (1653). It is fine to modernize Culpeper’s 17th c. word forms and spelling or to use a pre-1928 edition that does.
3. Found poems created from American Civics: A Text Book for High Schools, Normal Schools, and Academies by A. G. Fradenburgh (1906).

We encourage you to download and read some collections of found poetry that we have published in the past: Found in the Public Domain, Songs, From the Blue Fairy, Of Climates & Continents, and all the poems in volume 8 and volume 9.

More information:

– We are interested in any and all approaches to found poetry construction and erased or remixed texts.

– Poems that are not in one of the three categories listed above will not be considered.

– If you are working with a text that was translated into English, the English translation must also be published in or before 1927.

– Send up to 6 poems with a cover letter to submit.herontree@gmail.com.

– In your email cover letter please include a list of your poems’ titles.

– The poems should be attached in a single doc, docx, or pdf file. If your pieces are better viewed as digital images, insert them as jpegs within a single doc, docx, or pdf file.

– All submissions will be read blind, so do not include your name in the file with the poems.

– In the same file as the poems, provide a different process paragraph for each poem. It should identify the source(s) for the poem and briefly explain your method of composition. If a poem combines found material and your own words, that’s fine, but your process statement must make that clear. You can find examples of process paragraphs in our previous collections of found poetry. If a poem is accepted for publication, the process paragraph will be published with it.

– Simultaneous submissions are welcome with timely notification of acceptance elsewhere.

– Poems that have previously appeared online (temporarily or permanently, on your own or a third-party site) should not be submitted, nor should work that has already been published electronically or in print.

– Once you send your submission, you’ll receive an automatic email reply. If you don’t receive the reply, please check your spam folder and add Heron Tree to your contacts to ensure that you receive future communications about your submission.

– If your work is accepted by Heron Tree, you agree to grant us exclusive first publication rights and the non-exclusive right to include your work in the volume 10 collection and our online archives. You agree that if your poem subsequently appears elsewhere you will credit Heron Tree as the original publisher.

– Accepted poems will be published weekly on the Heron Tree website starting in March 2023 and will be included in a free, downloadable PDF volume available later in 2023.

For the sake of transparency: Heron Tree does not charge a fee for submitting nor provide payment for publication.

These guidelines are subject to change.