Hello there poetry writers! Want to be a part of an amazing anthology project and see your poetry published? Raw Earth Ink is opening submissions for next year’s themed poetry collection: The Poets Symphony.

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Anthology Title: The Poets Symphony: Verses, Melodies, and Lyrical Poems

Description: a collection of poetry with a specific overall theme

Theme: music; each poem must be specifically tied to and include the theme of music. This may include song titles, band names (known or made up), musical terms such as ‘notes, keys, major, minor, arpeggios’ etc, genres (like country, heavy metal, classical, etc), poetry read as lyrics (notating verses, choruses, bridges, etc), musical instruments, and all points between. This should not be ambiguous but obvious to the reader.

Submission deadline: 31st January 2020

Submission piece length: 10-80 lines (including blank lines), with preference given to 16-40 line pieces; a line may contain up to 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation)

Submission pieces allowed: up to five poems, I’d really like to publish 3-5 poems from each author, if available

Compensation: if chosen to publish, an e-book version of the book and the ability to order paperbacks at just above printing/shipping cost

Additional points to consider:

• This book will use the American spelling, and your poetry will be edited as such for overall continuity. Examples: recognize vs recognise

• I may contact you with questions regarding any other type of editing (for example, if punctuation varies within a piece)

• may contain graphic language

• sensual, though not overly erotic, pieces accepted

• while all forms of poetry will be accepted for submissions, preference will be given to longer full-page poems over “micro-poetry” or very short haiku-type works

Publisher rights, if your poetry is chosen: I will email you and let you know by 15th February 2020 that your poetry has been approved. At this time, if your poem has already been published on your blog or similar social media site, please remove it. Raw Earth Ink will retain publishing rights of your poetry until 31st October 2021 upon which time you may then retain your own rights to it and publish it elsewhere. I permit that you may publish your work, in part up to 50% of the poem, for the purpose of your own advertising in the form of teasers, etc. If you have questions about this, please just text or email me and we can talk about it so that we are on the same page. I am holding to these rules as I want to give our fellow authors the best chance at being seen together exclusively within this book, rather than a reader simply being able to pick up and read your poetry for “free” elsewhere. Beyond this specified time frame, you may do as you please with your poetry, knowing that it is already published here with us.

Additional Payment: Should sales significantly exceed the publishing and printing costs of the book, then I will evenly distribute funds between all contributors. I am very serious about being open and honest about this. If you ever want to know about the sales of the book, simply contact me and I will be more than happy to share any information with you so that you may know I am trustworthy. I’m not publishing this anthology to “make money”, but rather to share my love of modern poetry and reading the printed word with the world and other like-minded authors such as you.

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Okay, now that we got all that out, want to submit? Awesome! Here’s how:

I will need the following information from you, along with your submissions. Please, read carefully. I will automatically reject improperly submitted work.

In your initial submission:

1) Email it to me at raw.earth.ink@gmail.com with the subject line: “TPS Submission – Author Name” [this helps me keep track of your submission within a huge inbox]

2) Attach your submission as a google doc or a word doc. I do not need PDF. Don’t worry about fonts, sizing, or spacing.

3) Include your name (real or otherwise) that I may use in our interactions.

4) A reliable way for me to contact you: email, texting phone number (I will not call you) or messaging platform such as WhatsApp or Hangouts

5) Your pen name (exactly as you want it to appear in the book)

6) Poem title(s) and poetry

Upon acceptance, I will email you with an acceptance letter in which you will need to provide this additional information at that time:

1) Brief author bio, if you wish

2) your website (link and title), Instagram/Twitter username, Goodreads (link) or any way you want your readers to be able to find you, I will not go mining for this information.

If you do not agree with these terms or styles, please consider holding off on this project and checking us out later. There may be future projects published by Raw Earth Ink which you may want submit to, as this particular style does not exclusively define Raw Earth Ink.

Please, if you have ANY questions at all about this project or future projects, please email me.

I look forward to hearing from you!

~tara caribou

Raw Earth Ink