Please follow these guidelines for submission:

• Submit electronically through email at ballastjournal[at]gmail.com.

• Send three to five poems—each poem beginning on a new page—in a single document as an attachment in .doc or .docx formats or as PDFs for special formatting requirements. Maximum 15 pages.

• Title your submission as [LASTNAME_TITLE OF FIRST POEM].

  • For example, LEVERTOV_SEEMS LIKE WE MUST BE SOMEWHERE ELSE & use this same title for your email subject line.

• Include a cover letter with a short bio in the body of your submission email.

We welcome

• simultaneous submissions, but do not consider previously published work

• multiple submissions, no more than twice per calendar year waiting three months between submissions

• previous contributors, though we do not publish the same author twice in a calendar year

• translations, submitted with original text alongside the translation and any rights/permissions needed to obtain

• co-authored poems, submitted with both authors cc’d on the submission

We do not consider poetry that is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or ableist.

We aim to respond to submissions within three months, often much sooner. If you haven’t heard from us after that timeframe, feel free to query the editors concerning the status of your submission at ballastjournal[at]gmail.com.