Dear friends, This Thursday we were invited to a Substack bestsellers event, and though we have our qualms with Substack, we think it eventually does more good than harm to many artists we know. We were unsure of going as we’re not particularly social people but they lured us with a $50 gift card each to spend on books. The space was wonderful (Book Bar Toronto), and the people were super interesting too. I got Dione Brand’s New & Collected Poems, and Shannan got Robert Jackson Bennett’s A...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Dear friends, I was in India for a month to see my parents and extended family for the first time since I moved to the West three and a half years ago. It was quite an experience adjusting to the heat, noise, and all the people everywhere. I felt like a posh queen too pristine for everything around her even though it was my day to day reality for over two decades not too long ago. I felt deeply lucky, and sad for everyone’s struggles. It wasn’t a new feeling, but certainly one that had been...
17 days ago • 2 min read
Dear friends, First and foremost, this week’s poet is the one and only CAConrad who makes me believe in everything good about this world, this life, even as it’s full of pain and suffering. Their poems are beautiful and very necessary in our times. I hope you’ll make time for them this week. Now onto some other cool news: This week we celebrated Leonard Cohen’s birthday and ONLY POEMS’ 3rd year anniversary and Strange Pilgrims’ 1st. We feel quite blessed with all the love our magazines have...
24 days ago • 2 min read
Dear friends, Our third annual $3500 Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize is now officially open. We've already received some exciting and unexpectedly crafted entries, all poems navigating in unique ways the intersections of love, faith & sex. When we first decided to create this prize, we had no idea if we'd get the permission of the Leonard Cohen Estate and if we'd thus be able to name it after our most favorite poet no longer physically manifest in this world. But, (for those of you who're mad...
27 days ago • 1 min read
Dear friends, I want to thank you for the most response to my request for recording the poems. We were overwhelmed with almost 500 people signing up and claiming all our poets within the first couple of hours of the newsletter. It’s a testament to how magnificent our readership is and we have been given all the reasons to be grateful. To return you all a reason for gratitude, I’ve been working on a Leonard Cohen fan site for almost a year and was hoping it’d be ready for his and ONLY POEMS’...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Upcoming Practical Seminar with Justine Payton How to Get Accepted into Your Dream M.F.A. Program(s) Everything you've always wanted to know about successfully applying → October 10 @ 12 pm Eastern Time Enroll Here FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS ONLY (Because we're crazy like that sometimes): Use the code MFAYAY44 at checkout for 44% off. The runtime is approximately 2 hours. Everyone who enrolls will be sent a recording + all workshop materials afterwards. what you can expect MFA in creative writing...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Dear friends, Please forgive me for the radio silence the last few weeks. I’ve been preoccupied with many things, luckily all good stuff. As you probably know, since August we've been collecting audio recordings of the poems we’ve published. I’m proud to report many of the recordings are live now, read by the poets themselves. And also sad to report that many many many of the recordings are still absent as we were brutally ignored by some of our poets (no hard feelings haha). We have only...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Final call for September's free monthly poetry contest "Poem of the Month". The theme is KINK. Send us one poem responding to this (interpret freely!). Winners gets $40 + publication. Read previous winners Submit Here → Poet of the Week Cydni Thompson Cydni Thompson is a black poet from Jamaica, Queens. She is entering her final year of her MFA at Queens College, and is the '25-'26 Poetry Coalition Fellow at The Poetry Society of America. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming from...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
We officially close tomorrow night for our two literary prizes. You can read more details for the Bob Hicok Fellowship here and the Strange Pilgrims Prize here. All entries come with a complimentary paid membership. $2000 Bob Hicok Fellowship A yearlong invitation for all poets, everywhere + educational & editorial opportunities ★ Submit poems → $3000 Strange Pilgrims Prize Awarding the Story of the Year & Essay of the Year + partnership with Curtis Brown Literary Agency ★ Submit prose → Our...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read