UK Poetry Magazines: A Literary Directory of Submissions and Windows

On 1 October 2026 the page for The Frogmore Papers said that poems for its March issue could be sent between the 1st and the 31st of the month, and that anything arriving outside the window would be returned. That is the day this directory was checked, and a good illustration of why a list of UK poetry magazines goes stale faster than the magazines themselves do.

What follows is a working guide to thirty-one titles, with a table drawn from each publisher’s own submissions page, and then the reasoning that helps a poet decide where to send what. It is a literary directory, not a ranking.

A directory of UK poetry magazines: how to read the table

The table lists name, base, format, how the editors say they take work, and the fee position where one is stated. Read the status column with suspicion. “Open” means the page said so on the day of checking. “Windows” means the magazine accepts work only in set periods. “Closed” means just that. Where a page gave no fee, the table says unclear, not free, because silence is not a promise.

Two further cautions. Some entries carry a medium confidence rating, which means a detail such as a window date was not stated precisely. And a handful of the titles are edited from outside England, since the term “UK” here follows the editors’ own addresses: Gutter in Scotland, Poetry Wales and Lucent Dreaming in Wales, and several more.

Magazines reading submissions

9 described as open when last checked

• Ink Sweat & TearsUK
  Open
• MslexiaNewcastle upon Tyne, England
  Open
• Obsessed with PipeworkEvercreech, England
  Open
• OrbisWirral, England
  Open
• Tears in the FenceDorset, England
  Open
• The Dark HorseScotland (postal address in Ayrshire)
  Open
• The London MagazineLondon, England
  Open
• The Poetry ReviewUK
  Open
• Wild CourtLondon, England
  Open

All 31 magazines with windows and fees

Read from each organiser’s or magazine’s own page on 1 October 2026.

How magazines choose poems

Editors read in batches. A small magazine may have one or two readers and a hard ceiling on pages, which is why guidelines cap submissions at three to six poems. The Rialto, for instance, publishes about fifty poems per issue, so every acceptance displaces someone else’s.

Some use anonymous reading. Mslexia states that submissions are judged anonymously, and that changes how you prepare the file: no name on the page, the poem alone.

Most replies are form rejections, and a personal line from an editor is rare enough to be worth keeping. Magazines with themes, such as Magma, whose issues are often themed with off-theme work also considered, reward a poet who has read the call. The poems that fail are often good poems sent to the wrong editor.

Reading a submissions page properly

Every page repeats the same handful of terms, and they do not mean the same thing everywhere.

Windows. Pennine Platform reads in February and September only. Shearsman Magazine reads in March for its October issue and in September for its April issue. PN Review takes work in the first week of December and the last week of June. Long Poem Magazine opens in November, once a year. Miss a window and the wait is half a year or more.

Fees. Most titles in the table state no fee for poems. Magma asks £3 from non-subscribers and waives it for subscribers and people on benefits. The Poetry Review asks £2 from non-members of the Poetry Society, with members free. Tears in the Fence asks £3 from non-subscribers. Such fees are small, but they exist, and they are the clearest line between a magazine and a competition.

Simultaneous submissions. This means offering the same poems to several editors at once. Acumen, Gutter, Long Poem Magazine, Stand, Tears in the Fence and The Poetry Review refuse it. DreamCatcher accepts it with notice. If you are sending broadly, keep a spreadsheet of which poems are where, and withdraw promptly when one is taken.

Response times. Ink Sweat & Tears quotes about ten weeks, The North about twelve, The Dark Horse around twenty and Stand aims within three months. Acumen asks poets to wait five to six months between submissions. Silence beyond the stated period is normal; a courteous query after it is also normal.

Method. Submittable now handles The Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation and Poetry Wales, with The Rialto and Poetry London offering it beside post. Orbis and The Dark Horse still ask for paper, and Orbis wants a stamped addressed envelope. Pennine Platform likewise prefers post.

Poetry magazines accepting submissions today

On the day of checking, the clearest answers to the question of poetry magazines accepting submissions were Orbis, Obsessed with Pipework, The Dark Horse, The London Magazine, Wild Court and Tears in the Fence, which described themselves as open without a closing date, and Mslexia, whose deadline for Issue 112 was 5 October. The Frogmore Papers had its October window running to the 31st, and Poetry London said general submissions would reopen on the 1st. Gutter, Northwords Now, The North, Poetry Wales, Propel Magazine, The Selkie and Wasafiri were closed.

Open and closed change by the week. Poetry Wales, for instance, caps its intake at 550 submissions per issue. Anyone planning a year of poetry submissions should set a calendar by the windows in the table and work backwards from them. Another list of poetry magazines accepting submissions will disagree with this one by next week.

Which literary magazines suit a first submission

Among literary magazines UK editors run, there is no single best place to start, though there are sensible ones.

Magazines that are open all year remove the pressure of a deadline. Orbis, an international journal from the Wirral, says it is always open, charges no fee and asks for four poems by post. Obsessed with Pipework, a quarterly from Flarestack Publishing, is open all year, free, and takes up to six poems by email or post. Obsessed with Pipework dates its beginning to 1997.

Free-to-read online titles lower the bar a little. Wild Court, based in the English department of King’s College London, invites poems and ideas for reviews, with no fee or window on its page. Ink Sweat & Tears, a UK webzine, welcomed 4 to 6 poems by email when checked, though its editors were not all open at once. At the time of checking one was closed and another was open until 15 October.

If you have a publication record, the next step is the established print titles. Poetry London reopened general submissions on 1 October according to its page, and pays £35 per poem. The Poetry Review is open through Submittable. Stand, edited from the University of Leeds since 1952, takes email submissions of usually four to six poems. A rejection from any of them is information, not a verdict.

For most readers sending out a first batch, the better plan is to start with two open, free, small-circulation magazines, read an issue of each first, and only then try one of the higher-profile ones. The exception is a poet whose work is already tightly aimed at one editor’s taste, in which case go there first.

Poetry submissions and the pamphlet route

Poetry submissions to magazines are only one route. A poem in a magazine does not always lead to a book, but it helps. Pamphlets, which the competitions in the calendar set at 16 to 25 pages of poetry, are the standard first step. A few of the magazines in the table sit beside pamphlet publishers: The North is published by The Poetry Business, which also runs a pamphlet competition; fourteen poems issues solo pamphlets by LGBTQ+ poets; Lucent Dreaming took pamphlet submissions from UK residents through a separate form while its magazine was closed. Poetry London publishes its own pamphlet prize, and the competitions calendar lists the current ones with deadlines and fees.

Keep the two kinds of submission apart. A magazine editor wants a handful of poems. A pamphlet editor wants a shaped sequence of 16 to 25 pages, and a run of magazine credits does not substitute for that shaping.

Translation, long poems and other specialist titles

Modern Poetry in Translation, a charity-run magazine founded in 1965, takes translations only. It does not read speculative submissions outside its announced windows, and it pays contributors. If you translate, say clearly who holds rights in the original.

Long Poem Magazine, founded in 2008 and based in London, wants poems of at least 75 lines, two at most, in November only. Its own site describes the magazine as both annual and twice yearly, so the table leaves its frequency blank rather than choose.

Wasafiri covers international contemporary writing, and takes up to three poems through a Taylor & Francis portal when it is open. It was closed on the day of checking.

Mslexia, quarterly from Newcastle upon Tyne, runs several poetry strands, including a showcase and short-form calls, with a deadline of 5 October for Issue 112. If you read this before then, the deadline is close.

Regional and nation-based titles

Scotland has the most distinctive list. Gutter, founded in 2009, publishes twice a year, with spring and autumn windows, up to three poems and a maximum of 100 lines in total. Northwords Now, edited in the Highlands, prints writing in Scottish Gaelic and was closed until funding was confirmed. The Dark Horse, concentrating on British, Irish and American poetry, is edited from Scotland and answers slowly. The Selkie in Edinburgh focuses on under-represented groups.

In Wales, Poetry Wales pays £20 per poem, announces two or three windows a year by newsletter, and caps its intake at 550 submissions per issue. In England, regional identity is looser: The North in Sheffield, Pennine Platform in Wakefield, Stand in Leeds, The Frogmore Papers in Lewes, Tears in the Fence in Dorset, Shearsman in Oxfordshire. A regional base rarely limits who may submit.

A detail left open: The Interpreter’s House is listed under Edinburgh, because its site says its editor is based there, and it is run now as a free online magazine. Its page also gives windows of 1 April to 14 May and 1 October to 14 November, then says there is no window in October or November 2026. Both statements are on the same page.

Magazines that mix poetry with prose

Not every title here is a poetry magazine in the narrow sense. The London Magazine prints poetry, fiction, essays, reviews and interviews in print and digital editions, and asks for up to six poems of no more than 40 lines, unpublished in any format. Gutter calls itself Scotland’s literary journal of new writing. Tears in the Fence, an internationalist journal edited in Dorset since 1984, takes prose poetry, fiction, translations and essays. Acumen, begun in 1985, prints essays and articles about poetry beside the poems. DreamCatcher, published by Stairwell Books in Yorkshire since 1996, mixes poetry with short prose, creative non-fiction and artwork.

For a poet this matters in one practical way: a mixed literary magazine has fewer pages for verse, so competition for them is stiffer per poem, though the readership is often wider. Among literary magazines UK editors run, that mix is common. A specialist such as Long Poem Magazine, or PN Review, which carries essays and reviews beside the poems, reads submissions with different expectations.

Online-only magazines

Four titles in the table are online only: The Interpreter’s House, Wild Court, Propel Magazine and Ink Sweat & Tears. The Interpreter’s House is free to read and unpaid. Propel Magazine is a free online magazine for emerging poets that, from September 2026, is managed by the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge, and it said it would reopen after a preview issue in January 2027.

Online publication has one practical drawback: poems can be changed or deleted later without anyone noticing. A magazine that keeps its back issues where they were first put is worth more than a handsome design.

What editors say they dislike

Editors tend to complain about the same few things, and a page often says so outright.

• Sending outside the window. The Frogmore Papers returns it unread.
• Ignoring the stated limit. Gutter wants three poems and no more than 100 lines in total.
• Sending previously published work to a magazine that wants it unpublished, including poems already posted on a blog.
• Emailing where only post is accepted, or the reverse.
• Work generated by AI, which Orbis and The Interpreter’s House both say they will not consider.

None of this is exotic. Most rejections come from the quiet mismatch, a poem that is sound and wrongly placed.

Finding more poetry magazines

This directory of UK poetry magazines is a snapshot of thirty-one titles, not the full field. The National Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre in London, founded in 1953, holds poetry magazines alongside books and recordings, and its membership is free. The Poetry Society, founded in 1909, has published The Poetry Review since 1912, which makes that title the oldest on this page by a distance; the society’s history is a fair starting point. For wider reading, Wikipedia’s category of UK poetry magazines is longer than this table, though less careful about what is still alive.

Older periodicals and how they began are covered in the oldest magazines, and the broader categories of periodical in types of journals. Readers thinking of starting a title of their own will want how to publish your own magazine. The wider Literary Desk holds interviews and poems from a long-running poetry journal, among them seven poetry editors answering questions on publishing.

A note on dates

Windows move, and poetry submissions that arrive a day late are simply returned. Every row in the table was checked on 1 October 2026 against the magazine’s own page, and the confidence rating shows how clear that page was. Some changes will already have happened by the time you read this. Before posting a manuscript, open the link in the row and read the page again. The Frogmore Papers page, for one, is at frogmorepress.co.uk, and Poetry London’s guidelines and Gutter’s submission page are the sort of source worth rereading.