Career Builder - Best Lit Mags of 2025

National poetry magazine of Wales. Publishing contemporary poetry, features and reviews since 1965.

Poetry Wales is the national poetry magazine of Wales, established in 1965 by Meic Stephens and published in Bridgend. It is currently edited by Zoë Brigley and published by Seren. 

The magazine is released three times a year (triannually) in both print and digital formats. 

	•	Publishes contemporary poetry, features, and reviews from Wales and internationally.
	•	Known for embracing both traditional and experimental poetry, and for its interest in translation and the exploration of local and national identities in a global context.
	•	Offers a lively critical context for contemporary poetry, with content that includes essays, interviews, and reviews alongside poetry.

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Poetry Wales

General call

The Poetry Wales Award is Poetry Wales magazine's annual single-poem competition. This year's competition will be judged by Bethany Handley.
Three awarded poets will win cash prizes as well as publication in a future issue of Poetry Wales; our First Award winner will also win a stay at Literature Wales' Tŷ Newydd.
Full details of the prizes, as well as the terms and conditions of entry, can be found on the entry form or on our website.

Poetry Wales - Poetry Wales Award 2026 | Sponsored by Literature Wales

Poetry Wales - Poetry Wales Award 2026 | Sponsored by Literature Wales | Concessions

Feature pitches
Send us your pitches for articles, essays, and reviews to be featured in future issues of Poetry Wales. This portal is open year round, and is checked monthly. We aim to respond to your submission within 8 weeks of the end of the month that you submitted.
We ask that you send us a pitch of no more than 300 words describing your piece. It helps us if you let us know what themes you intend to cover, how long you would need to complete the work, and any other information you think might be important in our decision-making. Remember that as a standard our feature pieces are between 2,000 - 3,000 words long; please pitch us something that you can make shine in that word count.
Fees
Find out about our fees and submissions guidelines here.
For administrative and financial reasons, Poetry Wales Press Ltd pays all Poetry Wales magazine contributors via PayPal and is unable to pay through any other means. If you are unable to accept PayPal payment, this will effectively forfeit your fee. By agreeing to publication, you agree to these terms.
Get in touch
If you have any questions about the submissions process, please email us at submissions@poetrywales.co.uk.
If you are interested in pitching a review, please email reviews@poetrywales.co.uk.

Poetry Wales | Features

We are open to all poetry but poems by teachers would be welcomed in this issue. Teachers and tutors are often focussed on supporting the creative practice of others – in this issue, we want to spotlight your own practice. Let us know in your cover letter what context you teach in, and please submit a maximum of four poems, but know that the poems themselves do not necessarily have to be on teaching related topics. 

We also have a general call for poetry which may include non-teachers and/or on non-teaching topics. 

Our submissions portal is open until Saturday 28 February for essays, interviews and poetry to feature in our Summer 2026 issue. As always, we welcome work on any and all themes, but we do have a particular slant that we are especially interested in hearing about; for Summer 2026, we want to explore the meeting point between poetry and teaching.
Poets who teach within any subject or setting support creativity in ways sometimes overlooked within education and lifelong learning. They foster curiosity, strengthen critical thinking, nurture social connections, and offer a language for learners to express their inner lives.


How I Teach a Poem
We’re looking for articles from teachers offering new and innovative ways to teach a poem, in the style of our online series ‘How I Write A Poem’. Tell us how you use your own practice to inform the teaching of specific poems as well as what you have learned about poetry from the teaching of it.
Important note: please choose a poem to ‘teach’ that you have copyright for, that is out of copyright, or that has previously been published in Poetry Wales. We do not have capacity to make copyright requests for this feature.
“How I Teach A Poem” articles should be no more than 1000 words.
Before you submit, please make sure you have read our guidelines here.

Poetry Wales Summer 2026 | How I Teach a Poem

Our submissions portal is open until Saturday 28 February for essays, interviews and poetry to feature in our Summer 2026 issue. As always, we welcome work on any and all themes, but we do have a particular slant that we are especially interested in hearing about; for Summer 2026, we want to explore the meeting point between poetry and teaching.
Poets who teach within any subject or setting support creativity in ways sometimes overlooked within education and lifelong learning. They foster curiosity, strengthen critical thinking, nurture social connections, and offer a language for learners to express their inner lives.


Tributes to the Poet and Critic Jeremy Hooker
We are looking to bring together tributes to the poet and critic, Jeremy Hooker, who spent much of his writing life in Wales but passed away at the end of 2025. We would like to hear from those who knew him, were taught by him or who felt his poetry or criticism to be an influence. 
We welcome tributes of no more than 300 words.
Before you submit, please make sure you have read our guidelines here.

Poetry Wales Summer 2026 | Jeremy Hooker Tributes

We’re looking for a small number of features, essays and conversations that engage with ’embodiment’ from literary, cultural and ecological perspectives or through the viewpoints of queer writers, disabled writers or writers of the global majority.
Send us a short pitch of no longer than 300 words to be considered for a feature.

Poetry Wales

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