A quarterly online journal that seeks to showcase prose poems and poetic prose, both from established and emerging voices.

Unbroken is a quarterly online journal that seeks to showcase prose poems and poetic prose, both from established and emerging voices. 

We desire to give the block, the paragraph, the unlineated prose, a new place to play.

prose poems

Prose poetry! Everyone loves it except those who hate it, and if that sounds like you then, hey—hey, what are you doing here? Go iambic pentameter yourself.

Lit Mags That Love Prose Poems

Publications with narratives under 1,000 words selected for this anthology series. These journals consistently identify short-short fiction, exemplifying the artistry possible in compact narratives.

Lit Mags Featured in Best Small Fictions Anthologies

Looking for balance between prestige and accessibility? These magazines are competitive but attainable for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction writers.

Literary Magazines in the Sweet Spot

Identifies publications that put forward outstanding online work for this respected digital anthology established in 2006.

Literary Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

These magazines have the fastest response times, so you won't be left hanging for months. No more endless waiting. Just, you know, regular waiting.

Literary Magazines with the Fastest Response Times

All-time most competitive literary magazines. Getting published in these is a significant achievement for any writer.

Most Competitive Literary Magazines of All Time

Discover the all-time most competitive poetry literary magazines. These legendary publications are where only the best poetry gets through.

Most Competitive Poetry-Only Literary Magazines of All Time

Explore the most popular literary magazines of all time. These long-established publications are a staple in the literary world for writers of all genres.

Most Popular Literary Magazines of All Time

Discover the all-time most popular poetry literary magazines. These outlets have maintained a significant presence in the world of poetry.

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Discover the all-time most submitted-to poetry literary magazines. These publications have consistently attracted a high volume of poetry submissions.

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Online journals that specifically champion poetry for Best of the Net consideration.

Poetry Magazines That Nominate for Best of the Net

Unbroken

General call

How to Submit
We publish twice a year--a February issue and an August issue. 
We accept submissions: 

  Nov 1 - Dec 15 for our February issue
  May 1 - Jun 15 for our August issue.

Send up to four poems or six pieces of visual work in one document. Submit once per reading period.
Double-check to make sure you cite your source text. Work that has no source text cited will not be considered. Your citation of sources should make it possible for us to find the original online or by visiting some place and looking it up. We'd also like to know your method for crafting your found writing. We consider your method a part of your work, so drop us a note about that, as well. This will be published along with your work.
Please include a brief, third person bio of no more than 50 words that will accompany your work. Please do not include live links in your bio.
What We Want
We’re looking for found writing that first of all adheres to The Center for Media and Social Impact’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry. This means you’ve found something within a source text that is a new work, not just borrowed the existing copyrighted material. Think of it like this: remember how when you were a kid you would look up at the sky and pick animals and characters and objects out of the clouds? You didn’t just see the cloud, you saw something new, something no one else had ever seen. That’s what we want. Your found writing should not look like its source text. Beyond that, we want work that shocks us, surprises us, moves us, makes us sigh. We also like it when your work comes from interesting or intriguing sources. And we’re not really into poems that rhyme. We also love visual art pieces. If you can incorporate found writing and art, we would love to see it.
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet wields his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn. ~ T. S. Eliot
We do not publish writing that is not found writing. We prefer previously unpublished work, but will consider reprints. Be sure to mention when you submit if your work is previously published. We do accept simultaneous submissions, just please let us know ASAP if the work is accepted elsewhere.
How to Submit
Cut and paste the content of your submission (up to 4 pieces) in the box provided. Or send up to four pieces in one document, with the author name in the document, as well as a title above each piece. Double-check to make sure you cite your source text.  (We would want to be able to FIND the source. But you don't have to do a line by line citations.) We’d also like to know your method for crafting your piece. 
For art subs, you'll attach files. JPG, GIF, PNG. Do not submit art in PDF form or embedded in Word documents. Please include a brief (35 words or so), third person bio that will accompany your work. Please do not include live links in your bio.
We cannot accept erasures or black-out poems submitted as text files (.doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt) with the erased or black-out text in the file. Please submit this kind of work as a good quality scan or a really good photograph.
More on visual projects. Which we welcome! When you submit, keep in mind there can be substantial problems presenting a scan or a photograph of physically-assembled pieces such as paper collages on computer screens, laptop screens, and particularly smartphones. As much as wish it weren't true, frankly, readers often view our issues on their phones. Be particularly attentive to text size. If it is small relative to the overall dimensions of your physical piece, we may reject it because we find it too difficult to read. Try to send scanned images rather than taking photos of your work.
Payment and Rights
We cannot offer payment to our poets at this time, but we will do our best to promote your work. Unlost acquires worldwide First Serial Electronic Rights and Nonexclusive Archival Electronic Rights, so that we may continue to archive your work. All submissions remain foremost the intellectual property of the author and rights revert to the author upon publication in Unlost. Any future publishers of works that first appear in this venue must credit Unlost for first publication.
Response Time
We aim to respond to submissions by 2 weeks after the close of a reading period. If it has been longer than two months, shoot us an email with “Query” in the subject line.

Unlost: Found Poetry & Art

Unbroken is a quarterly online journal that seeks to showcase prose poems, both from established and emerging voices. We desire to give the block, the paragraph, the unlineated prose, a new place to play. Or to crash on the couch for a while after breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend.
 

WHAT TO SUBMIT:
We seek prose poems. We do not publish lined poetry. Our strong preference is for a single block of text, maybe two, per piece. More than that, we start arguing about whether it's a prose poem! Don't make us argue. Some of our editors are already dangerous.

To get some idea of the kind of content we like, check out current and past issues. 

The editors of Unbroken seek prose poems that transcend the boundaries of conventional storytelling. Of course, we believe that submissions should be coherent and intelligible, but also that coherence can be achieved through style, tone, imagery, and even transgressive methods. Linear narratives with predictable situations and language will be discounted. We want prose that smolders in the ditch. We want it to cry. Maybe laugh at inappropriate times. We want it to knock on our doors in the middle of the night and demand to be let in, fed, given black coffee, and assured that life isn’t completely insane. We want prose poems that have been fired from multiple jobs and have gaps in their resumes that cause them to perspire in interviews. Poems that listened to “Venus in Furs” daily for the entire year of 1993. We want poems that are the perfect carrot cake at your aunt’s house. We want poems that need extensive dental work because of unfortunate incidents outside bars in Phoenix or Indianapolis or Mobile. Finally, we want submission guidelines that don’t read like Dale Wisely got his hands on them.

Unbroken

Highlights

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