Urthona welcomes poetry submissions in English from anywhere in the world. Please send up to six pages of poetry. If you would like to show us more extended work, please email a query in the first instance. We prefer previously unpublished work but will look at reprinting poems if they have not previously appeared in outlets with a similar readership to Urthona’s. We will also look at extracts from longer pieces including collections. We certainly consider translations but otherwise all submissions must be original works of authorship.
Please email your poems on a single file as an attachment to the main Urthona email address (urthonamag[at]gmail.com) and include in the email your full contact details and a biographical paragraph of no more than forty words. This will be passed to the poetry editor. Please note that as Urthona is an annual magazine we have long lead times and you may not receive a reply for some months. However, in due course the poetry editor will write to you telling you if your work has been accepted or not. We are happy with simultaneous submissions but please tell us immediately if your poems have been accepted elsewhere, and in what outlet, and we may ask you to withdraw your submission from Urthona.
Other than for the above reasons, as a rule we do not enter into correspondence with poets about their submissions.
To see what kind of poems we publish, please look back at recent previous editions of the magazine. We do not insist that poems are overtly ‘Buddhist’ or even ‘spiritual’, although good poems that might fall under those headings are more than welcome. A poem that is heartfelt, powerful, incisive or arresting, and which has been written with attention, may in fact be far more in the true spirit of Buddhism than many a ‘Buddhist poem’. Poems which emerge from the real experience of trying to lead a seriously-considered life are welcome, but so are re-imaginings or adaptations from Buddhist history or mythology. The field is quite open. In terms of style, we are just as happy to receive formal as free verse, influenced by Eastern, Western or any other traditions. Please read more on our ‘About Urthona’ pages to get a feel for the magazine’s overall vision.
Urthona – Buddhism & art 