What, how and when to submit to the IIML’s annual online poetry showcase Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems.
Submissions for Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems 2021 open on 1 January and close on 13 December 2021.
What to submit
- Only poems or books of poems by New Zealanders published within the calendar year of the current collection are eligible for consideration. (Unpublished poems may be submitted to our other annual online collection, Turbine | Kapohau. )
- Poems or collections published in print or in online journals, and in local or international publications, are eligible provided the publication date falls within the calendar year.
- Blogs will generally not be eligible publication sources.
- Publishers may submit books, magazines, journals or links to online journals that meet these criteria.
- Individual poets may also submit published poems or books directly.
- Please note the specific guidelines about electronic submissions under ‘How to Submit’ below.
When to submit
You may send submissions for Ōrongohau | BNZP 2021 at any time during the 2021 calendar year, provided they reach the IIML by 13 December 2021.
How to submit
This is because our guest editors generally prefer to read on paper, and the volume of submissions we receive makes it impractical to print out many large documents.
If you are unable to provide a copy of a book or journal, you are welcome to send us a printed copy of the manuscript instead.
Postal submissions should be directed to:
Ōrongohau | BNZP editor
c/o International Institute of Modern Letters
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington 6140
New Zealand
Individual poems or a small selection of poems (less than five poems or ten pages) may be submitted electronically, preferably as attachments, to: bestnzpoems@vuw.ac.nz.
- Please put ‘Ōrongohau |BNZP submission’ and your name in the subject line.
- Selections of poems should be submitted as a single document with the poet’s name in the title and page breaks between each poem.
- Include your name and contact email on each page of your submission.
- Mac users sending MS Word attachments should save them first in Rich Text Format and add a “.rtf” suffix to each filename. Alternatively you may submit in pdf format.
- We do not accept whole manuscripts in electronic form. Submissions of e-book-only publications can be made in the form of a printed pdf copy, with a link to the publication site.
Whether posting or emailing, please include the following information with each individual submission:
- The place and date of publication of each poem submitted (including URL if relevant).
- Your name, email and the poem title on each page you submit.
- an email address for acknowledgement of receipt and any further communication.
- If submitting a journal, anthology or collected work for consideration, it would be very helpful if you could note whether all poems included are eligible, or specify which poems are / are not eligible.
What happens after you submit
- Receipt of email submissions will be acknowledged with an automated reply. If you have asked a question, or if we need to check anything or ask for more details, we will follow up with you as soon as possible. Otherwise your submission will be forwarded to our guest editor.
- Postal submissions will be acknowledged if an email address is included with the submission.
- Authors of selected poems will be contacted by February of the following year. For all accepted material, copyright remains with the author (or in some instances the original publisher) upon publication. Due to the volume of submissions, we are unable to contact individual poets and publishers to advise if work has not been selected.
- The editors are unable to engage in correspondence regarding individual submissions.
The new collection is launched in late March or early April each year.
