Creating A Poetry Anthology


By Jeff McRitchie

Putting together a poetry anthology can be a rewarding experience. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you get started.

Pick a Theme:

If you make a trip to your bookstore, library or perhaps your own bookshelf, you will notice that for the most part, poetry anthologies are based around one theme or another. The theme can be anything really, including "best local poets under the age of 30," or "best cowboy poetry of the latter half of the 20th Century" or something of the sort. If you are going feature your own work, then of course, you yourself are the de facto theme. Go ahead and revel in that fact for while if you like. Yourself as theme. Think of all of the people who mocked you and your poetic endeavors in the past and smile the smile of the vindicated.

Collecting Material:

Let's assume for the purposes of this article, however, that your goal is to collect the work of other poets while you await your time and place in the sun. How best to get quality material?

There are a few different ways to do so, but in this article, we are going to make the unsafe assumption that most poets these days have computers and are hooked up to the internet. What you need to do then, is to find the places that they congregate. One great place to find potential submissions is to find and join online writers and poets forums. Here, you can introduce yourself and your project and guide potential contributors to a website that you have set up describing your proposed anthology in detail along with the theme, deadline, length of the work they should send, how you prefer to receive submissions, and how and if your contributors will be compensated. For the sake of your first anthology, you should probably request material that hasn't yet been published in order to prevent copyright hassles.

Another way to gain submissions might be to place some ads in poetry or writing publications, to place fliers up at local colleges, or to ask to speak to writing groups.

Reviewing Submissions:

For the most part, your poets will probably cooperate with your request that their work exist within the theme that you have proposed, as well as work that is just not up to snuff. Make sure that you compose and send gentle rejection slips to these poets, and thank them for their work.

Occasionally, you will also come up against work that is excellent but does not fir your theme. If that happens, contact the author and request some of his or her work that does perhaps better fit the theme, and perhaps even ask to keep the first right to publish the work in your next anthology.

Printing and Binding:

Printing should be black and white, high quality laser. As far as binding goes, there are numerous options depending on the scope of your project. Some of the best poetry anthologies out there are simply saddle stitched with a couple of staples in the middle, but if you are looking to add a little class to your book, there are some better options. One style that you might want to consider is double-o or twin loop wire binding. These can use quality hard covers, and add an element of elegance. Then there is also thermal binding which is what you would find in hardcover and softcover books. The machines that do these types of binding are inexpensive and easy to use, so if you are going to be doing a lot of publishing in the future, it would make a great deal of sense to have them on hand for savings and flexibility.

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