Friday, September 5, 2008

Representation for poetry

I'm a 46-year-old poet living in hobart. I have had poems published since 1980 in numerous Australian, English and US literary magazines. I would like to find a lit agent covering this area (poetry) - do they exist and if so do they deal with emerging rather than established writers?

The bad news first: no agents accept poetry, that I know of. Mainly because very few publishers still publish poetry, so it's not a good business decision for an agent to take on a poet. Some agents' novel/non-fiction clients will write poetry and the agent will look after that, but I don't know of any who are looking for submissions of poetry.

The good news: the University of Queensland Press publishes poetry and, I believe, takes submissions. And if you see any other published volumes of Australian poetry, check who the publisher is and contact them.

1 comment:

Kate Eltham said...

For Queensland poets, I would also recommend the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize administered by Queensland Writers Centre each year. This is for an unpublished poetry manuscript and the prize includes both cash and a publishing contract with UQP.

To clarify, the poems themselves can be previously published, in fact it's probably better if they have been, but the manuscript would be unpublished as a poetry collection.

http://www.queenslandpoetryfestival.info/shapcott.htm

I'm sorry this does not assist the gentleman from Tasmania, but for any others reading this blog who may reside in Queensland it's a good prize to know about.

Best wishes
Kate Eltham
Queensland Writers Centre