Submissions are now closed!
Transform ordinary moments into meaningful insight
Balance simplicity with depth
Honor local landscapes, plants, waterways, and communities with specificity.
Employ a conversational, intimate, or prayer-like tone when appropriate
Explore personal histories that illuminate shared experience
Engage contemporary issues, including food systems, labor, war, or environmental change – through lived experience rather than argument
Leave room for mystery, ambiguity, and discovery.
Editorial considerations:
1. Did this poem move me?
2. Did you believe it?
3. Did anything surprise me?
4. Is every word necessary?
5. Are the line breaks and stanzas doing meaningful work?
6. Does the language feel earned rather than ornamental/descriptive only?
7. Does the poem honor its people and place without reducing them to simplistic symbols?
8. Would I remember this poem a week from now?
9. Does this poem contribute something distinctive to the conversation about NA?
Initial Submission Evaluation looks like:
Accept
Accept with Minor Revisions
Hold for Editorial Discussion
Decline
The poem moves the reader in a genuine, memorable way.
It evokes authentic feelings without sentimentality.
It “touches” through honesty rather than manipulation.
The content and the speaker “ring true,” authentic.
Significant human questions without easy conclusions
The “big questions” are suggested, approached, or addressed without reducing complexity (identity, belonging, labor, ecology, food, family, memory, justice, mortality, without preaching)
Authentic relationship with Northern Appalachia landscape, history, culture, labor, ecology.
Complexity and respect for place and people, history and daily life.
Place feels lived, not decorative
Avoids stereotypes or caricatures
Communicates a regional imagination
Choices in rhythm and structure are intentional.
Precision in language. Every word is necessary.
Line breaks and stanza divisions enhance and carry meaning.
Distinctive and inviting, conversational voice.
Straightforwardness and simplicity serve depth of feeling and inquiry