How to Submit Ghazals

Basic Considerations

Here are the guidelines for submitting poems to The Ghazal Page. In general, I welcome a wide variety of themes and of approaches to the ghazal as an English form. I may sometimes publish a translation, but I don't publish in languages other than English.

Submissions to The Ghazal Page may be sent at any time. (See below for preferred formats.) The editor will review submissions as they arrive. An issue will be published when there are enough accepted ghazals, usually from 4 to 8 poems. Thus, there will be no fixed schedule for issues. Instead, issues will appear irregularly as there are sufficient poems.

Challenges will continue with fixed closing dates.

Please do not submit poems that have previously appeared on the Web either on your personal site or another Web 'zine. Poems published in hard-copy may be used, depending on the specifics of their publication. Let me know in your email if the ghazal has been published before.

With your submission, please include a statement to the effect that the poems are your original work, not currently submitted elsewhere, and that you're submitting them for possible publication in The Ghazal Page.

Only email submissions will be considered.

Details of Format

Plain text email is much preferable to formatted (RTF or HTML or "smart quotes") messages. You should be able to select plain text in your mail client. If you attach poems, plain text is ideal for that as well. You may find it called "text only" or "ASCII text." If you send poems that are formatted, I will have to remove those markings and replace them with the tags and style sheets that Web browsers can read. It is better for you to send plain text and explain any formatting you want in your email. Formatted email can lead to mistakes in the poem as it appears on the Web.

• Submit ghazals in the body of a plain text email. Why? Plain text isn't formatted; if you send poems that are formatted, I have to remove all the formatting marks and add the ones HTML requires.


• You may tell me in your email if your ghazal requires special formating (boldface, italics, etc), attach a document file with the formating as you want it. (I should be able to open almost any document format. but prefer RTF (rish text).


• Please do not try to help by tagging your ghazal for HTML. I'm moving toward complete compliance with HTML 5 standards, including CSS. Inevitably, I would need to make changes. Using HTML editors will not help; most of them create unusable files.


• I always post proof copies of an issue before publishing it. You can see what your ghazal looks like before the issue is published. I will work with you to get it as close to the way you want it as HTML and CSS allow.

I look forward to an increasing flow of increasingly good ghazals. If you send me a good ghazal, I will figure out how to publish it as you want it to appear.

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