CATCHMENT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
TERMS & CONDITIONS: OVERALL SUGGESTIONS
Submissions for Edition 7 will be open between 21 September–21 November, 2026.
Our revised submission portal will remain open until 11.59 pm EAT on 21/11/2016.
The new process involved will require all contributors to start with a bio statement.
No longer than 50 words, this statement should follow other guidelines given below.
Still just a small team, we can only deal with contributions from Australian poets.
Poetry offered must be your own original writing, not plagiarised or generated by AI.
But work by other writers may be used as inspiration, as long as you credit sources.
Contributions here can’t be under consideration elsewhere or published previously.
As soon as possible after submissions close, advice will be given on acceptances.
Work selected by us should not be shared on social media prior to our release date.
Holding copyright, poets will be free to re-publish later, if acknowledging Catchment.
We may use work we publish again afterwards too, e.g. in Arts Alliance newsletters.
Please take note of dot-point summaries of guidelines alongside submission boxes.
Both longer poems & tanka about locations can be submitted at one time, in English.
A brief note might be included with poems in either style to give a sense of locality.
The name by which a spot is known could be built into a longer piece or a tanka too.
Poetry need not identify a place as such – it may explore locations outside Australia.
Brief notes can define vocabulary/ translate terms/ recognise influences or contexts.
You may ask for text to be shaped (e.g. symmetrically/ with larger gaps inside a line).
Requests about layout/ formatting must appear in clear notes in the same text box.
If asking for such, remember that our digital set-up removes programming in Word.
So you need to state it plainly, in a note, if you want (say) italics at the end of line 3.
If all you tell us is ‘I’d like it set out like this,’ we simply can’t see what that shape is.
Efforts will be made to meet such requests, if practicable, given restraints we face.
Yet notes should not explain the message in a poem: let meaning speak for itself…
Place may be explored differently: scenic beauty; emotive memory; personal status.
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS
Our submissions process now requires all poets to enter a bio statement, first off.
Start with your full name (e.g. Ann Bell), using the 3rd person (she/ he/ they; not I).
In 50 words or less, then give details about achievements in writing/ publications.
Since we focus on poetry of place, writers should offer a sense of their own location.
Contributors are likewise encouraged to acknowledge traditional owners of country.
Bio statements may well include a sense of your working life/ other involvements.
LONGER POETRY
For Issue 7, three (3) longer poems can still be offered, each in a different text box.
Please make all your submissions for this edition at one time (including tanka also).
Any single longer contribution should not be greater than thirty (30) lines in length.
There is no minimum size – ‘longer’ work could still be brief (yet not be haiku/ tanka).
All poems here need to operate in a stand-alone way, but can have multiple parts.
A maximum of two (2) lengthier pieces will be selected per contributor per edition.
Titles are essential with all longer work: these won’t be considered in the line-count.
Writers’ names & titles given in submission boxes will appear above poems chosen.
So please copy only the wording of poems themselves into text boxes (plus notes).
Dedications may be added below the title, not being considered among the 30 lines.
Spaces left blank below titles/ between stanzas/ sections likewise won’t be counted.
Valuing variety/ experiment, we’re drawn to poetry of place with a modern approach.
Along with free verse, we accept poems couched in traditional Western sub-genres.
Rhyming needs to be integral to the verse-form used and/ or be well handled in itself.
Dismayed by doggerel, we will pass up on work equivalent to greeting-card rhymes.
Opportunities still exist elsewhere for narrative verse with heavier rhymings/ rhythms.
While bush ballads show a sense of place, please do not send us work in this form.
We cannot accept haibun either, as if it is longer poetry: rather, it is prose with haiku.
Most of all, remember that our main focus is on poetry which brings a location to life.
TANKA
All tanka offered in one submission must be copied into the single text box provided.
For this 7th edition, tanka poets may contribute in one (1) of three (3) ways: by either
a) Submittting up to (5) stand-alone tanka, each a standard five (5) lines in length; or
b) Offering a set/ string of four (4) tanka, all inter-related/ sequential; or (as a first)
c) Sending one (1) or two (2) pair/s of poems, as tanka-doha, each ‘duo’ interrelated.
Maybe you will have seen such pairings being called ‘tanka doubles’ or ‘tanka twins’.
As doha, the two poems should show connections to each other, yet differences too.
Such a pair of linked pieces must come from one poet; not two writers collaborating.
Contributors interested in pursuing this twin-tanka option are commended to read:
[Jo McInerney, Catchment Views, 21/6/26]
A maximum of four (4) tanka will be chosen (whether stand-alone/ a string/ 2 doha).
In doha/ strings, aim at poems that resonate on their own as well as with each other.
Stand-alone tanka & doha should not have titles, but all sequences need a heading.
A sub-title can then be added, stating it’s a string; even giving a sense of place also.
Work offered should match with approaches used widely in English Language tanka.
We encourage contributors new to tanka to read work by experienced practitioners.
Looking at earlier editions of Catchment or Eucalypt: a tanka journal may be helpful.
Western poetic strategies like explicit similes/ full rhyming should not be employed.
We feel a shorter-longer-shorter-longer-longer shape in line-length can be beneficial.
Poets need NOT adopt a strict 5-7-5-7-7 syllabic count: no extras as ‘fillers’ please.
Less is best: with Japanese forms, readers have been seen as completing the poem.
Showing a lightness of touch will be valuable; using understatement; leaving space…
Tanka can be written as one sentence: for us, having two parts tends to work better.
Breaks may be implied or be shown by a dash/ ellipsis after any of the first four lines.
In structural terms, we might not love em dashes/ other punctuated shifts in mid-line.
Tanka built on a range of full verbs or a list of unconnected images may not succeed.
If used at all, a full verb could appear in one part, with a participle (…ing) in the other.
A break might offer a link-and-shift (e.g. bridging the natural world & human nature).
Letting readers wonder, shifts may show feeling/ similarity/ difference/ juxtaposition.
We admire tanka built on reaction: emotions bringing tears; ironies prompting smiles.
It can help to recall how tanka are little songs by tradition, revered as shows of heart.
Writing tanka that appeal to the senses may well add to a sense of place for readers.
Rodney Williams
Editor