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What we're looking for
The ‘modern’ in the magazine’s title is in no sense restrictive: we want translations of any good poetry from anywhere in the world and from any age. We want a living connection with the past. It is as necessary that we deal with the foreign country of the past as it is that we deal with what is beyond our frontiers now. So we are looking for lively translations that work in the language of today.
Each issue of MPT has a particular theme. Altogether they make up our two chief concerns. First, to address such characteristic signs of our times as exile, the movement of peoples, the search for asylum, the speaking of languages outside their native home. Secondly, to widen and diversify the very idea of translation. So for example, past issues have been called ‘Diaspora’, ‘Palestine’, ‘Between the Languages’, ‘Transplants’ and ‘Polyphony’. We want translations, essays, reviews and occasional poems that address our particular topics. But also, in every issue, there is space for work that has no such particular reference but is compelling in its own right. In each issue of MPT the theme of the next is announced.
Before you send us your work, please browse the poems archive or browse issues, to find out which translated authors have recently featured in MPT and to see examples of work. The work you send in should not have been previously published elsewhere.
Deadlines
MPT is published twice a year. Submissions should arrive by 1st February for the Spring issue, and by 1st August for the Autumn issue.
Submission Guidelines
Before sending work please read our guidelines on How to Submit, and about Permissions, below.
The Next Issue
Parnassus
The next issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 No. 17) will be called ‘Parnassus’.
Publication Date: April 2012
Before you send work, please read our Guidelines on How to Submit, and about Permissions, below.
The next issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (Third Series, Number 17, Spring 2012) will be called ‘Parnassus’.
This issue will be largely given over to a collaboration with ‘Poetry Parnassus’ – the Southbank Centre’s celebration of the 2012 London Olympics. Poets from all 205 participating countries will be invited to London and MPT will be a place where some translations of their poems can be published. But, to enlarge our contribution, we want translated poems, brief essays, anecdotes and images concerned, in whatever fashion, with the Games (ancient or modern) or with Parnassus, home of the Muses. Parnassus was a sacred site for the whole Greek world; Delphi, below that mountain, was ‘the navel of the earth’; for the duration of the Olympics a truce was declared so that athletes could come and go safely. The modern Olympics are world–wide: we want MPT 3/17 to be just as extensive and various.
Submissions should be sent by 1 February 2012, please, in hard copy, with return postage, to The Editors, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Queen’s College, Oxford, OX1 4AW. Unless agreed in advance, submissions by email will not be accepted. Only very exceptionally will we consider work that has already been published elsewhere. Translators are themselves responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions. Contributors should be aware that work published in MPT may also appear on our website and as an e-book, and will be accessible to readers who have subscribed to the digital version of the magazine
How to submit
- Please send your work by post, in hard copy, to the submissions address.
- Work should be in a readable font, with your name, address and email clearly marked on each sheet of paper.
- Unless agreed in advance, submissions by email will not be accepted.
- If you want us to return your typescript you must include adequate postage.
- Remember submissions deadlines are 1st February for the Spring issue and 1st August for the Autumn issue.
Send to:
Submissions address:
- David and Helen Constantine
- The Editors
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- The Queens College
- Oxford
- OX1 4AW
- United Kingdom
Permissions
- The responsibility for clearing rights and permissions for translated works, and the payment of any related fees, lies with the translator.
- Please note that copyright law varies from country to country and that it can take time to clear permissions.
- Copyright for work appearing in MPT rests with the contributor and with MPT.
- Bear in mind, when seeking permissions, that work of yours, if published in MPT, will be accessible on-line to our digital subscribers, made available as an e-book, and it may also be selected to appear on our website. Permissions should cover electronic and print versions of the magazine, and digital reproduction.
Submissions Deadline for the next issue
1st February 2012
Interested in submitting a review for MPT?
Find out how to review a book for the magazine or send a Poetry Postcard.» Read the guidelines
