» Sign up for the MPT eNewsletterSubmit to MPT
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
Transitions
The next issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (Series 3 Number 18) will be called ‘Transitions’.
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 18, Autumn 2012) will be called ‘Transitions’.
The present issue, ‘Parnassus’, is the last under our sole editorship. The next issue, ‘Transitions’, will be jointly edited by us and whoever succeeds us. So in that obvious sense the autumn issue will be transitional. But we are looking for contributions which will address the whole concept of transition in as many ways as possible. First, perhaps, as it might be applied to the theory and practice of translation itself, the going across from one language and from one text to another, from native to foreign, to and fro. Some translators actually strive to make their translation a thing in transition, partaking of both worlds and hovering between the foreign and the native. Many feel translations to be always ‘transitional’, since most (unlike the texts being translated) date quickly, and have to be done again for new readers coming along in successive generations. More widely: if, as Heraclitus thought, ‘eveything moves and flows’, no writing true to life can desire fixity, let alone achieve it; and some poets have made a virtue of the fact that everything is in flux. We invite translated poems, short essays, anecdotes, that will address the idea of transition. Perhaps the translations themselves will be the demonstration, the process. This volume will celebrate movement, flux, change, the eternal (and hopeful) possibility of moving on out of forms and ways of thinking that have lost their liberating and enlivening force, and into new ones, that will work. By its very diversity MPT always has acted against set minds. We want ‘Transitions’ to be proof and promise that we always shall.
Submissions should be sent by 15 August 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 and, if required, paying for any necessary permissions. If the original work is still in copyright non-exclusive worldwide rights should be obtained for print and digital publication of the translation. Contributors should be aware that work published in MPT may also appear on our website and as an ebook, and will be accessible to readers who have subscribed to the digital version of the magazine. Permissions should cover this.
David and Helen Constantine
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.
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
