Submissions
The Reading Period Is Closed
What We Are Looking For
Poetry drawn toward the strange and the unseen.
The Mourning Lamp publishes poetry drawn toward the Gothic, eerie, melancholic, supernatural, macabre, strange, haunting, and quietly unsettling.
For The Unquiet House, we were especially interested in places, memories, people, or presences that refuse to remain quiet.
We value atmosphere over spectacle and emotional resonance over shock. Dark subject matter is welcome, but we do not accept work containing profanity, sexually explicit material, or graphic or explicit violence.
Issue No. I
The Unquiet House
A childhood room. An empty chair. A hallway remembered differently after dark. A house that carries the voices of people who no longer live there.
Sometimes the places that haunt us are physical. Sometimes they exist only in memory. And sometimes we are not entirely certain where one ends and the other begins.
The Essentials
Submission Requirements
- Writers must be at least 18 years old.
- Submit 1 to 3 poems.
- Each poem may be no more than 50 lines.
- One submission per writer for each issue.
- English-language submissions only at this time.
- Work must be previously unpublished.
- Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Please notify us promptly if a poem is accepted elsewhere.
Manuscripts
Keep the poem at the center.
You may upload either one combined manuscript containing all of your poems or a separate file for each poem.
Accepted file formats are PDF and DOCX, with a maximum size of 10 MB per file.
You will enter each poem title separately on the submission form.
Preserve Blind Review
Remove your name, email address, pen name, biography, social-media handles, and other identifying information from every manuscript file before uploading.
Human-Created Work
A note about artificial intelligence.
Submitted poetry must be substantially human-created. AI-generated poetry is not eligible for publication in The Mourning Lamp.
Ordinary spelling, grammar, formatting, and proofreading tools are permitted.
Contributor Payment
No fee to submit.
Writers whose work is selected for publication receive $10 for each accepted poem and a complimentary digital copy of the issue.
Rights
Your work remains yours.
Copyright remains with the author. Accepted contributors will receive a separate contributor agreement describing the rights granted to The Mourning Lamp for publication.
Future Submissions
Another reading period will come.
These guidelines describe our current editorial expectations and will remain here between reading periods. Details for the next issue, including its theme and submission dates, will be announced before submissions reopen.
Issue No. I submissions closed September 30, 2026.