Call for Poems
Spring 2026
Submission Period: February 1-March 15, 2026
Guest Editor: Sarah Sadie
We're living in a cultural moment filled with voices (human and other-than-human) that speak with confidence and presumed authority and give us answers. So many answers. All the answers we could ever need. In all this noise, our guest editor has become fascinated by the simple power of a question. Questions open us beyond what we think we know. Questions create a space for listening, for wondering, and for admitting the limitations of our own knowledge. Questions open us, in a way something similar to what poems can do.
For this issue, our guest editor is looking for poems that incorporate a question. It can be at the start, the end, or tucked into the middle. And of course there might be more than one question in there, too. A question can be mischievous, ponderous, angry, despairing or buoyant. A question can be rhetorical too but she’d prefer other flavors. Questions exist at the estuarial border between what we know and what we don't know. Let's find out where that is.
Bramble is open to poems in all styles & forms and seeks to celebrate Wisconsin poets & poetry, as part of the mission of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. For our purposes, this includes poets who live and write (a substantial portion of the year) in Wisconsin, as well as students studying in Wisconsin. If we cannot determine from your bio or mailing address whether or not this is you – we won’t be able to consider your submission.
Submission Guidelines
We welcome unsolicited submissions from Wisconsin poets* & WFOP members. Please send one submission of 1-3 poems (of any length and style) to bramble@wfop.org. Put your last name and "Bramble Submission" in the subject line. In the body of the email please include a cover letter with mailing address, poet pic, a 50 word bio, and your poems. Please do not submit poems as a separate attachment unless your poem requires special formatting (PDF preferred).
No previously published poems.
Please make only one submission to Bramble per issue.
If your work was accepted in the last issue of Bramble, we ask that you wait out an issue before you submit again.
Contributing authors and artists will receive one contributor's copy of the print issue.
If you are interested in providing original artwork for the cover, please query at bramble@wfop.org.
Rights revert to poets/contributors immediately after publication. If poems are reprinted later (in a collection or anthology), we appreciate an acknowledgement credit.
We publish twice a year — spring and fall.
Spring / Submission period: February 1-March 15 / Release Date: May 15
Fall / Submission period: August 1-September 15 / Release Date: November 15
About the Guest Editor
Sarah Sadie believes community needs creativity and creativity needs community, and we all need new stories. She’s a poet, writer, and creative visionary who lives on a continental divide in a small town in Wisconsin. Winner of the Lorine Niedecker Prize, the Posner Prize and a Pushcart Prize, and recently nominated for a Sunshine Blogger Award, she grows tomatoes in buckets and teaches and facilitates workshops and classes with the aim of helping creatives find their new stories and next steps. Online, she can be found holding An Inviting Space on Substack. https://aninvitingspace.substack.com Globally, she is a member of the International Listening Association, the Transformative Language Arts Network, and locally she’s attending graduate school to become a counselor and take her wordwork in new directions.
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WFOP is an inclusive and accommodating group. Benefits of membership are listed here. If you have any questions or concerns about membership please email our membership chair. Membership is calendar year-based from January to December. Join here.
