Presence is an annual international print poetry journal that publishes new poems and translations of poems, reviews of individual poetry collections, interviews with poets and essays on the life's work of significant poets. It is a venue for publication of poetry written by authors whose work is informed by the Catholic faith.
Presence is an independent 501(c)3 U. S. non-profit journal, affiliated with the Dept. of English, Caldwell University, Caldwell, New Jersey.
We have also formed institutional partnerships with The Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University Chicago; the Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University; and the Department of Catholic Studies, Duquesne University.
Poems are submitted using Submittable. However, we usually solicit all prose pieces. Queries regarding contributing book reviews, interviews and essays should be sent to the editor-in-chief, Mary Ann B. Miller, at mmiller@caldwell.edu.
Our submission period runs from August 1 - October 1 each year, with the annual issue appearing in April of the following year.
We publish poems on the basis of their artistic merit, rather than on the basis of the author’s professed creed or because the subject matter is explicitly Catholic.
The poems in this journal convey God’s presence in any number of ways—by exploring the intersection of matter and spirit, by depicting the struggle between belief and doubt, by questioning the faith, being surprised by it, taking joy in it, even finding humor in it.
We welcome poems from an ecumenical or interfaith perspective. We do not publish devotional/inspirational verse.
Poets are invited to submit up to 5 poems, each of which should be no more than 2 typed pages in length. Poems must be unpublished, neither in print, nor on the web, nor self-published. Prepare ONE Word document to upload, NOT a PDF. If possible, use Garamond font in 11-point size.
The first page of your Word file should be a cover letter that includes your mailing and emailing addresses, phone number, a brief explanation about why Presence is an appropriate venue for your work and a 50-75 word third-person bio for the appendix of the issue. The remaining pages of your file will contain your poems. Please start each poem on a new page. Be sure your name and email address appear at the top of every page of your file.
Please read our Mission Statement while deciding upon poems to submit. It can be found under the "About Us" tab at the top of the home page on our website: www.catholicpoetryjournal.com/mission.
We also suggest that you read the litany of kinds of poems we receive on the following page of our website: https://www.catholicpoetryjournal.com/the-curious-catholic-podcast
We are open to poems with a Catholic or ecumenical or interfaith perspective, but not to devotional or inspirational verse.
Our response time is within 4 months after the end of the submission period.
Previous contributors of poems to Presence should wait one full reading period after publication of their work before submitting to us again. If you did not contribute a poem to the last issue, but wrote a book review, interview or essay for it, you may submit poetry for this issue. If you contributed a translated poem to the last issue, you may submit new translations and/or your own poems this year.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted. However, in the meantime, if all of your poems are accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission from Submittable. If only a portion of your poems is accepted (2 out of 5 poems, for example), please leave us a "message" in your submission form in Submittable that explains which poems you need to withdraw.