Editorial Focus
The editors of Bear Review are open to a wide variety of poetry, by poets at various phases of development, and they read submissions 10 months of the year. They close regular submissions during November and December while receiving entries to their single-poem contest. The magazine publishes two issues a year: one in the fall and another in the spring.
Tips From the Editor
We’re big readers, so we admire pieces that make the old new. We also dig aesthetic competence and a poet’s understanding of how their piece is situated within or outside of genre and literary tradition. That said, we really do admire experimentation and blurred genres, so long as the writer brings the heat.
Our only criteria when reviewing poetry: your writing is alive on the page, is clear enough for the reader, has urgency or something at stake.