📣 OPEN CALL: d̶e̶centering men ft. Zahra Mayeesha 🤼♂️
SEND US YOUR WORK! GET PUBLISHED
Hello! Happy(?) 2026! We took a while to come back because we wanted to come back with a vengeance (because there is so much to be vengeful of right now gestures at the news). Resistance is never futile, so we are starting out this new cycle by asking for your voice, your words, your feelings via an open call collaboration extravaganza...
Poetry Trapper Keeper opens submissions for upcoming issue d̶e̶centering men, guest edited by Zahra Mayeesha (PRISM international, Small World City).
Yesterday, my friend shared a Facebook post describing the modern dating pool for straight women: a list that sounds like an obstacle course. Almost a decade after the #MeToo movement, and two decades after activist Tarana Burke first coined the call to action, the cultural aftershocks seem to have resulted in the rise of the manosphere, their pet project “male loneliness epidemic” and a new generation of proudly misogynist men. And reactions to this return to conservative gender normativity have been met with even more irritation and disdain.
Enough of feminism and misandry, we’re told. Today, we need to think about the pitiful cishet men and their gender troubles…
So let’s indulge them. What do your lives look like today in this obstacle course? Your loneliness and your relationships, romantic/familial/platonic or otherwise? Your fears and your hurts? Your loves and your hopes?
We want your jokes, your theories, your emotional honesty. Show us your imperfect attempts to decenter men.
We’re curious about your world’s reaction to this epidemic, the people having to deal with the consequences of male loneliness, the experiences around their void. Send us your poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and comics that explain/fantasize/demand/wonder/yell/whisper your non-men-men-centred reality.
Submission Guidelines
Poetry Trapper Keeper will be open for submissions from March 8th - May 8th, 2026 (or, until we hit our reading cap).
We are only accepting submissions through our submission platform. Email submissions will not be read.
We want previously unpublished, original work. No AI-generated material, thank you next. Our definition of published is if it has been previously selected by an editor and/or coven of tastemakers. If you’ve published your poem on your blog, social media, or whispered it to your crush on a whim, we consider that unpublished work, so feel free to send it our way (maybe tell us where you’ve shared it before so we get the vibe).
Submissions can be simultaneous as long as you disclose.
Submissions must be primarily in English, but can have non-English languages in text with or without translation.
Multiple submissions by the same author(s) in different categories is okay, but not in the same category; we will only consider your first submission in the each category.
Collaborative work is cool, just let us know if it’s from more than one person we should credit. Collaborations with AI do not count as collaborations. Put your chatbot away! Hold hands with a human!
Submission Categories:
Poetry
One poem, 1-3 pages only.
Work with experimental/hard to replicate formatting is welcome but will be considered only if we can come up with a publishing plan with the poet!
Fiction & Nonfiction
Preferred length is 1000-2000 words. Submissions that are 2000-3000 words will be read but will only be published if exceptional.
Submissions beyond 3000 will not be read.
Comics
Preferred length is 1-5 pages.
Color ok! Though keep in mind depending on final publication format we might not be able to replicate full color work.
What else do I need to know?
This issue will be accepting anonymous submissions.
To ensure fairness in the selection process, please do not include your name in your submission (this includes in the FILE NAME!!!).
Please save your submissions as CATEGORY_TITLE.
You should include the name you’d like to be published under in your cover letter!
Selected work will be published digitally on PoetryTrapperKeeper.com. Once selected will work with you to ensure the work goes out in a way which feels right to you.
If you’ve never been published before, that’s totally fine! We do not take publication history into account when selecting work.
We would love to publish a one-off physical issue. This is yet to be confirmed. If selected we will contact you with options and you will have a right to an opinion on any future printing (though we will use a majority vote and analysis of viability as an ultimate deciding factor).
If you get selected for publication on PTK, we won’t “own” the first rights to your work (like most publications do). We don’t believe in owning anyone’s creative work for any amount of time. This means if your same piece gets republished elsewhere in the future, we don’t require you to credit us as the original publisher. You can if you want to, & we would love you for it, but you do you.
Either way, all copy and publication rights of the work will remain yours.
If you have questions you may DM us on IG or email poetrytrapperkeeper@gmail.com; however, due to time constraints we may not answer you in time. Please submit anyway! If your submission needs to change based on our own late answer we might allow you to resubmit.
Submissions that don’t follow these guidelines won’t be read or responded to (sorry).
If accepted online publication is guaranteed on the PTK newsletter and social media channels. Possibility of print publication to be discussed further down the line.
Please note that we can’t currently offer payment for publication, though published pieces will be posted and celebrated on our website and socials. this is currently a passion project run by grad students, so we encourage that submissions be passion projects too — works that you’d just like to see out in the world.
We do accept tips, which are separate from, and not related to the status of, submissions. Suggested tips are 3-5$ and can be sent to:
https://www.paypal.me/angelbabysoph
pls add a little note that it’s for PTK.
This is greatly appreciated to help us maintain the website overhead (approximately $350CAD/year), tipping is not mandatory and will have no impact on our selection process. No one will be turned away from lack of funds.
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This is so exciting! Tune in next week for an interview with Zahra, tips on getting published, and a behind the scenes glimpse at a spelling conundrum… until then!
xoxo, Larissa, Sophie, & Zahra