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confluence is a venue for emerging and innovative Japanese short-form poets to showcase a representative sample of their work and receive readership and recognition. We will feature between 1 to 2 poet Fellows per issue, and publish no fewer than 15 poems per Fellow so that the poet’s distinctive voice can be appreciated. Please note that for the 2025-26 Fellowship cycle, we are newly inviting submissions of tanka, in addition to haiku.

The Fellows form a vital, global community of poets who collaborate and engage deeply with one another’s work. Unlike other journals where you submit work, get published, and are done, with confluence each Fellow is invited and expected to participate actively in the community during the Fellowship year (September 2025 - July 2026). Upon completing the Fellowship year, poets become Senior Fellows who may remain an integral part of the community, including by participating in collaborative writing events, nominating new Fellows, joining the editorial team, and more.

We are open for submissions from July 15 to August 20, 2025, and will make final decisions by September 30. Fellows will be featured in monthly, online issues throughout the Fellowship year; we may also publish your work in social media, a future anthology, and other ways. 

Innovation

The journal intends to publish outstanding work that innovates the substance and form of haiku or tanka. Examples of innovation include:

• Themes underrepresented in the current literature, including underrepresented places, cultures, traditions, and perspectives
• Poetry as a vehicle for personal and societal transformation, such as for personal healing, social justice, and understanding the interdependence of all things
• Use of underrepresented dialects (e.g., African American English, Southern, Gen Z slang)
• Use of poetic devices in fresh ways
• Development of new formal techniques (akin to rengay, split sequences, cherita, or blending haiku, tanka, and free-verse poetry)
• Poetry especially intended to connect with new readers and writers, outside the existing niche of haiku and tanka poets

Community

Upon selection, each Fellow is invited and expected to participate actively in the community during the Fellowship year (September 2025 - July 2026) in the following ways: 

• Read all of the other Fellows’ work. You will receive a pre-publication version.
• Write three brief commentaries (200 - 300 words each) on the work of another Fellow. Commentaries should appreciate, critique, and highlight what you find special about the work. We may publish your commentary as part of the issue featuring the other Fellow.
• Write two or more collaborative works on a theme.
• Participate in the virtual Fellowship Reading to be scheduled in summer 2026, where you’ll have the opportunity to read your work to a public audience.
• Contribute to the growth of the community by nominating future Fellows, spreading the word about the publication, and more.  

Over the course of the Fellowship year, we anticipate these activities will take about 15-25 hours. That is a significant time commitment; if that’s not for you, that’s ok—there are a wealth of more traditional journals. But we think intentionally cultivating community around our poetry practice is important and joyful, and we want the journal to be a place where that happens in creative ways. We hope you’ll find these opportunities as exciting as we do.  

Submission Guidelines

Your submission must include:

• A brief cover message explaining why you want to become a Fellow. Please address how your work innovates the substance and form of haiku, tanka, or other Japanese short-form poetry. Please also share your interest in the Fellowship community.
• A substantial body of work, between 15-25 pieces of haiku or tanka. You may submit all haiku, all tanka, or a combination of the two (with 15-25 pieces total). You may also optionally submit up to 3 pieces in related forms such as haibun, tanka prose, haiga, tanka art, tan renga, sequences, split sequences, rengay, renku, or cherita.
  • Haiku may include traditional three-line haiku, monoku, and senryu. Tanka may include traditional five-line waka, tanka, and kyōka. Haiku and tanka may also include any other work that is recognizably haiku or tanka, or derives organically from the traditions of haiku or tanka in English, Japanese, or other languages. These include more experimental work such as gendai haiku, surreal haiku, one-line tanka, etc.
  • You may include work that has been previously published; such work should be accompanied by the place of first publication. You may also include work originally written in a language other than English; in that case, please include both the original and English translation, and credit the translator.
  • Arrange your work in the order in which you would like them to appear in the journal. Please submit your best work. The editors may publish your work as is, or we may edit the selection (subject to final approval by you); in all cases, if selected, we would publish at least 15 of your haiku or tanka in a single issue.
• Submit a short biography (up to 200 words) and a short essay on your philosophy of poetry (up to 400 words), focusing on Japanese short forms like haiku or tanka. Your essay may discuss what you think makes a good poem, or what poetry has to offer to the world, or why you write poetry, or any other topic(s) reflecting your poetic philosophy. 
• Submit a headshot or other photograph representing you, that is at least 800x800 pixels large, and if possible in a square format (otherwise we may crop it for you). 
• Confirm that you have read this entire page and commit to participating in the Fellowship community if selected.
• You retain the copyright to your work. By submitting, you confer on the journal and the editors a perpetual, non-exclusive license to publish your work on our website and social media and in any other form, such as a possible future anthology. At this time, we are not a paying market.

If you have any questions, please email us at editor [at] confluencehaiku [dot] com.