Transom is currently open for unsolicited submissions ONLY for translation features or for our themed issue, T7.

For this issue, we are looking for poems that are in dialogue with Petrarch's Rime 190 ("Una candida cerva") and its most famous English "translation," Wyatt's "Whoso List to Hunt."

Why these particular poems? Here are some of our reasons:
1. Petrarch perfected (as much as one can "perfect") the form that was to become one of the backbones of English poetry. So, we're interested in poems that are formally conscious.

2. Wyatt's famous appropriation of it is a brilliant poem in its own right, though not a great translation. Even saying that, though, makes us wonder by what standards we're evaluating it as a translation. So, we're interested in translations that veer toward adaptations, bastardizations, appropriations.

3. Petrarch's poem hits on some of the big themes: idealized love, lust, beauty, nature, slapstick falling in rivers. But he hits them smartly, and Wyatt's version complicates each of those in unexpected ways. So, we're interested in poems that speak to some of these concerns, particularly to the complication of them.

4. Both poems are thoroughly badass. So, show us your best work!
We're open to innovative translations of Petrarch's poem, original work that engages with the Petrarch/Wyatt tradition, or anything else you can justify with the phrase "in dialogue with."

We encourage you to read Transom to get a sense of what we publish before submitting.

Please send us a Word or Word-compatible document of 1-5 poems, with a cover letter via our online submission manager. If you are submitting to our special feature, please mention in your cover letter how your submission is in dialogue with Petrarch/Wyatt.

If you are submitting work in translation, please include the original text as well. The translator is responsible for obtaining the permission(s) of the copyright-holder(s) to reprint the original texts.

Simultaneous submissions are fine; just let us know if your poems are no longer available. Previously published poems are great for you, but not for us.