Readers, present and potential,

I’m pleased to announce that I will be the new poetry editor of Queen Mob’s Teahouse, taking over from Laura A. Warman. (Huge thanks to Laura, who, as QM’s first poetry editor, fully deserves her retirement gift of a glitter-covered teak hedgehog.)

And I’m especially pleased that our editors have looked within the ‘staff’ to fill this vacancy, rather than making a big-bucks offer to Geoffrey Hill or Louise Glück. I have been writing for QM since it started up last October, but I look forward to, as they say, ‘this new challenge.’ It’s like when Tottenham promoted Tim Sherwood from assistant manager to manager. And that worked out, sort of.

This announcement is also a call for submissions.

If you were already the sort of poet who wanted to submit to Queen Mob’s, that’s great! Your work is as welcome as it has ever been.

If you hadn’t thought about submitting to Queen Mob’s before, it’s probably time to consider it.

No editor’s tastes are infinitely broad, but I will do my best to remember that I am editing for a readership, not for myself. And, as an American who doesn’t live in the U.S., I consider it my responsibility to listen not just to American voices, but also to the sometimes-harder-to-hear voices of poets throughout the world who choose to write in English.

So I hope to hear from you, poets, wherever you are (and wherever you’re going).

Send me the sort of poetry that you like to write. The poems that I like are the ones that are most distinctively yours.

You can submit your work at: poetry [at] queenmobs [dot] com

I remain your friend,