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This month’s newsletter is very poetry-forward: we’ve got our Best New Poets nominees, plus a feature from OKD Poetry Reader Nellie Vinograd with tips to make your poetry submission to Okay Donkey stand out (though some of these tips may extend to other types of writing!). And then there are our usuals — a recap of what we published last month, plus some can’t-miss promos from our alums and staff.

Thanks so much for being here!

🫏 OKD Updates

Our nominees for the 2025 Best New Poets anthology are in! Congratulations to Erinola E. Daranijo for “this because dog is god spelled backwards” and Katherine Schmidt for “Magazine City.”

🌟 Making Your Poetry Submission Shine

by Nellie Vinograd, OKD Poetry Reader

Hi! I’m an OKD poetry reader and a working writer myself. In this segment, I’m sharing some friendly advice based on what I’ve observed in our submissions inbox.

I see a lot of poems that have strong elements — memorable images, creative use of form, standout lines — but that for one reason or the other don’t get picked for publication. Below are some revision ideas for how to give your draft a little more sparkle (even if you’re going for more of a matte black thing).

• Push your endings: When I’m writing, I often reach what I’ll call a “false finish.” I’ve completed my thought or found that perfect, pithy line that feels like the satisfying flourish the poem needed to be complete. But I’ll return to it later and realize the whole poem is still undercooked. So, I caution you against falling for the false finish. If you think you’re done, keep putting words to the page and see where you end up. Play around: flip the poem upside down, or scramble it entirely and see if the final line is elsewhere. Dig until your hit rock — then get a pickaxe.

• Trim the phlegm: Have you heard of “throat clearing”? Learning to clear it out has been some of the simplest but most effective writing advice I’ve received. Many times early drafts will have this false start, a sort of preamble or warm-up that was helpful for getting your ideas down but is no longer serving the poem. You might find you can entirely cut that opening line or first stanza and the poem still stands. This is poetry, after all, so this isn’t to say your writing needs to be perfectly efficient and economical, but removing the warm-up and instead jumping right into the action might re-energize the piece.

• Find the “mot juste”: The French term “mot juste” means the exact, perfect word. I think of the term as a challenge, to make sure each word I place on the page is there with clear intention — that it needs (demands?) to be there. With this advice, I am not suggesting you must attack your poem with a thesaurus: “the venerated pensioner cackled” is not always better than “the old man laughed.” But you might use the concept as a lens when reviewing your drafts — where can you play with and push your word choices? Perhaps a poetry game like N+7 or methods like bibliomancy can help you discover some left-field choices — you might be surprised by how well they work.

📚 April at OKD

• “Rules for New Girls,” flash fiction by Leslie Pietrzyk

• “The Signs,” poetry by Gabe Montesanti

• “Y2K,” flash fiction by Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez

• “Emily Jarred,” poetry by Toni Leonetti

🔎 Check Us Out

We love when past contributors keep us updated on their lives! If your work has ever appeared in OKD, reach out and tell us about your new book, project, album, etc. We’ll give you a shoutout on our socials and here in the newsletter.

• Mac Crane’s book A Sharp Endless Need is out May 13. (OKD: “No One Holds a Grudge Like a Crow,” Aug. 2018) (OKD Social Media Manager/Fiction Reader Christine Salek reviewed A Sharp Endless Need in February!)

• Chrissy Stegman’s book of prose poetry Somewhere, Someone Is Forgetting You is out May 20. (OKD: “Breaking News: Barbie Eats Trump During Baltimore Pride Fest,” March 2025)

• OKD Social Media Manager/Fiction Reader Christine Salek (“Heart”) and Poetry Reader Zoe Reay-Ellers (“Sex Ghazal”) have pieces in Issue 3 of GARLAND.

• OKD Poetry & Fiction Reader Jessica Heron is the 2025 Chestnut Review Riga Retreat Scholarship winner.

Get in touch: Submissions • Twitter • Bluesky • Instagram