Pergola will accept submissions for the inaugural janet jai Visual Poetry Contest from February 25th to May 15th, 2026. This contest is made possible thanks to the janet jai Memorial Fund for Visual Poetry, funded by her husband, Richard Krepski. The winner will receive $500; an unpaid honorable mention will also be selected for publication.

 

The theme for this year's contest is unlikely connections. Maybe your flight was cancelled and you met the love of your life in the airport, or you had a life-changing conversation with a stranger in a bar. Maybe what you connected with isn't human at all. It could be another animal, an art piece, or a location. Send us great poems that embody serendipity (or zemblanity!)

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This contest is separate from Pergola's biannual spring and fall editions. The winning poems will be hosted exclusively on our website.

 

​Currently, we only accept submissions in English. We are a small staff taking our time with your work. Please wait at least 4 weeks before contacting us about the status of your submission.​

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We request first serial rights, after which all rights will revert back to the author or artist. Pergola accepts previously uncurated work that has not appeared in a literary magazine, journal, or anthology.

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AI-generated or assisted work is strictly prohibited; Pergola reserves the right to remove published work from our issues at any time if it is revealed to have involved any generative AI in the artistic process.

 

We are eager to publish work from demographics that remain underrepresented in the artistic and publishing communities and encourage submissions from all marginalized and de-centered creators, including but never limited to Black artists and other artists of color, LGBTQ+ artists, and disabled artists.