The Café Review welcomes book reviews of new poetry titles. We publish two to three reviews per issue, in the spirit of exploring new poetic works and engaging in curious, inspired, and discerning conversation about them. Please review the following guidelines.  Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be considered. 

• Reviews should be between 500-600 words.
• Titles under review may be written by either established or emerging authors.
• We invite both pitches and completed book reviews.
• Reviewed titles should be poetry volumes published within about the last year. We are also interested in reviews of hybrid or cross-genre works. We do not publish reviews of fiction or nonfiction.
• Reviewers should not have a close relationship with the author under review.
• We are open to and excited about creative or hybrid review forms.
• We recommend that reviewers peruse our current and past reviews for a sense of what we publish.
• We are always most excited by reviews written by reviewers whose excitement and curiosity are tangible forces in the writing.
• Reviewers are paid with two copies of TCR for their work.

Formatting Guidelines:

• Reviews should be formatted with single-spaced lines and paragraphs separated by a break, rather than an indent.
• At top of the review, please include the title, author, press, number of pages, hardcover/paperback, price, and ISBN, formatted like this:

Title, by Author. Press, year of publication, number of pages, price, ISBN

                  For example:

Eye, by Mike Bove. Spuyten Duyvel, 2023, 94 pages, paper, $17, ISBN 978-1-959556-80-0  

• Please include a brief bio at the bottom of your submitted review.

Please submit up to three unpublished poems in one file. Please do not submit work that has appeared on blog posts, personal websites, or social media. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged. Please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. Please include your name, contact information, and mailing address in the header of your document. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be read. The Café Review welcomes both new and established voices and has no limitations or preferences as to form or style. We publish the most exciting, impressive, and affecting poems that come to us. We do our best to notify you within six months, though response times will vary. Please allow one year before inquiring about the status of your submission. We value and respect the difficult work of writing vital, skillful poems and read every submission accordingly.