We are looking for short poems that maybe capture a moment, maybe pack a punch, but certainly have intention. Poetry of real politik, poetry of hope, poetry of sadness.

1. Poets can submit up to two poems per entry

2. Poems can be up to ten lines, not including title and line breaks.

3. The submission fee shall be $7 and submission must be made through submittable.com; the submission window opens 31st October 2023, and closes 31 December 2023

4. Poets submitting work declare that the work they are submitting is solely their own and for which they own copyright.

5. Authors are responsible for informing Willowdown Books of any licenses or conditions they may have assigned to third parties; any dispute that may arise is solely a matter for the author and the third party.

6. All entries should comply with discrimination laws of the USA and UK - if you are unaware of what this means, please use your common sense - do not discriminate on the grounds of race, gender, religion, etc, or submit inflammatory or inciteful (as legally understood) entries.

7. The editor’s decision on acceptance is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the entry.

8. Up to 20 poems will be published on-line, with 3 appearing on the front page of the willowdownbooks website for up to six months.

9. Willowdownbooks reserves the write to publish a paperback anthology of the selected work in 2024

10. There will be no refund of the submission fee once entries have been submitted.

11. Copyright of each individual poems remains with the poet; copyright of the anthology as a whole remains with Willowdown Books. Our copyright notice is set out below and only entries agreeing to this will be accepted:

Should my poem(s) be selected, I, as author of the work, agree to give Willowdown Books permission to publish my poem(s) within the anthology known as THE PEACESHUFFULE, in any media, and to use my name and poem in any marketing or promotional activity which pertains to the marketing and promotion of said anthology. Willowdown Books agree that they cannot print or use any other media to publish any poem from the anthology individually, except with the express permission of the author.

The following, or equivalent, will appear in the anthology;

Willowdown Books asserts its copyright of this book as an anthology, by which is meant the collection of poems. Willowdown Books asserts no copyright over any of the individual poems. Copyright is asserted (by both Willowdown Books and the individual authors) under the Copyright Laws of the British Commonwealth of Nations, the United States of America and all the countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions. All rights, including Stage, Motion Picture, Television, Public Reading, Translation into foreign language, any Internet or related media is strictly reserved (by the author, or Willowdown Books as detailed above).

12. By entering this competition you are accepting the above rules and agreeing to the copyright notice.