We are seeking poems inspired by the sea that explore themes of loss, love, and sex.
Selected poems will be published in a hard-copy collection.
Deadline: Midnight 31 October 2025.
Please send submissions to: mywifetheseapoems@gmail.com
We will reply to everyone who submits by the end of January 2026. Depending on the number of submissions, we hope to be able to give some feedback.
The collection will be published and launched in April 2026.
What we want
Poems inspired by or about the sea and themes of loss, love, and lust.
We are looking for:
Poems that are: Erotic, Melancholy, and Mystical.
Poems that have: Yearning, Awe of Nature, Hope.
Poems that feel: Otherworldly, Stinging, Fleeting, Personal.
Poems that speak about: Transience, The Sublime, Desire, Ecology.
In terms of style, we are open a wide range of forms and style. Some poets and writers we like: Mary Oliver, Hera Lindsay Bird, Rachel Sermani, Emily Dickinson, Ursula le Guin, Elizabeth Bishop.
We have a preference for short poems:
Up to 14 lines
Fits on 1 A5 page
Fewer than 200 words
About you
You write poems!
You currently live in Scotland.
That’s it.
What you’ll get
A hard copy of the collection
An invitation to attend and read at the launch event (April 2026 in Edinburgh)
Access to purchasing author copies at cost
To be part of something beautiful
About us
Jenny Lester and Sam Mills are the editors of this collection. They have a shared love of sea swimming and poems that hurt your feelings.
Jenny is a solar-powered writer based in Edinburgh. She has been published internationally in titles including Breathe Magazine, The Font, BBC The Social, and Causeway / Cabhsair. She has published two poetry zines. She won the 2020 Glasgow Women’s Library Poetry Slam, was selected for the BBC Words First Talent program and appeared on the Young Women's Movement's 30 Under 30 list. You can normally find her behind a DM screen, swimming in the sea, or upside down on a trapeze.