Mike Maggio

I’m pleased to announce the thirteenth annual 30 for 30 Poetry Celebration, sponsored by Potomac Review, which will once again take place this year at www.mikemaggio.net.

This year’s theme is:

Suddenly, a flower in a snowfield

Your poem should be between 20 and 40 lines (no more, no less).

       To participate, please follow these instructions:

1. Send an email to mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net stating your intent to participate. Do not send any poems at this time but do state in your email where you are from.
2. The first 30 poets who respond to this call will be selected to submit their poem.
3. International poets are welcome and desired. Work, however, must be translated. Submit the original and the English translation.
4. Once the 30-poet limit has been reached, I will randomly assign each poet a day in April when their poem will be due and when it will be published.
5. Poets must submit their poem at least one day before it is to be posted. Earlier submissions are welcome and encouraged, especially this year as I will be out of town for part of the month.
6. All poems must be written by the submitting author. Poems should not contain any racist or sexist language.
7. Submit poems in a Word document or in RTF format (NOT in the text of the email or in PDF format).
8. Poets should include a short 1–2-line bio with their poem. A copyright statement should also be included (e.g., Copyright 2026 by [your name]).
9. All rights automatically revert to the author. Please note: if your poem appears on this web site, it is considered by most journals to have been previously published, and you will not be able to submit it anywhere else.
10. To promote community and discussion, readers and participants are encouraged to post comments on the web site about each of the poems.
11. At the end of the month, our judge will select the winning poem.
12. The winning poet will receive a free one-year subscription toPotomac Review.
13. All poems will be archived on mikemaggio.net. (I am working with George Mason University to archive the web site in their collection which now houses my papers, so your work will be preserved there for future researchers).

This year’s judge is Michael Palma. Michael Palma’s poetry volumes include the chapbooks The Egg Shape and Antibodies and the full-length collections A Fortune in Gold, Begin in Gladness, and the forthcoming Local Colors. He has also published Faithful in My Fashion: Essays on the Translation of Poetry. His more than twenty translations from Italian poets include award-winning volumes of Guido Gozzano and Diego Valeri published by Princeton University Press and a terza rima translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy published by Liveright in 2024.

If you have any questions, please email mikemaggio@mikemaggio.net. I look forward to your participation.

And a very special thanks to Katherine Smith , Albert Kapikian and Monica Mische, the editors at Potomac Review,for once again sponsoring 30 for 30.