Literary Journal

Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovered Objects

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About the magazine

Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovered Objects is an online literary and arts journal that takes as its province the overlooked, the discarded, and the forgotten. Founded on the conviction that meaning often resides in the margins of culture, the journal publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art that engage with objects—material, textual, or conceptual—rescued from obscurity. Its ethos is curatorial as much as editorial: each issue functions as a small exhibition of recontextualized artifacts, inviting readers to reconsider what has been left behind. By foregrounding rediscovery, Poor Yorick positions itself against the amnesiac currents of contemporary media, offering a space where the obsolete becomes newly legible.

Editorial focus

Poor Yorick Literary Journal is a free, online literary journal of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative and Professional Writing at Western Connecticut State University.

PoetryFictionCreative Nonfiction

Submitting your work

Reading periodSep 1 to Jan 1

Reading feeYes

PaymentNo payment

Response timeLess than 3 months

Simultaneous submissionsYes

Unsolicited submissionsYes

Before submitting, familiarize yourself with the journal's archive to understand its curatorial sensibility. Work should engage meaningfully with the concept of rediscovery—whether through subject matter, form, or method. Avoid generic submissions that merely mention an old object; instead, show how the object opens onto larger questions of memory, history, or aesthetics. Follow the submission guidelines precisely: include a brief cover letter that articulates the 'rediscovered' dimension of your work, and ensure that visual art submissions are high-resolution and accompanied by contextual notes. Response times vary, so patience is advised. Simultaneous submissions are typically accepted, but notify promptly if your work is placed elsewhere.

Poor Yorick brings back into light the skeletons hidden in our cultural closets. The free, online journal welcomes writing and other creative productions about lost objects and images of material culture: sculptures and paintings in the back rooms of museums or in hidden corners of public spaces; murals forgotten in plain view; lost photographic archives and restored films; newly discovered letters or manuscripts; knickknacks in attics; oddities and curiosities in misbegotten sideshows; forgotten stories that remind us of pasts that we cannot afford to forget.

Read official guidelines