Harpur Palate, the literary journal affiliated with Binghamton University, opens its poetry reading period for issue 25.2. The journal operates without a submission fee, and the editors have issued precise formatting and eligibility requirements that function as a first filter: submissions of one to three poems, no more than five pages total, each piece beginning on a new page in 12-point Times New Roman, and no more than one poetry submission per reading period. These are not arbitrary preferences; they signal a reading process conducted with attention to craft and a respect for the editorial labor of sifting through a high volume of work. The journal's stated aesthetic is explicit: it seeks poems with a strong lyric voice and a sense of urgency. That language points toward work that is compressed, emotionally or intellectually pressing, and driven by a distinctive first-person or lyric presence rather than by narrative exposition or formal experimentation for its own sake. Prospective contributors are directed to previous issues as the most reliable index of taste, which is standard practice among serious journals and worth taking literally rather than treating as boilerplate. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, provided the writer withdraws the piece immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. There is no prize attached to this call and no geographic restriction; the opportunity is a publication credit in a university-affiliated literary magazine. The terms are straightforward, and the editors have been transparent about what will cause automatic rejection. For poets, the value here lies in a no-fee, clearly bounded reading period with an articulated aesthetic—conditions under which a well-matched submission can be evaluated on its merits.