Call for Submissions: Pop Punk Poetics

COUNTERCLOCK is now accepting submissions for our Pop Punk Poetics folio, edited by Maria Gray and Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong! With this folio, we hope to celebrate the musicality of poetry, value of interdisciplinary art, and influence of 2000s/early 2010s emo, pop punk, and adjacent musical genres on both contemporary poetry and popular music. Anything is fair game, from Elliott Smith to Olivia Rodrigo. Think golden shovels with your favorite lyrics, poems with lines borrowed from songs, “samples” or written “remixes” of existing work—we want it all. We are interested in the general confessional ethos of early-2000s emo and pop punk—think adolescence, obsession, unapologetic dramatics—and seeking work that takes place in a moment where the worst has already happened. Whether these songs take place at a moment of betrayal (“If You Can’t Hang”) or hand-in-hand escape (“Dear Maria, Count Me In”), they’re situated at a point of no return—which is where we feel all poetry is located anyway, but it stares you down in these songs, unmistakable. Check out our Spotify playlist below for inspiration.

Folio submissions are open from January 15 to March 15, 2024. Simultaneous submissions are allowed and encouraged, and we are happy to consider previously published work, as long as you hold the rights to it. To submit your work, please send up to 5 poems in a .doc or .pdf to counterclockjournal [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line “folio_[your full name].” Please DO NOT send folio submissions to our submissions email. This is important—your submission may be lost in our inbox otherwise. Cover letters are welcome but not required, as are artist’s statements. This is primarily a poetry project, but prose/visual and other art will be considered on a case-by-case basis. You are welcome to email the COUNTERCLOCK journal email with any questions. We can’t wait to see your work.