Submissions
Rabbit is currently accepting submissions for the next Rabbit Annual of nonfiction poetry (2026)
Following the release of our bumper 2025 Rabbit Annual, we are pleased to open for submissions for our 2026 Rabbit Annual of nonfiction poetry. Once again, we welcome poems that explore, interrogate and push the boundaries of nonfiction writing, and are interested in reading poetic engagements with auto/biography, documentary, history, politics, economics, mathematics, cultural analysis, science, the environment, and all other aspects of real-world experience, recollection and interpretation.
Your submission must include the following:
· 1-3 unpublished* poems (preferably in word doc, though pdf also acceptable)
· A short bio (50 words max.)
· A short answer to the following Rabbit prompt: What is a ‘nonfiction poem’ that you would offer to a young or new reader of poetry?
*We accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know as soon as a submitted poem has been accepted elsewhere.
DEADLINE: 11:59pm, May 30, 2026
We are thrilled that our guest co-editors for this 2026 Rabbit Annual are Jaya Savige and Susie Anderson.
About the guest editors:
Susie Anderson's poetry and prose are rooted in her Wergaia and Wemba Wemba heritage, exploring memory, art, and connection to Country. Her acclaimed debut, the body country (Hachette, 2023), affirms writing as a form of return. She recently completed a Creative Australia BR Whiting Studio Fellowship in Rome to work on a novel, and is currently part of the Sydney Review of Books Emerging Critics program.
Jaya Savige’s most recent poetry collection, Change Machine (UQP 2020), was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, the NSW Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Prize and two Queensland Literary Awards. Born in Sydney to an Indonesian father and an Anglo-Celtic Australian mother, Jaya grew up on Bribie Island and in Meanjin/Brisbane. His first book, Latecomers (2005), won the NSW Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, while Surface to Air (2011) was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal and the Age Poetry Book of the Year. Jaya’s reviews and essays have appeared in Poetry (Chicago), Times Literary Supplement, London Magazine and throughout Australia. A former Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, he is also poetry editor for The Australian. He currently lives in London, and has held Creative Australia residencies at the B. R. Whiting Library Studio in Rome, and the Nancy Keesing Studio at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris.
If you are concerned that your take on the ‘real world’ is slightly abstract, don’t worry–include a line or two to tell us why you categorise your poem as ‘nonfiction.’ We are very much open to poetry experiments! Please note that we do not accept previously published poems; simultaneous submissions are fine (provided you let us know immediately if your poems have been accepted elsewhere).
