by Laura LeHew

Questions, questions, questions. So many questions. How can you determine if you have enough poems for a book? How do you put a manuscript together? What can you do so that you have the best chance of creating a publishable manuscript? What’s the difference between a chapbook and a book length manuscript? What is the narrative arc, how do you tie a book together, how do you order your book, sections, what is the heart/theme of your book, is the title important (yes it is)? 

Margaret Atwood says that “Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.”

Step 1: Print It Out

Trying to decide if you have enough material for a book length manuscript? Print everything out. Published, unpublished, mostly ready to be published—could maybe use another round of editing. Alphabetize everything you’ve printed out. Now comes the fun. Warning you’ll need a large roll of painter’s tape. Starting at the leftmost side of a room and depending on volume of poems, tape 3-5 poems down the length of the wall, starting just above eye level. See photos 1-6 from my June, 2025 writing residency at Hypatia-in-the-Woods in Shelton, WA.

Step 2: Read Your Work

Once the poems are all on the wall, read through everything out loud. Is anything tied together by language, tone, chronology, geography, topic? Something else? As you read through a second time, grab your pens and highlighters and write a one- or two-word summary of the theme/heart of the poem in the upper right corner: love—divorce—death, etc.. Circle or highlight any words or themes that are repeated like a red or raven. From this you will see the patterns of theme. 

Step 3: Find the Theme

Rearrange (lump) the poems together by the emergent theme(s). The back/last wall should now be used for poems that don’t quite seem to work. You still want to leave them up, they might get woven back into your manuscript later in the process. 

Once you have your theme like love (and) divorce the real work begins. A chapbook is approximately 26 pages or a chapter of a book. A book of poetry is typically 90 pages. Now you know if you are working on a chapbook or a book. If you have more than 26 and less than 90 you will get to decide whether you want to cut some poems out or add some more poems. 

Step 4: Ordering Your Poems

The ordering of your book is an art, a balance and there are a million ways to accomplish this. You should examine the ways other books are organized which means reading books both similar and dissimilar to your manuscript so that you can get a feel for what and how you want to order your book. Will you have sections, will they be numbered or titled or both? What is the placement or order of your poems. Is the order cohesive, does it flow correctly, is there a narrative arc within each section?

Pick your best poem and your second best poem. Place your 2^nd best poem at the beginning and your best poem as the last poem on the wall. Then try it the other way. These will cement your theme and draw your reader in. After the first poem is on the wall find the next one. The last line of your poem should flow into the first line of your next poem. In my book Dear John— the first poem is “Thermals” and the last two lines are … “you were still so angry I wrapped myself in a frost / & told you all was well.” The following poem “You Have No Punctuation” the first line “In this time of war. This thumbtack. This porch. …” keeps with the anger and builds the disappointment from the first poem. You will do this line-by-line and poem-by-poem.

Your Book's Narrative Arc

You are building your narrative arc. You will begin to see other patterns, do you have themed sections or is this all one contiguous book? If you have sections you will need to find the beginning, middle, and end to each section. Each section should itself work to build the overall arc of your book. What is the heart/theme/message/focus of the book? What is the heart/theme/message of each section? Does each section move you towards the overarching theme of the book? Much like stair steps the approximate middle poem of each section should mark a turn towards the resolving poem in each particular section. And, the approximate middle poem of your entire book marking the penultimate turn (climax) of the book towards resolution (also known as your last poem).

You will be rewriting old poems, writing new poems, grabbing poems from the wall behind you that now fit into your theme. When you are all done arranging and rearranging. Read your manuscript out loud and make any final changes, any little tweaks. Number the pages as you take them off the wall. 

Step 5: Title and Format

Give your manuscript a title. It might be a title of one of the poems in your book and that title/poem will have greater weight, it should work towards enhancing the theme. In my book Dear John—the last poem in my book is also titled “Dear John—” and speaks to the overarching theme of love. If your title of the manuscript is not a poem in your book it should also reflect the theme of the book. The working title of my current manuscript tis A Whisper of Night Moths. Night Moths are symbols of transformation. Coming from the dark to the light. This manuscript is themed around what women hold within them, that they keep hidden—rape, stalking, other hidden sorrows and how they overcome it, transcend it to be one with the world. Though there is no poem titled A Whisper of Night Moths the poems contained within are reflective of the theme of transformation.

Combine everything into a single document. In Word always use styles. Title, Heading 1 for section break, Heading 2 for poem title, etc. Use a common font like Times New Roman. Poem titles should be formatted consistently like all caps or all lowercase. If you use “&” as opposed to word “and” or other interesting formatting be sure to use the same throughout. Include a title page with your name and a title page without your name. Place a single poem on each page with a page break to the next page/poem. At the top of the page Poem Title, blank line, first line of your poem:

Poem Title

…first line

If your poem goes over to another page indicate that at the bottom (continued) and at the top of the next page include the poem title and whether it is a continued stanza or a new stanza. Two lines breaks and continue the poem. 

…

last line on page (continued)

top of next page—

“poem title”

(new stanza)

continued poem

Now that you’ve used styles insert a table of contents. Proofread proofread proofread. Make your manuscript as clean as possible. Do not give an editor a reason to reject you.

Where to Send Your Manuscript

Do the research on where to send your manuscript.

Here are several of my go-to resources for submitting. They include detailed submission information for magazines, journals, and presses. Some are free; some cost money.

1. Duotrope's Digest
2. CLMP—The Literary Press and Magazine Directory
3. Newpages.com
4. Poets and Writers
5. The Poet's Market, ISBN-13 978-1-58297-499-6
   • online for a fee, www.writersmarket.com
6. The Writers Chronicle
7. winningwriters.com
   • free for the best 150 free poetry contests
8. Emily Stoddard newsletter
9. Two Sylvia's Press

And of course, check out links on social media, get on email lists, subscribe to electronic newsletters from your favorite magazines.

Check the submission guidelines and always follow them. If you have any questions about the guidelines, don’t hesitate to contact the editor at the publishing house. Send it out.

What additional resource can you recommend for submissions?

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About Laura

Laura LeHew grew up in the Midwest where she spent her childhood summers playing Man from U.N.C.L.E. and chasing fireflies. Widely published her collections include: Let Widows Be Widows (Unsolicited Press) 2022, themed around the elegiac, Dear John—(The Poetry Box) 2021 themed around love and divorce, Buyer’s Remorse (Tiger’s Eye Press—Infinities) poems on abuse, Becoming (Another New Calligraphy) a non-linear discourse on alcoholism and dementia, Willingly Would I Burn, (MoonPath Press) themed around math and science, It’s Always Night, It Always Rains, (Winterhawk Press) murder/noir and Beauty (Tiger’s Eye Press) fairy tales. She is actively seeking a home for her manuscript The Whisper of Night Moths.

Laura received her MFA from the California College of the Arts. She was on the steering committee for the Emerald Literary Guild. Laura held various positions for the Oregon Poetry Association including President, Contest Chair and Cascadia editor, she co-hosted a reading series, Poetry for the People, and has received residencies to Hypatia-in-the-Wood, PLAYA, the Montana Artists Refuge, and Soapstone. Laura currently facilitates the ;unruly poets, owns and edits Uttered Chaos, a small press and is the recipient of the 2021 Oregon Poetry Association’s (OPA) Patricia Ruth Banta Award. She spends her days taking photos of rivers and roses. Find her at: www.lauralehew.com | www.utteredchaos.org .