Response Time
Quick answer: Response time is how long a journal or contest takes to reply to a submission. Learn typical waits for poetry, when to query, and how to plan around it.
Response time is the period between submitting your work and hearing a decision from a journal, magazine or contest. For poetry journals the typical range runs from a few weeks to six months, with three months a common average; some celebrated magazines take a year, and a few small online journals answer within days. Contests are more predictable, since results arrive on an announced date regardless of when you entered.
New poets experience response time as silence and read meaning into it. Mostly there is none. A long wait usually reflects a small volunteer team under a mountain of submissions, not a debate about your poem, though at some journals surviving the first quick cut does mean you wait longer while editors deliberate.
Why It Takes So Long
A mid-sized journal can receive several thousand poems per reading period, screened by a handful of unpaid readers around jobs and study. Each poem is read at least once, promising work is read several times and discussed, and final tables are set by editors who also handle layout, funding and email. Multiply that arithmetic across a stack of ten thousand poems and six months stops looking negligent and starts looking fast.
When and How to Query
Every journal states or implies a response window, on its submissions page or its Submittable listing. The etiquette is simple: wait until that window has fully passed, add a few weeks of grace, then send one short, polite note naming the poem titles and submission date and asking whether the work is still under consideration. No reproach, no reminder of how long you have waited. If a second query some weeks later also meets silence, withdraw the poems and send them somewhere that answers its mail.
Building a Practice That Ignores the Wait
The professional cure for slow replies is volume and record-keeping. Keep ten to twenty poems circulating at once, use simultaneous submissions wherever they are allowed, and log every submission with its date and expected response window. Poets who track this way stop refreshing their inboxes, because any single decision matters less. A monthly contest with a fixed results date can also steady the rhythm; entrants to Writory, for example, always know the outcome lands on the 30th, which is a kindness the journal world rarely offers.
What poets can take from this
- Check a venue's stated response time before submitting, and write it in your log.
- Query once, politely, only after the stated window plus a few weeks has passed.
- Use simultaneous submissions where permitted so one slow journal cannot freeze a poem.
- Keep enough work circulating that no single response can ruin a month.
- Never resubmit the same poem to a journal that has not yet answered on it.
Try it yourself
Write a poem about waiting for an answer of any kind, a letter, a diagnosis, a reply that never comes, without using the words wait, hope or time. Let the objects in the room do the waiting for you.
Questions
How long should I wait before querying a poetry journal?
Wait until the journal's stated response time has fully passed, then add several weeks before sending one short, courteous query. If they state six months, querying at seven is reasonable.
Does a long response time mean my poem is being seriously considered?
Sometimes. Many journals reject quickly and hold promising work for further rounds, so a long silence can be a good sign. It can also just mean a backlog, so avoid reading too much into it.
Can I submit the poem elsewhere while I wait?
Yes, if both venues allow simultaneous submissions, which most poetry journals now do. Withdraw the poem promptly from everywhere else the moment it is accepted.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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