Zine
Quick answer: A zine is a self-published, small-circulation booklet made outside commercial publishing. Learn how poetry zines work and how to make and share your own.
A zine is a self-published booklet made in small numbers, outside commercial publishing, usually photocopied or cheaply printed and shared by hand, by post, or at zine fairs. The word is a clipped form of magazine and arrived via science fiction fanzines of the 1930s, then punk culture in the 1970s, then the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s. A poetry zine applies that do-it-yourself spirit to verse: no gatekeepers, no submission queue, just poems, scissors, glue and a photocopier.
Poets turn to zines when they want speed, freedom, and community rather than prestige. A zine can hold work too raw, strange or personal for magazines, and it circulates in a gift economy where copies are swapped, sold for pocket change, or left in cafes. For many writers a zine is the first time their poems exist as a physical object other people hold.
How Zines Work
The classic format is a single A4 or letter sheet folded into eight pages, or a stack of folded sheets stapled through the spine. Production is part of the aesthetic: handwritten titles, collage, typewriter fonts, deliberate roughness. Print runs are tiny, often 20 to 100 copies, which means every copy can be personal.
Distribution is social. Zines move through fairs, independent bookshops, distros (small mail-order catalogues run by enthusiasts), and straight from the poet's bag after a reading.
Zines and the Poetry World
The zine tradition overlaps with the mimeograph revolution of the 1950s and 60s, when American poets around movements like the New York School ran off stapled magazines on office duplicators because mainstream journals would not touch their work. Those cheap stapled pages ended up shaping literary history, a useful reminder that production values and poetic value are different things.
Today many respected small magazines began life as zines, and libraries including major university collections now archive zines as cultural documents.
Making Your Own
Start with six to ten short poems and one afternoon. Fold a template, photocopy a test copy, and fix what looks wrong. Nobody edits a zine but you, which is both the liberty and the risk, so read everything aloud once before printing fifty copies. A zine also pairs well with more formal routes: poems can appear in your zine and still be entered in contests or sent to magazines, as long as those venues accept previously self-published work, so check each guideline. Some poets use zines to share the poems they have already tested in feedback-giving contests such as Writory's, where a score across five criteria tells you which pieces deserve the ink.
What poets can take from this
- Keep your first zine to eight pages; finishing beats ambition.
- Embrace cheap production, since roughness is the form's native accent.
- Trade copies with other zine-makers to build a readership one hand at a time.
- Date and number your zines so future you can trace your own history.
- Check magazine and contest rules before sending zine-published poems elsewhere, as some treat them as previously published.
Try it yourself
Make an eight-page mini-zine from one folded sheet: a title page, six short poems on a single theme, and a back-page note to the stranger who finds it.
Questions
What is a poetry zine?
A poetry zine is a small, self-published booklet of poems produced cheaply and circulated in small numbers, usually outside bookshops and formal publishing. It values immediacy and community over polish and prestige.
Does publishing a poem in my own zine count as prior publication?
Often yes. Many magazines and contests treat any public distribution, including zines, as prior publication, while others exempt small self-published runs. Always read the specific guidelines before submitting.
How is a zine different from a chapbook?
A chapbook is usually edited, designed and issued by a press, even a tiny one, and aims for permanence. A zine is self-made, informal and fast, and its rough, personal production is the point.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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