It is the end of the summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Step outside. What do you hear? Who is out there with you? Depending on where you are, your senses may be occupied by mosquitos, scorpions, fruit flies, cockroaches, spiders, or more conventionally aesthetic beings, like butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas, or mantises.

This section, inspired by our title bug, gathers poems, translations, and essays that deal with these smaller, larger, silent, or deafeningly loud crawly animals, not exclusively those termed insects in the strict zoological sense. These contributions may emulate sounds, shapes, bodies of bugs on a formal level, they may contain experiences with them, the nature in which they are found, or deal with their absolute numerical immensity compared to human beings.

For a special section of Mantis 24 (2026), A Bug’s Poem, we invite submissions (new poetry, translation, and essays) that engage with bugs of all sorts in all sorts of ways. We are looking for contributions that make our neck hair stick up from reading, that make us reconsider old resentments we may have about one bug or the other, or that surprise us in all the ways to view bugs poetically that have hitherto escaped us entirely.

____________________________________________________________________________________

In your submission file, please include the following:

• A brief cover letter detailing the context or anything you would like us to know about your poem(s)
• The poetry for consideration, formatted as you would like it to appear in print 
• A personal bio for us to include in the issue 

____________________________________________________________________________________

You can expect to hear from us within three to four months. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed, but please do notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere. 

Please direct questions individually to the Editors.

Under the young brambles, the weasel plays the flute, the monkey dances and dances, the grasshopper drums to keep time. The cricket is an expert at playing the gong.

茨こきの下にこそ、鼬が笛吹き猿奏で、かい奏で、螽まろめて拍子つく、さて蟋蟀は、鉦鼓の鉦鼓の好き上手。[1] 

This playful song, featured in an imayo popular songs collection titled Songs to Make the Dust Dance on the Rafters (Ryojin Hisho梁塵秘抄) late 12th century, shows us that poetry has always had a close connection to sound. It is a song, written down as a poem, about animals playing music. It paints an aural picture, a soundscape. 

This section explores poetry in all its sonic dimensions. Across the premodern world, at a time when books were scarce and costly, poetry was often chanted or sung aloud, and the boundary between song and verse was fluid. Many poems resonate with the sounds of nature, while others pulse with onomatopoeia and sonic texture. Later, poets since the early 20th century have pushed the medium to its limits, exploring how the sonic interacts with grammar, rhetoric and rhythm on the page. 

For a special section of Mantis 24 (2026), Soundscapes of Poetry, we invite submissions  that engage with sound in any and all ways—whether through music, noise, onomatopoeia or rhythm, or even the sound of silence itself.

______________
[1] Usuda Jingoro, Kagurauta, Saibara, Ryōjin Hishō, Kanginshū 神楽歌、催馬楽、梁塵秘書、閑吟集, v. 392, translation by Katherine Whatley.

____________________________________________________________________________________

In your submission file, please include the following:

• A brief cover letter detailing the context or anything you would like us to know about your poem(s)
• The poetry for consideration, formatted as you would like it to appear in print 
• A personal bio for us to include in the issue 

____________________________________________________________________________________

You can expect to hear from us within three to four months. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed, but please do notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere. 

Please direct questions individually to the Editors.

Mantis aims to publish translations that will expose our readers to compelling and unfamiliar poems. We tend to choose translations of contemporary poets, but are open to translations from any era and from all poetic traditions. When we do publish work by poets of the past, we usually select works or poets we find under-appreciated or neglected in English. All languages will be considered and translated poems will be published alongside the original, both online and in print, in elegant facing-page translations.  

Submit your translations (along with the original poetry) as a single file. We equally welcome submissions of individual poems and sequences of connected work. Please do not send material that has been previously published. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

In your submission file, please include the following:

• A brief cover letter detailing the context or anything you would like us to know about your translation(s). We would also appreciate a brief note introducting and contextualizing the poet you have translated.
• The translated work for consideration, formatted as you would like it to appear in print
• The original poetry
• A personal bio for us to include in the issue 
• A short bio of the translated poet
• Mailing address information for the poet (or the poet's estate, if applicable), so that we can mail a copy of the issue once it is printed.  

____________________________________________________________________________________

Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please do us the courtesy of promptly informing us if your translations are accepted elsewhere. It is your responsibility to secure the rights to the work you are translating. Prior to publication all translations are typically reviewed by readers proficient in the translated language.

Please direct questions individually to the Editors.

Mantis is interested in the best new poetry—across a range of aesthetics, subject matters, and locales—that exists today. We value evocative imagery, syntactical play, a well-tuned ear, and an engagement with a poem’s shape or form. We embrace the unique, the startling, and the well-crafted, however it’s achieved.

Please send up to five poems, totaling no more than ten pages. This may include a short sequence or an excerpt from a longer poem. If we’re keen on a longer piece, we’ll query you to send more. Please do not send material that has been previously published. 

____________________________________________________________________________________

In your submission file, please include the following:

• A brief cover letter detailing the context or anything you would like us to know about your poem(s)
• The poetry for consideration, formatted as you would like it to appear in print 
• A personal bio for us to include in the issue 

____________________________________________________________________________________

You can expect to hear from us within three to four months. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed, but please do notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere. 

Please direct questions individually to the Editors.