Why do an online magazine?
It's much cheaper.   At the beginning of the 1990's, when Pemmican began, the desktop publishing "revolution" drove printing costs down. It didn't take print shops long to recover, however, and prices have been steadily rising since the mid-90's.   Print shops, of course, feel that they have to raise prices because the price of paper, ink, labor, everything, has also gone up, and if they are to keep the same profit margins they have to pass these costs on. As an independent poetry magazine, Pemmican wanted to keep publishing the good work that was being largely ignored by the mainstream presses.   But, because of limited means, there came a point when the skyrocketing costs of print production could no longer be justified.   By bringing Pemmican to the Internet, costs are reduced to a more manageable level.   Going online is one way the independents will be able to continue to follow their visions.  

Is copyright the same for an online magazine as for a print magazine?
Copyright works the same in the cyber world as the print world. The problems and concerns of writers are addressed in the same manner. Questions of ownership, reprint rights, and so on, function in the same way. For more information, take a look at The Copyright Website .

Why did you edit my biographical note on the Contributor's Page?
When bios enter multi-paragraph status they usually get a trim. Touting one's literary accomplishments and tooting one's one horn is fine but sending one's Curriculum Vitae is a bit of overkill. We encourage poets to be tasteful and succinct in regards to their degrees, publication credits and awards. Also, poets should be prudent when it comes to including links. We suggest poets pick the most relevant link and leave any others for one's personal website or blog.

What does it mean that Pemmican has the copyright and I also have it? Does it mean that I need your permission to reprint something?
Pemmican does not retain the artist's copyright. Pemmican only asks for First North American Serial Rights. You do not need Pemmican's permission to reprint. (However, Pemmican does ask that poets who have work in Pemmican refrain from republishing that work for the first six months it is online.) Like many online magazines, a copyright statement is made on every page in order to establish two things: (1) a stated copyright for the artist or artists represented and (2) a stated copyright for the page itself, as in: the graphic content, programming, meta-tag content, domain name, etc., which is the intellectual property of Pemmican. If you don't make a statement on every page concerning your rights and the rights of the artists, you can be looked at as fair game by thieves who will lift your work right off the page. They might anyway but this gives you a legal precedent to take into court, should it come to that.

Pemmican says it requires accepted work to be in MS Word or Word Perfect format. But when I send an attachment, you say you are unable to open it. Can't I just send you the poem and have you type it in?
Sorry, but no. Because of the size of the magazine, volume of daily submissions, and level of correspondence, it is simply not possible for the editorial staff of Pemmican to transcribe accepted submissions. If we did that with every single thing accepted we would be here 28 hours a day. Pemmican is an online magazine, the primary contact point of which is email. Most print magazines require that poems be submitted typed or printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper and sent in a standard envelope. Sending in origami folded poems hand written on ruled legal paper in tiny envelopes and expecting special treatment is not something most poets experienced in small press publication would consider acceptable--or sensible--practice. Online magazines have their formats as well. Pemmican requires that accepted work be in MS Word and that it be sent by attachment. Attachments are not hard. For those poets unfamiliar with how to do attachments, a modest amount of research via any search engine will tell you everything you need to know. Pemmican will be glad to be of help but poets are responsible for following the required format.

I sent an attachment but you say you are unable to open it. Why?
The most common reason is that, rather than the attachment being in MS Word (or some other familiar word processing software), the file type of the attachment is actually something else. For an attachment to be in MS Word, for example, the file must be saved in MS Word format. That is, the file extension must be .doc. Also, sometimes people turn off their file extensions--never a good idea. The upshot is that people think they are saving their poem as a Word document but it's possible they may not be. They'll never know unless they can see the file extension. If the file that your poem is in ends with .doc (as in: myPoem.doc), it is an MS Word document. However, just to reinterate, sending Pemmican an attachment for a file that we can't open isn't helping anyone. Insisting that we continue to try, or throwing your hands up helplessly and claiming the boon of being a cyber-klutz is likely to reduce your options of publishing online.

You accepted my poems--but I'm having a terrible time with attachments and just can't seem to get it. What can I do?
Having said all of the above, Pemmican recognizes that contributors to online magazines come from all skill levels. We will work with you and try to help. That requires patience and persistence. One of the more frustrating things is when we try to walk someone through a process and they simply will not listen or follow directions. Many poets these days teach in universities. People who are college professors often assign difficult and demanding research and analysis papers to their students. College professors ought to be able to figure out how to do attachments. Consider it a test.

Does Pemmican only publish political poetry?
No. Generally speaking, a good reading of any issue of Pemmican will yield a certain number of poems that would not be considered "political" in most senses of the term. Although submissions of political poetry is deeply encouraged, poetry of the imagination is also sought, including prose poems, short poems, erotic poems (but not pornographic poems), and poetry that might be thought of as experimental in nature. The proportions of political to non-political work in Pemmican will vary according to the kinds of poetry submitted during any selection period.

However, it should be pointed out that people who have not published work in Pemmican before should take the time to read the magazine, at least enough to get a sense of the kind of work Pemmican favors. Sadly, every year there are poets who are too busy with their poetic careers to bother with actually reading the magazines to which they submit work. Then, come publication time, they discover to their horror that--gasp!--they've fallen into a nest of commies, socialists, activists, discontents, malcontents and social protestors of all stripes. If you're not comfortable publishing in a magazine that leans heavily toward political poetry, then don't waste your time and ours.

How can I print a poem from this website?
Navigate to the poem you wish to print, select File, Print , and OK .

Does Pemmican publish books or chapbooks?
Pemmican is not publishing paper books or chapbooks at this time. Occasionally, by invitation, Pemmican will publish online chapbooks from poets who have a history of publishing in Pemmican.

Does Pemmican send out galley proofs?
Pemmican does not send out galley proofs.   Whether a poem is submitted via email or regular mail, poets are expected to send finished, proofread works and that it is the final version they want to see printed.

What happens when I discover a typo in my poem?
Typos can and do happen, regardless of everyone's best intentions. When people send email submissions, the poem is not keyed in but instead copied and pasted into an HTML page format. When poets discover typos in their work online, poets should contact Pemmican, politely make clear what needs to be changed, and the necessary corrections will be made. However, poets need to be sure that they have sent a clean, corrected and proofread copy, and that it is the final version they want to see printed. One poet accused the editorial staff of "errors" in his texts, of "putting things in" that weren't there, "taking things out" that were, and in general screwing his poems and bio up with clumsy abandon. When it was pointed out that the "errors" originated in his own texts, he further accused Pemmican of being "defensive". Egotistical and pugilistic poets unable to take responsibility for their own mistakes will be invited to try their social skills out on other magazines. It's best not to make every instance of a typo a High Noon issue where fingers of blame are drawn. It's in everyone's best interests to see a poem rendered as the artist intended it and by working together we can make sure that will happen.

I see that Pemmican doesn't maintain archives? Why not? Text code takes up very little room—virtually free on the web—and is very little trouble.
The person who asked this question was the web master for an online poetry website that had a total of two issues archived and they felt mighty proud of it. Pemmican's response? Wait until you've been around for 20 years. Then see how "very little trouble" it is.

Once upon a time, before Pemmican was hacked and so many files destroyed and lost, Pemmican did maintain archives. We had only been maintaining them for about three years but even at that point the archives had ballooned to immense proportions, far dwarfing any current issue. In ten years time any archive would be vast, to say the least. Yes, web space, especially for mostly unencumbered HTML files, is relatively low in cost--at least for now. But someone is going to have to maintain it and update it. Just imagine an archive consisting of hundreds of poets and thousands upon thousands of pages of poetry files. And relentlessly getting bigger all the time. It's just not a workable scenario for a political poetry magazine staffed mostly by one person and the occasional volunteer.

But if there are no archives then a work is gone forever once it has been removed from an active state. Most readers of online publications expect work to remain accessibly archived (unless the journal goes belly-up, which I trust will not happen here), and are certainly disappointed and confused if they bookmark a poem, or return to the site expecting to have the pleasure of re-reading it, only to find that it has disappeared. Purely from an author's point of view, there are times when publication credits, and the capability to validate them, become important. The publication of any works in your journal therefore becomes unverifiable. For other poets whose works are not archived, the temptation to present those works elsewhere as unpublished would be understandable.
Let's take this from the beginning. Pemmican's author agreement states that a work will be held online for a minimum of 6 months from the time of initial publication. At no point is the archiving of published work stated or implied.

All rights to any work published in Pemmican belong to the authors. Pemmican only asks that authors refrain from re-publishing the work in another magazine for the first 6 months it is contracted to be published as original work in Pemmican. After that time, authors are free (and encouraged) to pubish the work elsewhere—with the stipulation that Pemmican be credited as the source of original publication. All sorts of agreements exist out there but variations on this one are standard and common.

Pemmican can sympathize if authors are unable to secure further magazine or even book publication for their work after an initial publication with Pemmican. But once Pemmican has fulfiled the conditions of the contract we're not obligated to do anything further to assist the poet with keeping their work visible. Pemmican is not responsible for fulfilling expectations and assumptions based on promises we never made. Prior to the existence of the Internet, the "disappearance" of work was the fate of all small press literary magazine publication. Unless you had a collection of back issues, there were no "archives."

Now we come to the question of publication verification. Online magazines come and go without leaving so much as the ghost of an electron, let alone archives. How do you get verification under those circumstances? The same with paper magazines, hundreds of which every year pop up like mushrooms only to vanish without a trace—and some of them are very good. Under these conditions, obtaining ironclad publication verification will always be an elusive goal. Most of us are honest, though, and validation is, in my opinion, a non-problem in a world of poets and editors largely governed by trust. For instance, when it comes time to publish poems in a chapbook or book, if you say you published poem X in magazine Y, small press book publishers tend to take you at your word. Unless you're publishing with Harcourt or Random House, you're generally not expected to produce receipts. In my 30 years in small press poetry publications I've never, not once, seen this come up as an issue. I've never seen or heard of any small press poetry book publisher demand hard evidence of publication from a poet.

Lastly, authors who feel "the temptation to present those works elsewhere as unpublished" would be making an unfortunate decision. Doing so would be a violation of the publication agreement that the author accepted. Most editors don't care for that sort of thing for the simple reason that it shows a fundamental lack of respect for the magazines that go out of their way to keep poetry alive. These days the internet makes it relatively easy to find poetry which is passing itself off as previously unpublished. Dishonest practices have a way of catching up with reputations.

Who reads online magazines?
The same people who read print magazines (as long as they have PC's or Mac's).   In other words, the same people who always read and enjoy poetry. The average literary magazine in America is read by less than 500 people--with certain famous, though not necessarily exemplary, exceptions.   Online magazines could potentially boost a readership into the thousands worldwide.

How do you find online magazines?
One of the best ways to research a topic on the Internet is to use a search engine.   Google.com is an example of a search engine commonly used.   Type in what you are looking for and it searches for everything in its range that may fit the description.   Try typing in "poetry" and you are likely to find hundreds of listings.

The Pemmican website looks odd in my browser window.
Although there might be any number of reasons why Pemmican might not look quite "right" in your browser window, there are three immediate candidates: the operating system (and the version) you are using; your monitor size (15", 17") and the setting of its screen resolution (800 x 600, for example); and the kind of browser you are using (Netscape, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.). Any or all of these can affect the way we "see" the Internet and its contents. Pemmican was designed using the Firefox and Google Chrome browsers.   Due to the number of browsers currently available, however, and the speed with which they are updated, it's simply not practical or possible on a limited budget to create a website that looks exactly the same in every browser window.  Advice on operating systems is outside the scope of this reply, however it should be noted that Mac's and PC's have significant differences which can cause variations in how a website is perceived. Screen resolution, however, is something that can be adjusted for greater comfort and flexibility. For example, if you are using the Windows operating system, right-click on the desktop, go to Properties, and at the pop-up dialogue box labeled"Display Properties" select the Settings tab. Approximately halfway down, on the left side of the dialogue box, you will see an area marked Screen Resolution with a slider that allows you to adjust your screen resolution in increments. Try experimenting until you find a setting that's right for you.

Some magazines pay for poems. Why doesn't Pemmican?
The terms "poetry" and "money" rarely occur together in the same breath. Proportionately, very few literary magazines in the United States pay for poetry. For a magazine to pay a poet that magazine would have to have a budget which is generated either through being subsidized in some manner or making a profit. Nearly all poetry magazines in the U.S. do not make a profit. However, a significant fraction of them are subsidized by various universities and occasionally some of them will pay a poet a nominal fee for use of a poem. Needless to say, Pemmican isn't subsidized and doesn't make a profit. Most small press poetry magazines actually operate at a loss and such editorial staff as they have work as volunteers. If your goal is to make money from your writing, poetry ain't the way to go.

Can I submit a work-in-progress?
The answer to that is...it depends. It depends on what kind of work it is and what the author means by in-progress.  Serializing a long poem-in-progress is more likely to be looked upon favorably--once again, depending on the nature of the poem and the degree to which the part being serialization is finished at the time of publication. When it comes to reviews, articles and shorter poems, however, Pemmican must reluctantly refuse.  If an author is in the process of writing a review, article or essay, or is contemplating the writing of one, an inquiry to Pemmican concerning interest would be the best approach and is strongly encouraged. Although Web-based magazines have the capacity to edit text and upload those edits to the Internet relatively rapidly, unfortunately it has had the end result of inviting authors to send one version after another of the work-in-progress. This is not good for two major reasons. First: revisions and updates increase the odds that a corrupted text will make it onto the Internet, which then causes anxious authors to send successive lists of corrections. Second: the editorial staff is forced to spend long and tedious hours combing the text, corrections in hand, becoming ever more cranky and resentful as our time is wasted. Therefore, authors are expected to send finished, proofread works and finished, proofread works only. It is not the job of Pemmican to endlessly chase spelling and grammatical errors caused by the author or burn the midnight oil in secretarial bondage patching in new and updated words, phrases and paragraphs here and there. Pemmican asks that writers be respectful of our time and energies. (Also, see the above questions on galley proofs and typos.)

Can I submit a poem that depends on unique formatting and fonts?
No. Each poem exists within Pemmican's page format. The fonts of that format are either Verdana or Times Roman. Verdana and Times Roman are perhaps not the most elegant of all fonts but they tend to be fonts that are found on the vast majority of home computers. One poet submitted a poem that mixed every conceivable font in the universe--and believed that gumbo of typography essential to the poem. Another poet insisted that his poem be published using some obscure font that evoked pirate writing of the 18th century. Not only that, he wanted a background image inserted that made the poem appear to be written on a scroll of parchment. These are extreme examples but they demonstrate that if every poem in the magazine were allowed to pursue its own unique formatting and font the result would soon be chaotic and the magazine would be unreadable. Good Web Design depends on consistency and readability. We are not saying that poems that use typographical effects are bad poems. Surrealism and Dadaism are two artistic movements of the 20th century that used layout, design, typography and fonts in marvelous and creative ways. Modern Graphic Design owes an enormous debt to the Bauhaus Group and Russian Constructivism. There are magazines that cater to typographical effects in poetry. But Pemmican isn't one of them. Work submitted to Pemmican is expected to fit into Pemmican's page format, not the other way around.

Some of my poems have long lines. Will that cause a problem within Pemmican's page format?
It's possible. We love poetry with long lines, beginning with Homer and ending with Thomas McGrath and Dan Raphael. But, within the context of Pemmican's page format, a very long line might get word-wrapped against the margin and the clippings sent to the next line as a stray word or phrase. We can, for instance, indent the stray word/s by 4 spaces. This is an old editorial trick that says, in effect, "these words actually belong to the line above." Lest potential contributors think this is some peculiarity of the Web, remember that print magazines have format limits, too. Each physical page is a kind of "container", of limited width and height. A great many print magazines have a difficult time accomodating long lined poems and often simply refuse to take them regardless of their merits. We ask the authors of long lined works to understand that any page, physical or virtual, has its limitations. Pemmican will work with poets to find a satisfactory solution to any problems of line length. But if a poet really cannot bear to see the length of any lines altered in any way, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to send that poem to Pemmican.

I sent you a political poem. I thought it was good. Why didn't you take it?
The question of why do editors take what they take can be one of the thorniest questions of all. Pemmican is indeed a website friendly to political poetry. Political as in: starting with left-of-center and working leftward. So it's possible that the poem was not of our political persuasion. Right wing "poetry" (an oxymoron if there ever was one), like most fascist art, consists mainly of flag-waving, boot-polishing and saluting, and will be kicked out the door or given a fast track to the shredder. More often, however, the answer is that, although the poem as a political statement works just fine, it needs more revision to be effective as a poem. We see a lot of work that is a paste-up collection of flat statements concerning topical affairs. If we are going to write political poetry, we need to offer readers something they can't get by reading an article or an essay or a blog. A good political poem must first succeed as a poem. But don't be discouraged. Some people send a lot of work here before clicking with something. If you think this is your kind of magazine and you belong in it, just keep knocking on our door with work. Also, get together a poetry group, take a poetry class, learn everything you can about the craft of poetry.

It was my understanding that Pemmican was going to publish my story/ poem/ essay/ review this Summer/ Spring/ Fall/ Winter. I can't find it at the website. Where is it? Did you decide not to use it?
If your work was accepted, Pemmican has every intention of publishing your work. It's true, there are magazines out there which drop people's work without telling them. Pemmican is not one of them. As sometimes publishing writers ourselves, the editors have far too much sympathy with and respect for writers to dump them or bump them without a word. But it's important for potential contributors to understand at least some of the differences between print magazines and online magazines. With a print magazine, if you were promised a Winter publication and the Winter issue appears and you're not in it—that's it. There's no going back to the printer with a do-over. The very nature of online magazines, however, allows Pemmican to be fluid in terms of how work is accepted and presented. That fluidity is exactly what characterizes the major difference between a print magazine and an online one. We feel that this fluidity, which allows us to phase work in over time, is the system that allows us to continue publishing Pemmican—and keep our day jobs.

Occasionally there are confusions or misunderstandings about when, exactly, a contributor's work is to appear. Polite inquiries concerning the appearance date of one's work are, of course, welcome. The editors of Pemmican will do our best to answer questions and clarify matters to every contributor's satisfaction.

Having said that, we also need to say this: at the beginning of every "issue", Pemmican receives a number of emails from contributors who went to the site and since they didn't find their work immediately want answers chop-chop. Aside from (or in addition to) the "phasing in" of work outlined above, we do our best to get things out in as timely a manner as possible. But this isn't Time or Newsweek, or even Poetry or American Poetry Review--in other words: magazines with budgets, paid staff positions and strict deadlines. This is not a business site, with strict contractual obligations and money changing hands. Pemmican is an online politically oriented literary magazine with a minuscule staff of volunteers and organized by mostly one person. Pemmican is our hobby, our passion, even our mission-but not our job. We ask contributors to exercise patience and perspective and not stand there tapping a stopwatch demanding to know where their work is the second the next issue goes online. Very little good will come of that. Again, if your work was accepted, it will be published. Give it time. However, for those writers who feel that Pemmican has failed to honor some ironbound deadline, real or imaginary, and is thus deserving of lectures and abuse, it is recommended that in the future those writers find themselves another magazine which will more fully satisfy their need for rigid deadlines.