Mindful Poetry Moments

Each year, The Well publishes an anthology of poems created by poets of all ages and from around the world who engage with Mindful Poetry Moments during National Poetry Month. Each poem featured in the book is written in response to a common prompt, which was inspired by a curated poem for contemplation. Read more about how to submit for the current year below

2026 Submissions

Submissions are open April 2nd, 2026 for our Mindful Poetry Moments 2026 compilation. If you have questions, please contact Patrick Raneses here.

We hope you will join us for our book launch either in-person or virtually in August, date TBA.

Guidelines

• Submissions are due May 30, 2026.
• Poems must be written in response to our April 2026 Mindful Poetry Moments Gatherings and Prompts which will be available to replay on YouTube. 
  Watch past Gatherings and Prompts here
• We accept up to 4 poems submitted per poet. 
  We try our best to publish all submissions, but cannot guarantee more than one per person. Let us know here which one you would like published the most!
• We recommend submitting all of your poems at once, but you may also submit your poems individually and fill the form out multiple times.
• If you are submitting for multiple poets (like a group of students), please submit a separate form for each poet.
• If you are a parent or educator and would like to submit poems for 5+ students, please contact Patrick Raneses here. for a simpler way to submit.
• READ BELOW FOR FORMATTING GUIDELINES FOR YOUR SUBMISSIONS

If you have any questions about the submission process, please contact Patrick Raneses here.

SUBMIT

Shop Mindful Poetry Books

Formatting Guidelines for 2026:

Sending poetry as a TYPED document

Send submission as a Word Document (.docx) OR PDF (.pdf)

Name the document "Title - Poet/artist Name - Title of Mindful Poetry poem yours was inspired by"

• Ex. The Wild Rose - John Well - Wild Geese

Formatting settings for typed-poetry below. *Note: these are the default formatting settings for Google Docs and Microsoft Word (meaning all you need to do is just keep your settings the way they are when you open your document!)

• Margins: Input 1-inch margins on all sides

• Font size: 11pt font, Arial or Calibri

• you can be playful with font sizes if the poem demands multiple font sizes (ex. "Dust” by Scarlett Yi), but ensure the "default" size is 11pt

• Line spacing: 1.15 spacing between lines

• If your poem demands deep stanza and line breaks, indicate with extra Enter key strokes, not by changing the line spacing of the document!

Line breaks and stanza breaks? Generally — while there are plenty of creative reasons not to — use a single Enter key for a line break and a double Enter key for a stanza break

Normal line break example:

Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun goes down
Meanwhile the sun goes up

Normal stanza break:

Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun goes down

Meanwhile the sun goes up

Tabs? Historically, a tab has been represented by 8 characters/spaces, but how much space it actually represents depends on the software, margins, letter spacing, etc. We just ask you to be consistent with your tab spacing!

Tab example:

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
        are moving across the landscapes,
                over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.

avoid sending:

• two-column/multi-column poetry — requires us to shrink the font size to unreadable levels in order to fit poem within margins

• poetry with any kind of alternate font color or that relies on utilizing different fonts in the same poem – poems all get converted into a standard Helvetica font in the final manuscript

Sending poetry or art as a PHOTO

If you are sending for a student who has written out their poem (either on the Mindful Poetry worksheet or just on their own), please take a photo of the poem/art, making sure:

• Proper lighting – no shadow over the poem/art

• Everything is within the camera frame – the page should fill the majority of the frame

• If colors were used for art, that the photo is sent in full color