Tips: Features

These are whimsical, meandering thoughts about the kind of features we might like to publish. For practical advice on how to actually submit features, see Submissions.

Features & Essays

There is no minimum length for features – in some rare cases, a single sentence might be enough – but we particularly enjoy essay-length pieces (1,500-3,000 words) on anything relating to poetry. We are keen to read features based on multiple interviews, or based on archival research that casts well-known poets in a fresh light. We welcome critical surveys identifying new trends or movements in poetry. For our ‘Re-reading’ section, we are interested in longer essays of 4,000+ words on the life and work of a single neglected poet. We also like brief odd bits’n’bobs.

‘Insolence & Triviality’

In the middle section of the magazine, Insolence & Triviality, we publish short features, comment pieces and other things that defy categorisation.

Regular features in this section may include:

Mailbox: Letters from readers, news, gossip.

Mutterings, Splatterings: Essays with no obvious subject, aphorisms, whimsy.

Anarchically Correct: Manifestos, radical re-evaluations of canonical writers, diatribes about the state of publishing, screams into the void.

The Little Interview: Short Q&A-format interviews. We welcome imagined or ersatz interviews with dead poets, and with fictional characters from famous poems. We will accept authentic interviews with living poets if you have asked them a series of very impertinent questions. We will not accept any piece of writing in which you pretend to interview yourself,* or ersatz interviews with living poets.**

* Unless you are Aaron Kent.

** Unless they are Aaron Kent. For inspiration, see his book The Working Classic (2023).

Arts: Undisciplined and Interdisciplinary

In our Arts pages we publish reviews and short essays about work in other art forms that in some way intersects with poetry. (There are no fixed word-counts, but if in doubt please aim for 500 words.)

We have several recurring arts strands, each covering a different art form. We are very eager to read submissions for these strands. If you have a piece you think might work for one of them, please mention the title of the strand in your submission.

Wherever possible, these essays should cover something new (e.g. a film released this year) or have a clear and specific reason for being published now.

Our arts strands – and examples of the kinds of pieces we would like to receive for each – are as follows:

Insidious Fire: on cinema
e.g. A 500-word review of the 2026 film Late Fame, in which Willem Dafoe plays an elderly New York School poet.

With Weary Eyes: on TV
e.g. 500 words on the use of WB Yeats’s poetry in Jilly Cooper adaptation Rivals (2025-26).

Obvious as an Ear: on musicals & opera
e.g. 500 words on a new production of Peter Grimes, and how Benjamin Britten drew on the poetry of George Crabbe in writing the opera.

These Phenomena Are Important: on social media, video games and tech
e.g. 500 words on a recent piece of AI-generated poetry; 500 words on an interactive poem made using Twine (or another open-source tool).

In Quest of Something to Drink: on food & booze
e.g. 500 words on Emily Dickinson’s recipes;

All This Fiddle: on music
e.g. 500 words comparing PJ Harvey’s poetry collection Orlam (2022) and the related album I Inside the Old Year Dying (2023); 500 words revisiting Patti Smith’s 1977 poetry chapbook Ha! Ha! Houdini on its 50th anniversary.

Credibly Agile: on dance
Surprise us. We know absolutely nothing about dance.

Some Untidy Spot: on art
e.g. 500 words on the use of poetry in Tate Britain’s 2026 Tracey Emin exhibition; 500 words on the paintings that inspired Victoria Chang’s latest poetry collection.

In All That Air: on radio, podcasts and spoken word
e.g. 500 words on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (2026), a Radio 4 drama about the young Dylan Thomas; 500 words on the 2026 Roundhouse Poetry Slam Final.

It is not necessary to approach us about features before writing them; feel free to just send us the finished piece (via email to editor@thelittlereview.co.uk with FEATURES in the subject line).

If you have any specific questions about anything on this page, email them to editor@thelittlereview.co.uk with QUERY in the subject line.

We are willing to consider publishing poems, reviews and features anonymously.

More Tips

For advice about the kind of poems and reviews we like to receive, see Tips: Poetry and Tips: Reviews.