Delta Poetry Review is an online poetry journal committed to publishing exceptional work by new, emerging, and established writers. We particularly appreciate new voices and fresh language. While we accept work written in English from anywhere, we are most interested in poetry from and about the American delta region and the Deep South generally. We accept submissions year-round and publish selected work in three issues per year: February, June, and October.

The theme for the February and June issues will be "Open Topic." We welcome poetry with or without a Delta or Southern focus. The October issue will focus exclusively on work by poets who have spent time in the American South—we are interested in poetry about the American delta region and the South generally. All poems must reflect the theme in topic, place, culture, idiomatic expressions, regional dialect. We strive to review work and reply as quickly as possible—we are writers, too.

Founder and President

Our beloved founder and friend, Dixon Hearne, passed away at his home on May 24, 2025. Dixon wrote in and about the American South, and was the author of seven books of poetry and fiction. His work was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the PEN/Hemingway award for Plantatia: High-toned and Lowdown Stories of the South, and winner of the Creative Spirit Award-Platinum for best short fiction collection. His novella From Tickfaw to Shongaloo was awarded Second Place in the Faulkner Novella competition, judged by Moira Crone. His most recent book was Plainspeak: New and Selected Poems. Other work has appeared in Oxford American, Louisiana Literature, Cream City Review, Deep South Magazine, New Orleans Review, Big Muddy, The Southern Poetry Anthology IV: Louisiana and Down to the Dark River anthology (LA-LIT Press), and numerous other journals, periodicals, and anthologies. Website: dixonhearne.com

He will be greatly missed, but his legacy will carry on in Delta Poetry Review.

Editor

Susan Swartwout was born in New Orleans and raised also in Atlanta and Dallas. Her books are Odd Beauty, Strange Fruit: Poems, 2 poetry chapbooks, 12 anthologies, and a publishing textbook. Her work has been awarded a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award, St. Louis Poetry Centre’s Hanks Award, and nominated for seven Pushcart Prizes. She’s a professor emerita of creative writing and small-press publishing, founder of a university press, winner of the Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, former editor of Big Muddy and The Cape Rock, and has worked 36 years in the publishing industry.

Web Designer and Producer

Victoria Hobbs Olsen, EdM, Harvard U., writes fiction and nonfiction, edits manuscripts, and ghost writes in North Carolina. She was a founding member and served on the board as President of the Gulf Coast Writers Association for ten years, designed and maintained an extensive website, and was the creator and editor of the Magnolia Quarterly magazine. 

Contact us at
deltapoetryreview@gmail.com