Editor Interview: Zhagaram Literary Magazine

Culturally-rooted poetry

The Hooghly Review, Parantheses Journal, Jaggery Lit and Frontier Poetry

Ada Limon, Grace MacNair, Kaveh Akbar, Maya Angelou, Sarah Ghazal Ali

For every issue, we make sure to provide some prompts, additional information and resources pertaining to our current theme. If you're writing towards our theme, make sure to go through these resources—they're for you! If you are submitting poems you've already written, make sure it aligns or reflects our current theme.
For unthemed issues, check our About page to learn more about the general ethos of our magazine.

Our theme.
Zhagaram is a literary magazine aimed at publishing culturally-rooted poetry. For themed submissions, Zhagaram has had a mythology themed issue in the past. I was shocked at the number of submissions that arrived which had nothing to do with mythology from any part of the world. Even when we run an unthemed issue, we mention and expect it to adhere to our theme of being inspired by culture and heritage. The reason our magazine exists is to provide a safe space and an archive of poems that preserve the heritage of cultures from around the world.

Cover letters give us a glimpse into the person behind the words. While we appreciate a greeting, it's not compulsory and won't impact the way your submission is reviewed.
A poet's previous publications (if any) do not matter to us and is something we come across only when looking at their bio while we send them an acceptance. We reach this stage at the very end of the submission process. Zhagaram is proud to have been the first publication for several writers we've published.

Zhagaram primarily reads and reviews poetry. We ask for poems in batches of 1-3 per submission. As the editor-in-chief, I make sure to read each and every poem until the very end. Most submissions are read twice.
Unless the work promotes some form of hatred, it will receive my utmost care and attention.

Yes! We nominate for Best of The Net