Wee Groucho Sparrow watercolour by Colin Thom

Reason Gone Mad - a digital zine

Edited and Curated by The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press´editor across the pond, John Tessitore

We know. It’s all going to hell. We know. For the past two years, the team at The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press has been trying its best to fight back the armies of darkness, through poetry. We even donate the proceeds from our anthologies to charity. Our bleeding hearts are in the right place. But we need a laugh too, dammit!

Comedy, like poetry, is about connection. It makes us feel less alone. And we need some light-hearted connection right now. So we’re asking you to send us your funniest poems, to be included in a forthcoming, online zine…Wee Sparrow’s first humor mag. 

Groucho Marx once defined humor as “reason gone mad.” Actually, we’re not sure if Groucho said that. We just found the quote on the internet, and we like it, but we can’t find the original source. It doesn’t matter. We like the quote and it’s even better for our purposes if he DIDN’T say it. A perfect quote that may not be an actual quote…that seems like a pretty good title for a volume of poems that revels the absurdity of it all.

So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to publish a zine of funny poems called Reason Gone Mad, after a potentially fake quote from a guy in a false mustache.

And we’re asking you to send us your poems that glory in absurdity, irony, slapstick, parody, tall tales, jokes with punchlines…and reason gone mad. Make us laugh. We all need it.

-John Tessitore, editor across the pond at The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press.

Submission Guidelines

Please read them carefully before submitting.

Submission window: 22nd July to 31st August 2024

Send John up to three poems to reasongonemad1@gmail.com.

Send your poems in one single document attachment titled with your full name as you would like to see it in print. In the body of your email, please include your full name, country of residence and a brief bio. 

Poems can be previously published but we would like to see some new work too. Please add a note about where your poem has been published so we can credit that fully if your poem is selected. 

Poems submitted outside the submission window will not be considered. We also ask that you read our Inclusivity Statement prior to submitting. Work created by AI will be instantly rejected. 

Take your time writing your poems, edit them, read them over, ask a poetry pal to read them for you. Send us your very best, polished work and above all...make us laugh, dammit! 

The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press does not believe in charging submission fees but if you would like to make a donation towards the running costs of the press then you can do so via our Buy Us A Coffee Page here. 

Happy writing!