I've always tried to go beyond the brief description (""excluding rhyming" can very well mean "excluding Hallmark doggerel") and see what is actually in the journal (If it's an on-line journal, no problem in checking it out) or if I know anybody in there - or even google a few of the names. What you quote, Ed, sounds sloppily written. If so, why would you want to be in there?

Do you know, David, I'd love to see that poem

I remember the old listing for Artful Dodge used to say they did not want "the last vestiges of rhymed poetry in the civilized world." That was quite a few years ago, will have to check and see if they changed it.

dwl

What on earth does that mean? Editors can choose whatever criteria they like, and would-be readers and submitters have every right to think the criteria balls and to vote by subscribing and sending work elsewhere. From that point of view, then, woeful criteria are surely quite useful.

That's the Duotrope formula for listing 'Poetry Forms' under 'Genres, Styles & Themes' -- 'Open to' and 'Excluding' are the only categories offered for a journal to note what they will or won't accept. Given the black and white nature of those categories, I wondered how many journals explicitly exclude poems that rhyme from consideration; however inexact, I thought that might be some indication of how the wind is blowing.

It's also interesting to hear where people apply or don't apply, and why, but that's a different question.

Ed