Poetry Submission Information
March 19th 2026 The Dirigible Balloon is now closed to submissions of poetry. We have replied to all poets who sent poems within the submissions window (please check your spam/junk files as well as your inboxes).
We will now be concentrating on creating a longlist for the next anthology ... any poem currently uploaded to the website (which has not already appeared in the first two anthologies) will be eligible for consideration. When we move to the shortlisting stage, we will be contacting shortlisted poets to see if they would like their work to appear in the third book. For this reason, submissions will now be closed until the autumn of 2026 (there will not be a summer upload of new poems).
The money generated from sales of the third anthology (like Chasing Clouds and Sky Surfing) will be donated to a children's charity which will be announced at a later date. We are also looking to include an illustration with each poem in the new book. The Dirigible Balloon will be approaching artists/illustrators once a shortlist has been confirmed.
Thank you to everyone for their continued support for what we do here on the Dirigible Balloon. The folks who share our aims and publicise the wonderful poetry on our site are very very much appreciated. Despite the fact we are currently in the National Year of Reading, it remains incredibly difficult to get various media outlets and other publications to acknowledge and/or publicise the wealth of resources here on the DB. In terms of visibility, it sometimes feels like we're being obscured (by clouds perhaps: a product of daring to fly so high).
Alta Pete
Best wishes
Jonathan
#PoetryForChildren #DirigibleBalloon
We will now be concentrating on creating a longlist for the next anthology ... any poem currently uploaded to the website (which has not already appeared in the first two anthologies) will be eligible for consideration. When we move to the shortlisting stage, we will be contacting shortlisted poets to see if they would like their work to appear in the third book. For this reason, submissions will now be closed until the autumn of 2026 (there will not be a summer upload of new poems).
The money generated from sales of the third anthology (like Chasing Clouds and Sky Surfing) will be donated to a children's charity which will be announced at a later date. We are also looking to include an illustration with each poem in the new book. The Dirigible Balloon will be approaching artists/illustrators once a shortlist has been confirmed.
Thank you to everyone for their continued support for what we do here on the Dirigible Balloon. The folks who share our aims and publicise the wonderful poetry on our site are very very much appreciated. Despite the fact we are currently in the National Year of Reading, it remains incredibly difficult to get various media outlets and other publications to acknowledge and/or publicise the wealth of resources here on the DB. In terms of visibility, it sometimes feels like we're being obscured (by clouds perhaps: a product of daring to fly so high).
Alta Pete
Best wishes
Jonathan
#PoetryForChildren #DirigibleBalloon
This poem is copyright (©) Jonathan Humble 2026
About the Writer
Jonathan Humble
Jonathan lives in Cumbria. His work has been published online and in print in a number of magazines and anthologies. His first collection of poetry, My Camel's Name Is Brian, was published by TMB Books in 2015. His second poetry book, Fledge came out in 2020 through Maytree Press. His poems for children have been shortlisted and highly commended in the Caterpillar and Yorkmix poetry competitions and he is the editor of The Dirigible Balloon. His poems Masterclass and This Work is Done were chosen as the Milk House Poem of the Year at the end of 2022 and 2023.
