So I keep hearing that literary agents 99.9% of the time don't take poetry, but yet some of the biggest publishers, for example Harper Collins have poetry books out. These publishers, such as Haper Collins do not take unsolicited manuscripts, meaning you need an agent to present your work. So if you need an agent to present your work, and the biggest publishers don't take unsolicited manuscript, HOW DO POETRY BOOKS END UP IN SOME OF THE BIGGEST PUBLISHERS?????

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A lot of the time, the big publishers will hold contests for fun, poetry contests, too. That is how I got published. Big time publishers also do anthologies of poems, collected by heaven only knows who.

Beware of poetry contests! They usually are huge books of poetry with many poets that stink. I learned the hard way when I was younger. They are "vanity publishers" which means they tell you that you are so talented, they will publish you in a book (with tons of other poets) and then you are asked to buy a copy for every relative of yours. The FACT is-- while most publishers do NOT publish poetry, there are a few that DO. What you need to do is get the book "Writer's Market" that is published every year. It has the updated list of who is publishing work of all kinds. Magazine articles, fiction, non-fiction, and YES, poetry.

The poetry books published by big publishers are most anthologies of previously-published poems by a number of different poets, and are mostly poems that are already well-known, or are collections by exceptionally well-known poets. So, you'll see a major publisher bring out an edition of the collected poems of Blake, or Donne, or TS Eliot, or Ted Hughes, but not a collection by a first-time poet. Most less well-known/unknown poets are published by small-press specialist publishers at first. Only when they've become extremely famous (which, let's face it, is not often) do they ever get published by bigger publishers.

99.9% of agents don't accept poetry books....clearly you need to find that .1% that does.....I'm an aspiring author, and i have spent HOURS looking for agents.....i have probably submitted my work to 50 agents....I believe only one of those agents said that they did accept poetry.