POETRY -- JUNE 2020

POEMS IN TRANSLATION CONTEST

Words Without Borders

INFO: Words Without Borders is pleased to announce the 2020 Poems in Translation Contest to spotlight some of the groundbreaking poets working around the world today and to celebrate the art of translating poetry.

The contest is open to contemporary international poetry translated from other languages into English. Four winning translated poems will be co-published on Words Without Borders, the digital magazine for international literature, and in Poem-a-Day, the popular daily poetry series produced by the Academy of American Poets, throughout September, which is National Translation Month.

The winning poems will be selected by acclaimed poet David Tomas Martinez, along with the editors of Words Without Borders.

The winning poets and translators will be awarded $150 each. (In the case of multiple translators, the translator award shall be split evenly.)

DEADLINE: June 1, 2020

https://wordswithoutborders.submittable.com/submit/164426/words-without-borders-poems-in-translation-contest?src=wordswithoutborders.org

WORKS OF RESISTANCE, RESILIENCE: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

About Place Journal

INFO: About Place Journal seeks submissions of creative non-fiction, poetry, fiction, hybrid work, video and artwork that explores the questions: How do we live and work towards a long-term dream for the continuation of our planet? How do we change our relationship to our earth; to each other to reflect social and economic equality?

We draw inspiration for this issue from a poem by the late Jayne Cortez, “There it is”:

“My friend / they don’t care /
They will try to exploit you /
absorb you   confine you /
or kill you.”

The Covid-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to look deeply into the mirror of our daily lives that reveal issues: lack of essential worker protections, lack of affordable health care, record level unemployment/underemployment, homelessness, Iack of protection for people in the shelters and those in systems of containment: prisoners, immigrants and their children.

Thousands have died worldwide, and the losses to families and communities are unquantifiable. The pandemic continues to disrupt our notions of “normal” in every aspect of life while becoming a window of opportunity through which those in power are advancing agendas that suit the interests of the one percent in opposition to the needs of the larger culture. How do we as artists and activists reflect on these times as we witness the disenfranchisement of poor, middle and working class people; further closing of borders; the ongoing, yet new economic turmoil; the continual erosion of land protections; the lack of water rights; and so many additional issues that face us?

We ask you consider the principal of Aya – a fern, in the Adinkra language. Aya is the Akan symbol for endurance and resourcefulness. It comes to mind when I think of our cultural and collective inheritance. In times of profound trouble in the West, we often look at other cultures such as African and Native cultures for examples of endurance. Resistance as a form of empowerment in a time where the average citizen must do something to save ourselves.

We have a profound opportunity to renew and reimagine our essential cultures, including our multiple relationships: to our planet, to our spiritual sources, to our family, to our friends, to our beliefs. As artists, what does it mean to be resilient in this time? We look forward to thinking with you about how art explores new ways of engagement in these times.

Editor: Jacqueline Johnson
Assistant Editors: Ifeona H. Fulani & Vida James

SUBMISSION PERIOD: June 1 - August 1, 2020

https://aboutplacejournal.org/submissions/

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Black Sunflowers Poetry Press

INFO: Black Sunflowers Poetry Press is calling for chapbooks, with a focus on poetry from women, especially older women and black poets. We are looking for completed, polished mini collections of poetry. We would prefer a set of themed poems but are open to all submissions. We want a set of poems that work perfectly as a chapbook, that feel ‘whole’ rather than part of a larger collection. Individual poems may have been published elsewhere but the complete set must be unpublished.

What we like

  • edgy / experimental / beautiful /unsettling / powerful / unfamiliar / bold / hypnotising

  • We want to be startled and moved.

  • We want to think ‘yes’ while we are reading.

  • From our first submissions round, we hope to select 4 outstanding poets who we will publish and market extensively

  • Open to poets internationally aged 18+

What you get

  • The successful poets will have their chapbook published and distributed by Black Sunflowers press within 1 year of close of submissions.

  • Successful poets will receive a fee of £150 plus 20 copies of the chapbook.

SUBMISSION FEE: $3

DEADLINE: June 7, 2020

https://www.blacksunflowerspoetry.com/submissions

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Malasaña

INFO: Malasaña is an online arts magazine established in New England in 2019. We currently publish bi-annually. We are interested in writing that shows a love for language, experimentation, and craftsmanship. We want urgent & diverse voices, especially voices from historically-silenced peoples. 

We accept fiction, poetry, translation, and visual art submissions.  

  • For fiction, please submit up to 2,500 words. We will occasionally accept a longer piece if we really feel it fits with our intent.  

  • For poetry, please submit three to five poems, all in a single document.   

  • For art, all images should be 300 dpi.   

  • Translations of poems and flash fiction are welcome. Translator should have written permission from original author.   

  • Please include a brief bio in your submitted document.   

All work should be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are fine―we ask that you let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere. Please include a short third-person bio in your cover letter. 

SUBMISSION FEE: $2

DEADLINE: June 10, 2020

https://malasanamagazine.submittable.com/submit

2020 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize

INFO: The 2020 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize is now open for submissions! Launched in 2009, the prize is a second-book award for black poets of African descent, offered every other year. Presented in collaboration with Northwestern University Press, the award celebrates and publishes work of lasting cultural value and literary excellence.

The winner receives $1,000, publication by Northwestern University Press, 15 copies of the book and a feature reading in New York City.

This year’s prize is judged by Cave Canem faculty Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon. 

SUBMISSION FEE: $0

DEADLINE: June 12, 2020

https://cavecanempoets.org/submit-to-the-2020-cave-canem-northwestern-university-press-poetry-prize/

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Tint Journal

INFO: Tint showcases the original work of writers for whom English is a second or non-native language. Short stories, essays, flash and poetry will only be accepted by writers who have learned or acquired the English language after being fluent in another language and within an open call for submissions. Reviews, interviews, and profiles focusing on ESL writers are welcome year-round by writers of all linguistic backgrounds. Art submissions are accepted within an open call for submissions only. 

How can I submit my work?

  • We exclusively accept creative writing and art submissions which reach us within the period of an open call for submissions.
    Interviews, reviews, profiles and essays on ESL writing are accepted year-round.

  • Please name your document [Genre]_[Last Name]_[Title], e.g. Poetry_Miller_The Rose.

  • Provide your submission with a title page, indicating your name, first language, second language(s), nationality, category, title of your piece, contact information (e-mail), and day of submission. Put page numbers on all following pages.

  • All submissions should be sent to submissions@tintjournal.com. If this form of submission represents an obstacle to the writer, please contact the journal via info@tintjournal.com.

  • We prefer doc and docx files. In case your submissions requires special formatting, we also accept pdf files.

  • For length and content, read through the “Original creations by ESL writers” and the “Creations by writers of any kind” guidelines below.

  • Allow for a time period of up to 20 days between the end of a call and an answer.

What kind of submissions does Tint accept?

  • Please submit only previously unpublished pieces. If you have a previously published piece that fits our mission, please contact us via info@tintjournal.com.

  • Translations will not be accepted. It should be an original creation in English. However, the work can feature words or passages in the writer’s original language.

  • For creative prose submissions (fiction or nonfiction), please submit one piece (short story or essay) between 1,000 and 4,000 words.

  • For flash (fiction or nonfiction) submissions, please submit one piece. It should not exceed 800 words.

  • For poetry submissions, please submit one poem. If the poem has subsections, mark them clearly in your document. A poem should not exceed four C4, A4 or Letter pages in length.

SUBMISSION FEE: $0

DEADLINE: June 12, 2020

https://tintjournal.com/submit/submission-guidelines

Convening in the Ark: Black & Sacred Sites of Revelation 

Root Work Journal

INFO: Root Work Journal, grounded within the Ark, imagines this time of quarantine as a route and portal to convene with the sacred postures of our ancestors: to comfort, to dream, to manifest.

We invite those of us who are conscious of our proximities to the ship to convene around rebellion, fugitivity, marronage, and other less apparent survival strategies that will sustain our spirits. We are hoping to gather pieces that help us re-member how we contend with the ongoing violence of the ship while also transitioning into new conceptual and physical worlds. 

So with expediency, we seek to honor the ancestors' call to action: we invite you to convene with us in the Ark. We call for papers, poems, meditations and writings that guide us from societal collapse into new worlds. We invite you to think deeply and lovingly in responding to the following paradigms: 

Abolition: Rebelling against the hopium of schooling:

  • How schooling seasons us to define optimism as “hoping against hope” that a mechanism built on the bones of our people will someday be our salvation

  • Resistance to schooling as a form or act of mental health

  • The necessity to reframe our depression and desires to end our lives as emanating from an underlying necessity to end the world in which we suffer

  • Teachers’ allegiance to schooling amidst societal collapse

Fugitivity: Detaching from the forces that keep us captive 

  • Re-conceptualizing growth in a culture of neoliberalism: growth does not always or necessarily mean "up" (i.e. stock market, test scores, degrees obtained) or even “more”; growth can refer to vital pathways that are oriented down (i.e. roots into the earth, from the womb to birth)

  • Success in the plantation lessening one’s likelihood to leave it or recognize it as such  

Marronage: Fugitive Movements from bondage and replications of alternative worldviews (Jamal-Wright, 2019)

  • How school achievement disintegrates Black communal connections

  • Intergenerational dialogues that explore the comingling of our love of learning with the project of schooling

  • The Sacredness of Black educational convenings

  • Who and what are necessary for the inevitable journey of the Ark (the vehicle) that transitions us from the ending of one world into a new one

Unknown, Unarchived and Uncaptured

  • We invite the community to offer reflections, works of art, and other testimonies about our Ark that speak beyond the suggested paradigms.

Curators for this special issue include: Cindy Bonaparte, Marcelo Clark, Sheryll Germany, Ernest Hardy, LeShawn Darnell Holcomb, Stephen Jamal Leeper, Leslie Poston, Tonesha Russell, Melanie Tervalon, Jas Wade, Deaidre White

For written entries, we ask that writers submit original pieces of work up to 10,000 words in length. 

(we prefer original pieces, but we are open to hosting work from journals that allow for concurrent submissions)​

DEADLINE: June 12, 2020 

https://www.rootworkjournal.org/calls

NARRATIVE PRIZE

Narrative

INFO: The Narrative Prize is awarded annually for the best short story, novel excerpt, poem, one-act play, graphic story, or work of literary nonfiction published by a new or emerging writer in Narrative.

The prize is announced each September and is given to the best work published each year in Narrative by a new or emerging writer, as judged by the magazine’s editors. In some years, the prize may be divided between winners, when more than one work merits the award.

AWARD: $4,000

DEADLINE: June 15, 2020

https://www.narrativemagazine.com/node/421?uid=103566&m=1e32f865664fcc3ea1affc353d055dc6&d=1559323196

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: ISSUE FOUR

The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism

INFO: The journal is issuing a call for submissions in the three categories of scholarly articles, poems, and prose (fiction, nonfiction, and experimental) dealing with themes in Gloria Anzaldua’s thought, including nepantla, spirituality, heteronormativity, Latinx identity, patriarchy, colonialism, mestizaje, and writing as a form of resistance.

Those interested in submission guidelines and learning more about the journal should refer to the journal’s website,  www.journallcf.org

Submissions outside of the thematic area of Anzaldua’s work will also be considered.

Poetry: Writers can submit between 3-5 poems. Upload multiple poems in one document.

The journal will provide a voice for the articulation of feminist and social justice concerns from a Latina perspective, broadly construed to include Latinas in the U.S., Latin America, and other countries. The journal will be an online, open access, peer-reviewed academic journal that considers narrative and poetic entries as legitimate forms of scholarly feminist analyses. We particularly welcome proposals for creating social orders in which both women and men can equally and autonomously promote a planetary ethic that expresses moral concern for all inhabitants of the earth community. Perhaps most of all, the journal will strive to exemplify the highest standards of intellectual and moral integrity and fairness. We believe that the true potential of feminism will never be realized unless these ideals are embraced and implemented.

SUBMISSION FEE: $3

DEADLINE: June 15, 2020

https://journallcf.submittable.com/submit

Sheltering Stories: NYC Teens Talk About COVID-19

City Dreams Press

INFO: New York City teens, we want to hear from you! Send us your personal essays, photography, and artwork in response to Covid-19. How is it affecting you? What are your thoughts, feelings, and observations? What do you see in your neighborhoods? How are you coping with sheltering in place?

City Dreams Press invites submissions from New York City teenagers age 12-18 for an upcoming e-book “Sheltering Stories: Teen Talk on COVID-19”.

GUIDELINES:

  • Personal essays: up to 1,500 words

  • Poetry: 3-5 poems

  • Photography or artwork: 3-5 images

DEADLINE: June 15, 2020

https://www.citydreamspress.com/

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: POETRY

Bengaluru Review

INFO: Bengaluru Review is an online monthly publication. We welcome unsolicited submissions of poetry, prose, art, and book reviews, not necessarily that order. We request you to read our submission guidelines intently before submitting them.

Poetry:

  • Age, theme, and genre are no barriers.

  • You can submit a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 6 poems (3-6) per submission.

  • Please send in your entries in a single document attached in either of the following formats ONLY: .doc, .docx.

  • We suggest that submissions be formatted with 12 pt. Times New Roman or Garamond type.

  • Simultaneous submission is allowed. We request you to immediately notify us if your work is accepted elsewhere.

  • Please submit only once per reading period. You can submit again in the next reading period.

  • Multiple submissions are considered if they pertain to different categories (poetry, fiction, etc.).

  • Blank e-mails with no body will not be read. Please add a cover letter into the body of the email that includes your first and last name, email address, the title of your work(s), and a brief bio (strictly under 100 words or less).

  • Please include an author photograph in a high-resolution landscape mode. You can attach up to 2-3 pictures. Please note that the minimum dimensions of a photo should be at least 800 x 420 pixels (W x H).

  • We undergo a "blind" submission process. Personal information should not appear anywhere in the attached document(s).

READING PERIOD: June 20 - July 5, 2020

https://bengalurureview.com/page/submission-guidelines

2020 AUTUMN HOUSE Poetry Contest

INFO: For the 2020 contest, the Autumn House staff serves as the preliminary readers, and the final judge is Ilya Kaminsky. The winner receives publication of a full-length manuscript and $2,500. The submission period opens January 1, 2020, and closes June 30, 2020 (Eastern Time).

  • The winners will receive book publication, $1,000 advance against royalties, and a $1,500 travel/publicity grant to promote their book

  • All finalists will be considered for publication

  • Poetry submissions should be approximately 50-80 pages

  • The reading fee for the Poetry Contest is $30

  • Submission should be previously unpublished

  • Please don’t include your name anywhere on the actual MS

  • Include a brief bio in the “cover letter” section of Submittable

  • Feel free to include a TOC and acknowledgments page

  • Simultaneous submissions permitted

DEADLINE: June 30, 2020

https://www.autumnhouse.org/submissions/poetry/

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: SUMMER 2020 PRINT ISSUE

Serendipity Literary Magazine

INFO: We are particularly interested in work that grapples with the intersections of race, gender, disability, and sexuality in our current socio-political climate. LGBTQ BIPOC are strongly encouraged to submit. Please do not submit if you do not identify as BIPOC.

Serendipity is a literary journal specializing in poetry, prose, and art that engages with issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and intersecting identities. We seek work that explores, celebrates, and interrogates all aspects of our identities; and work that delights and beguiles our readerly sensibilities. Formerly an online journal, we are now publishing an annual print publication featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Our goal is to publish exciting work that amplifies marginalized voices, particularly that of same-gender loving BIPOC.

GUIDELINES:

  • Writers: We accept prose submissions under 5,000 words and no more than three (3) poems, in either .doc or .docx format. Please use 12pt font, 1-inch margins, and number your pages. Include your last name, genre, title of work, and email in the header.

  • Artists: Please submit up to six images in separate files.

  • All work must be previously unpublished. This includes blogs and other online publications.

  • Cover letters are optional.

  • Please include a current bio of no more than 100 words written in third person.

  • We accept simultaneous submissions. Please notify us immediately if work you submitted has been accepted elsewhere.

Contributors will receive one free copy of the print journal and $15 as payment remitted via PayPal.

DEADLINE: June 30, 2020

http://serendipitylitmag.org/submit/

CALL FOR CHAPBOOK SUBMISSIONS

Paper Monster Press

INFO: Paper Monster Press, a bilingual publishing and a quarterly no-garage indie transgenre zine, is seeking chapbook submissions.

Send 13-30 pages of poetry, micro/flash fiction, essays in Filipino or English to papermonsterpress@gmail.com

DEADLINE: June 30, 2020

https://www.facebook.com/papermonsterpress/photos/a.191879894184936/3183062301733332/?type=3&theater

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Variety Pack

INFO: For the rest of the month of June we will be only seeking to publish Black LGBTQIA+ voices for our special issue: Black Voices of Pride 

Check out the info from our special issues pages:

At Variety Pack we know we can do more as a journal and we want to do more. In an effort to show solidarity with the amazing Black voices in the LGTBQIA+ Community. For the rest of June we will be taking submissions exclusively from Black LGBTQIA+ creatives. Joining us on our team for this special issue, will be our guest editor Dior J. Stephens!

We are taking submissions in all categories; flash fiction, short fiction, poetry, cnf/essays, visual art/mixed media.

Also for this special issue we will be adding a donations button to our website, where the proceeds will go to paying our contributors and guest editor as well!

Please submit to the following email: varietypackblmpride@gmail.com.

Please be sure to refer to our submission guidelines below: but remember the emails to send to don’t apply to this, please send to the one listed above^^^

Also along with the guidelines provided below, please put in your subject line: Name: Genre – “Title” (For ex: Gerry: Flash Fiction – “Something, Something, Something”)

DEADLINE: June 30, 2020

https://varietypack.net/submissions-2/

RESIDENCY

Vermont Studio Center

INFO: Each month, VSC welcomes over 50 artists and writers from across the country around the world to our historic campus in northern Vermont.

All of our residencies include:

  • A private room in modest, shared housing

  • 24-hour access to a private studio space in one of our 6 medium-specific studio buildings

  • 3 communal meals per day (plus fresh fruit, coffee/tea/cold beverages, and cereal available around the clock) 

Most residents stay with us for 1 month, so our sessions adhere to a 4-week calendar; however, residencies can be scheduled in 2-week increments ranging from 2 to 12 weeks if a shorter or longer stay better suits your needs.

FELLOWSHIPS FOR WRITERS INCLUDE:

Henry David Thoreau Fellowship
One (1) fellowship for a poet whose creative work directly engages environmental issues and embodies the life, work, and spirit of Henry David Thoreau.

ELIGIBILITY NOTE: To be considered, please include a brief statement (250 words or less) that describes how your poetry engages environmental issues and embodies the life, work, and spirit of Henry David Thoreau. 

VSC/Cave Canem Fellowship
One (1) 4-week fellowship for a Cave Canem Fellow. Includes $1,000 stipend. The $25 application fee is waived for eligible applicants.

ELIGIBILITY NOTE: Please indicate in the application when you were a Cave Canem Fellow.

VSC/Kundiman Fellowship
One (1) 4-week fellowship for a Kundiman Fellow. Includes $1,000 stipend. The $25 application fee is waived for eligible applicants.

ELIGIBILITY NOTE: Please indicate in the application when you were a Kundiman Fellow.

DEADLINE: Extended to June 30, 2020

vermontstudiocenter.org/residencies

Latinx Lit Celebration guest edited by Ruben Quesada

[PANK]

INFO: We will be publishing poetry, prose, non/traditional, and media by Latinx writers to raise awareness of the breadth of their experiences and talents. If you identify as Latinx and would like your work to be considered for publication, please submit by July 1 using the following guidelines:

For poetry:

  • Up to 3 poems

  • Include all poems in a single file

  • Begin each new poem on a new page

For prose:

  • Up to 3,000 words of fiction or non-fiction

For Non/Traditional or Media:

  • Use MP3 or MP4 only, with a file size under 60MB.

DEADLINE: July 1, 2020

https://pankmagazine.submittable.com/submit/166847/latinx-lit-celebration-guest-edited-by-ruben-quesada

Call for Work: To Speak as a Flower: A Folio of Performance Writing

Anomaly

INFO: Anomaly invites previously unpublished submissions of poems, prose, playwriting, video, art, and hybrid genres of work that might fall under a broad rubric of performance writing. We embrace this term’s wide scope, encompassing everything from Don Mee Choi’s turn to playwriting conventions in “Hardly Opera” (from which we draw our title) and jayy dodd’s scene in Anomaly‘s issue 26 folio Radical : Avant Garde Poets of Color, to Tatsumi Hijikata’s dance notations and Duriel Harris’ musical scores as poems.

We are interested in work that uses performance as one of its tools, work which is made possible by a relationship to performance — even if that performance never happens, or imagines impossible commitments. What forms might such composition take if it followed Etel Adnan’s provocation that “memory and theatre work in similar ways,” or if it pursued a stage “more open to different ways of moving” (as Hilton Als has characterized Adrienne Kennedy’s work)? We are committed to promoting the work of marginalized and underrepresented artists, including by Black, Indigenous, and other artists of color, as well as, disabled, neurodivergent, women, queer, trans, and gender nonconforming artists — and we wonder whether this form might be especially useful for these artists!

DEADLINE: July 1, 2020

https://medium.com/anomalyblog/call-for-work-to-speak-as-a-flower-a-folio-of-performance-writing-63d1b9193564

CALL FOR AUDIO SUBMISSIONS: HEARD/WORD

Galleyway

INFO: HEARD/WORD is Galleyway's new audio series highlighting compelling voices in poetry and prose. We invite you to share recordings of original poems and short fiction. Selected work will be showcased on our blog and social media platforms. Submissions should include:

  • MP3 recording of you reading your poetry (no longer than 3 minutes) or short fiction (no longer than 5 minutes)

  • Text version of the piece

  • A headshot 

  • A brief bio

  • Social media handles and link to website

Please send submissions to camille@galleyway.com

DEADLINE: Ongoing

https://galleyway.com/blog/2020/3/31/call-for-audio-submissions

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee

INFO: The Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee is launching Shalom/Salaam Publishing, and looking for written work (short stories, poetry, etc) and imagery (paintings, photos, illustrations, collage, etc) that transcends boundaries, brings people together, and inspires faith in humanity.

The Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee (MJSC) is a grassroots organization guided by the Muslim and Jewish values of Peace שָׁלוֹם سلام, Learning علم‎‎ יֶדַע, and Charity زكاة‎‎ צדקה, to build meaningful relationships between all faiths, and to stand against hate through shared values and social action

DEADLINE: Ongoing

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdku-rxQnpN8yB6vqnoRuDwKPnsxeOlThH6aWjts1f31Wabew/viewform

'Awake' Zine Submission

Lucky Jefferson

INFO: Lucky Jefferson's new digital zine Awake seeks to amplify the experiences and perspectives of Black and African American writers in American society. This digital zine will highlight poems, essays, and art from writers of color and the different opportunities and challenges of cultural assimilation in America, establishing identity and preserving culture, and the concept of double-consciousness. 

Upon acceptance, submissions will be included on our website and publicized on social media.

GUIDELINES:

- Send no more than three poems in a submission. Poems should be submitted in a single file, with poems separated by titles or page breaks.

- If sharing an essay, include an essay with no more than 1500 words. 

- Send no more than three pieces of art. Artwork that offers social commentary on the Black experience is highly preferred (We love comics and collage pieces!).

- Include a cover page highlighting the poet’s name, email address, biography, and mailing address. Biographical statements should be two to three sentences or 50-75 words.

DEADLINE: Ongoing

https://luckyjefferson.submittable.com/submit/167135/lucky-jefferson-awake-zine-submission