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SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS: Calls for Submission, Events and Other News and Information

img_2370CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunity Knocks

REJECTED POETRY JOURNAL, poetry that doesn’t fit “is a place for those little lost poems that just don’t fit in. Poems that have been rejected a dozen times by even the worst lit mags. Poems that have been rejected by their crush. Poems that barely survived the editing process. Poems that didn’t get finished. Poems that not even the poet believes in. Poems will appear on RPJ intermittently.” This looks like a fledgling publication with a novel idea. It’s a blog type site – nothing wrong with that, by the way – and they’re using Tumblr. I don’t know how many people want to pub “Rejected Poetry” on their list of published poems. Link HERE.

OYSTER RIVER PAGES is preparing for its inaugural issues and invites submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and visual art through 31 May 2017. Guidelines HERE.

ICON, Kent State University “is a poetry and art magazine that is published once each years, near the end of the spring semester. Submissions welcome from everyone. Details HERE.

ROGUEPOETRY REVIEW, punks write poems publishes four themed issues a year.  The theme for the spring issue is “Revival.” DEADLINES: Spring: January 31, Summer: April 30, Fall: July 31, Winter: October 31. Spring deadline is upon us, so hop to. You can submit electronically. Editors read on a rolling basis.  Details HERE. RoguePoetry Review is published by Punks Write Poems Press, LLC, which has a book publishing arm.

SAN PEDRO RIVER REVIEW publishes twice a year. The next reading period is July 1 – July 31 for poetry.. Details HERE.

GREEN LINDEN PRESS is a digital publication currently accepting submissions of poetry for Issue three, which is scheduled for publication on Solstice 2017. There is a $2.50 reading fee. Details HERE.

IMITATIONS FRUIT LITERARY JOURNAL publishes poetry and visual art. The deadline for the 2017 issue is April 1st. Details HERE.

COMPETITIONS/CONTESTS

HART CRANE MEMORIAL POETRY CONTEST (ICON, Kent State University) invites submission of two previously unpublished poems. Details HERE. The deadline is 4 p.m. on February 1, so hope to if you are interested.  You can submit electronically.

SEQUESTRUM LITERATURE AND ART Editor’s Reprint Awards for Poetry 2017 invites submissions of previously published work through April 30th. The entry fee is $15 and the winners will be announced in August. Winner award is $200 and publication in Sequestrum. Runner-ups are awarded $25 and publication. Details HERE.

EVENTS

ALBANY POETS 

7:00pm – Poetic Vibe
Troy Kitchen, 77 Congress Street, Troy, NY
Poetic Vibe is a weekly Poetry Open Mic with featured local and regional poets hosted by D. Colin in downtown Troy.

7:30pm – Poets Speak Loud – 12th Annual Tom Nattell Memorial Open Mic and Beret Toss
McGeary’s, 4 Clinton Square, Albany, NY
Poets Speak Loud is Albany Poets’ monthly open mic for poetry and spoken word with guest host Dan Wilcox. This month we celebrate the life and work of Tom Nattell and 12 years of Poets Speak Loud.

POETRY SLAM, INC. lists events around the country HERE.

WORLD POETRY DAY is March 31 this year. Detail HERE.

POTPOURRI

THE FREEDOM PRINCIPLE: EXPERIMENT IN ART AND MUSIC. “1965 to Now” exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Philadelphia. This large show links the legacy of avant-garde jazz and experimental music of the late 1960s (particularly within the African American arts scene on the South Side of Chicago) and its influence on contemporary art and culture. It continues until March 19, 2017. HERE is a slide show of the art included in the exhibit.

NANCY MITCHELL], Poet and Painter (by Nin Andrews), part of a series about poets who paint, Best American Poetry

THIS POLITICAL THEORIST PREDICTED THE RISE OF TRUMPISM. HIS NAME WAS HUNTER S. THOMPSON, ,Susan McWilliams in The Nation

FACEBOOK PRIVACY TIPS: How to shre without oversharing, Internet Citizen

A GUIDE TO TWITTER’S PRIVACY SETTINGS, Internet Citizen

NEWS

MORE THAN SIXTY YEARS SINCE ORWELL’S 1984 WAS PUBLISHED and Amazon announced that since the election of the current administration (regime), it has become a best-seller. You can download the dystopian novel that was required high school reading in my day for free HERE. I’m guessing that Orwell would have liked to be proven wrong.

SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS

Submit your event, book launch and other announcements at least fourteen days in advance to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. Publication is subject to editorial discretion.

51hlj5jhdkl-_sx329_bo1204203200_The recommended read for this week is Robert Pinsky’s Singing School, Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry. No rules or recipes here just learning by studying the pros. Charming. Fun.

The WordPlay Shop offers books and other tools especially selected for poets and writers.

THE WORDPLAY SHOP: books, tools and supplies for poets, writers and readers

LITERATURE AND FICTION oo Editor’s Picks oo Award Winners oo NY Times Best Sellers

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Notes on Yesterday’s Phone Conference with Rev. Barber, “The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear”

The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II is president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and founder of Repairers of the Breach.
The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II is president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and founder of Repairers of the Breach.

Yesterday the call went out to clergy and lay leaders for a telephone gathering to discuss the U.S. presidential orders issued during the first week of the new administration, which I notice lately some are calling a “regime.” These orders are efforts to undermine voting rights, encourage racism and sexism, and to punish sanctuary cities.The concern is that if we don’t respond immediately to these threats, they will become the new normal.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP and author of The Third Reconstruction, Catherine Orsborn of Shoulder to Shoulder, Standing with American Muslims: Upholding American Values and Valerie Kaur presented. Valerie is an award-winning filmmaker, civil rights lawyer, media commentator, Sikh activist and interfaith leader who uses storytelling much as we use poetry – for social change.

The emphasis of the discussion was:

  • solidarity,
  • the upholding of American ideals, and
  • rapid response.

The combination of noise on the line and my hearing made it difficult for me to track the entire conversation, but as best I could determine among the encouraged actions were:

  • Frequent phone calls to members of Congress. Numbers for the members of the House of Representatives are HERE. Numbers for the Senate members are HERE.
  • Exercise resistance in our own spheres. Use social media and take part in local resistance efforts.

Rev. Barber said this is a historic moment but not a new moment in terms of extremism and hate and not the worst moment.

“In the great stream of injustice down through the ages, this is not the worst thing we have suffered. To say so is to dishonor those whose lives were dishonored in holocausts, lynchings and Jim Crow [and other human abuses].” 

Nonviolent civil disobedience is encouraged. Rev. Barber advises self-purification, prayer, and fasting to prepare for moral resistance, for nonviolent direct action against immoral public policy agenda at the state and federal levels. Suggestions for these processes are to be found at Repairers of the Breach.

“Now is not a time to wait and see. Now is a time for action.”

Here is a video in which Rev. Barber gives us some background on the Third Reconstruction and its place in history. It’s worth your time. (if you are reading this via an email subscription you will have to link through to the site to view the video) 

RELATED:

The photograph of Rev. Barber and the description below it are from his Amazon page.

51qqbcpwhul-_sx332_bo1204203200_The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II is this week’s recommended read.  If you plan to purchase this book and use the link here it will help to support this site.
Thank you!

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BREAKING NEWS ON THE JUSTICE FRONT: Fellow Americans, please join this national phone call today with Rev. Barber to address recent executive orders

800px-william_barber_at_moral_mondays_rallyJOIN REV. WILLIAM BARBER TODAY at 4 p.m. Eastern Time for immediate response to address the Executive Orders this week that threaten immigrants, refugees, and Muslims, along with new efforts to undermine voting rights and punish sanctuary cities must be met with a powerful and rapid response. TODAY, please join Rev. William Barber and Catherine Orsborn, and other faith leaders at 4 pm ET/1 pm PT for a national call on what we can all do to resist and move forward.

51qqbcpwhul-_sx332_bo1204203200_Call in to (319) 527-2731 Access Code: 150728.
In the meantime, we put together this Rapid Response Guide for People of Faith & Moral Conscience with resources from partners on how to prepare for moral resistance, call your representatives, post on social media, and more. Share it. We will continue to update this guide as events unfold.
In #MoralResistance and #RevolutionaryLove. (Go to those links on Facebook. They’re public so you don’t need to be on Facebook to access them.)

Photo of Rev. Barber leading a Moral Monday gather courtesy of twbuckner under CC BY SA 2.0 License

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ORWELL MATTERS, “A Little Poem” and … “Power is not a means. It’s an end.”

George Orwell (1903-1950), BBC Photograph in the public domain an curtesy of Penguin Books, India
George Orwell (1903-1950), BBC Photograph in the public domain, curtesy of Penguin Books, India

A LITTLE POEM

A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.

But girl’s bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.

I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;

And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn’t born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?

– George Orwell

POWER IS NOT A MEANS. IT’S AN END.

The current state of affairs has many pulling 1984 and Animal Farm off their bookshelves, dusting them off and reading them again, probably for the first time since school days.

“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” George Orwell, 1984

51fgdfc5bl-_sx315_bo1204203200_Eric Arthur Blair (pen name George Orwell) “was born in 1903 in Motihari, Bengal, in the then British colony of India, where his father, Richard, worked for the Opium Department of the Civil Service. His mother, Ida, brought him to England at the age of one. He did not see his father again until 1907, when Richard visited England for three months before leaving again until 1912. Eric had an older sister named Marjorie and a younger sister named Avril. With his characteristic humour, he would later describe his family’s background as “lower-upper-middle class.” MORE