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SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS: Calls for Submissions, Contests, Events and other News and Information

CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunity Knocks

THE BeZINE, Be inspired … Be creative … Be peace … Be Michael Dickel and I are reviewing submissions for the April’s special poetry edition. Traditionally at the Zine we celebrate April as interNational Poetry Month. Deadline is April 10 and pub date is April 15, so you still have time to submit poetry on any subject and in any form. International submissions are encouraged but poems must be in English. You may also include your poem in your first or other language to go with the English translation. Also of interest: features on poets and poetry, the art and craft of poetry, why and how poetry matters, history and development and so forth. Welcome also are reviews of books and collections as well as literary criticism. Submissions to bardogroup@gmail.com.  Please check out the Zine first so that you understand our mission. Intro and Mission Statement HERE.  Submission guidelines are HERE. Thank you!  

STORM CELLER QUARTERLY a literary journal seeks images and nonfiction or fiction up to 5000 words, flashes up to 4000 words total, poems up to 400 lines, images, graphics and hybrid works. Details HERE.

RHUBARB is an independent, secular and published three-times a year accepts submissions of unpublished poetry, fiction, nonfiction and black-and-white photographs. Features also include humor, book reviews, commentary, issues and articles related to theme.  Closed now for the June issue but watch the site for the next call.  Details HERE. This is a paying market.

SUBPRIMAL POETRY ART founded in 2013 and offering “quality thought proving poetry and other art.”  Also invited are submissions of essays on the creative process. This is a paying market.  In some circumstances previously published work is considered.  Details HERE.

UNDERSTORY MAGAZINE, Vital Writing and Visual Art by Women in Canada, seeks to feature underrepresented voices with stories told through essays, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and visual arts. Also features guest bloggers. Offers a modest honorarium.  Details HERE.

POETRY FILM LIVE seeks to showcase the best and most inspiring film and video poetry from the UK and around the world, featuring both emerging and established poets and poetry filmmakers. It is a collaboration with The Interpreter’s House Poetry Journal. Submissions are currently open through 30th June 2017. Details HERE.

CONTESTS

Opportunity Knocks

PLOUGHSHARES at Emerson College, Emerging Writer’s Contest is open through noon on May 15th. This contest is open to fiction, nonfiction and poetry from writer’s who haven’t as yet a published or self-published book.  $24 entry fee. $2,000 prize. Details HERE.

STORM CELLER QUARTERLY Force Mjeure Flash Contest seeking “the best small things, any form, any content, any fine and wonderful creation.” Entry fee. Cash prizes. Submissions by underrepresented are encouraged: women, people of color, indigenous, disabled, Lgbtq plus, poor and others. If you cannot pay the entry fee, email the editors.  Fiction and nonfiction. Deadline June 30, 2017. Details HERE.

THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE accepts submissions of poetry in June for the autumn issue and in October for the spring issue. Details HERE.

EVENTS

  • Austin Writers Roulette is an uncensored, theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event. It features a different monthly theme and line up of artists who perform their original written works such as poetry, essays, spoken word, singer-songwriting, or excerpts from novels for 5-8 minutes (1200 words or fewer). Interested artists who would like to perform for an upcoming event can email their submission to mathdreads@yahoo.com. Or you can show up during the day of the event and sign up for the open mic after all the featured artists perform. And of course, performance art lovers are always welcome! This month’s theme is “Pretense Is Underrated.” Visit the Austin Writers Roulette website for more information: http://austinwritersroulette.com/ * If parking is unavailable in the bookstore parking lot, please use residential streets for parking or you may park at Cabo Bob’s when they are closed.
  • TONIGHT ON FACEBOOK LIVE a poetry special for teachers: Laura Shovan announced that “April is National Poetry Month. I often hear from educators that they had poetry scared out of them in high school and they’re nervous about teaching it in their own classrooms.”That’s why I’m scheduling a NPM Facebook Live post for teachers, librarians, parents, and homeschoolers. I’ll walk you through a poetry lesson that’s fun, but also builds line reading skills. Yes — I said “fun” and “line reading” in the same sentence. I promise you will be able to replicate this lesson.”We’ll be using the poem “Weather” by Eve Merriam. Please have a copy on hand or have this website pulled up for our walk-through: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/weather We’re moving this event to Nerdy Book Club! See you over there on April 2 from 9pm – 10pm.
  • Michael Rothenberg announced his Spring Reading Tour! Here is the schedule. If you would like to meet the esteemed founder of 100,000 Poets for Change, this might be your opportunity.
    CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA
    Sunday, April 9th
    Michael Rothenberg and Jacki Shelton Green
    2:00 pm, FlyLeaf Books in Chapel Hill
    752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Chapel Hill, NC 27514

    PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
    Tuesday, April 11
    Michael Rothenberg and Ron Silliman
    Penn Book Center, 6:30pm
    Philadelphia, Pa. 19104

    NEW YORK (2 events)
    Saturday, April 15
    Michael Rothenberg, Ron Kolm, Bonnie Finberg and Steve Dalachinsky
    Unnameable Books, 7pm
    600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

    Sunday, April 16th, 3pm
    Michael Rothenberg and Nicole- Peyrafitte
    Swift Hibernian Lounge
    Between Lafayette and Bowery on 4th,
    Manhattan, New York

    BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
    Tuesday, April 18
    Michael Rothenberg and Ron Kipling Williams
    Wilde Reading Series, 7pm-9pm
    Columbia Art Center
    Columbia, Maryland

    WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA
    Saturday, April 22
    Michael Rothenberg
    Reading and workshop
    Guest Poet Michael Rothenberg
    will join us for Couplet, our annual poetry
    festival this year.� At 2 PM Rothenberg
    will give a workshop and at 4 PM
    he will give a reading from his work.
    Old Books on Front Street
    Wimington, North Carolina

NEWS & OTHER INFORMATION

The recommended read for this week: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Left, right or center – American or not – it’s a must read.

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HEADS-UP San Mateo, CA: Justice Action Mondays, Flash Activism

Unitarian Universalist Church of San Mateo California

Rev. Ben Meyers and the congregation of the Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo (UUSM) invite area residents to join with them for Justice Action Mondays: Flash Activism. The gatherings run from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Postcards, stamps, other supplies, snacks and good conversation with like-minded people are provided.

This Monday, April 3, we will speak up for the planet, writing postcards to protest the executive order that rolls back many environmental programs. We will also start to make posters for our local Climate Marches in San Jose and Oakland on Earth Day, April 29. Come and speak up for the fish and the bees and the air we breathe!

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS OF SAN MATEO, 300 E. Santa Inez Avenue, San Mateo, 94401, 650.342.5946 

RESIST

Rule #13 from On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Center by Timothy Snyder: “Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.” (A must read. More to come on this. This recommendation comes from me, not UUSM.)

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Heads-up San Mateo, CA: Justice Action Monday, Flash Advocacy … “Resistance” works

Every Monday evening from 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. Rev. Benjamin Meyers and members of the Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo (UUSM) invite neighbors in North Central San Mateo gather with them to “Resist.”  This Monday evening  postcards will be set asking Congress to reject Trump’s proposed budget cuts to the arts, the sciences and to social service programs like Meals on Wheels and to protest his proposed massive increase in military spending. Postcards will also go to thank those media outlets that are telling the truth and to those companies that have pulled their advertising from Breitbart.  Supplies, snacks and convivial company provided.

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS OF SAN MATEO, Justice Action Mondays, Flash Action Advocacy,  300 E. Santa Inez Ave, San Mateo, Phone: 650-342-5946 Office Hours: Tu-Fri 10-5

RESISTANCE WORKS: Hillary Clinton’s response to yesterday’s health insurance victory. 

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Poets and Poetry in the Shadowland of Technology and Social Networking

bright flower at nightI believe in the power of poetry; and I believe we can extend that power when we make strategic use of it in that very mixed blessing, the shadow land of technology and social networking.  That is why I spend much of my valued time in these arenas and much effort supporting other writers and activists who are doing profoundly important work. I’m no longer able to storm the gates, but I can still pound the heck out of a keyboard.

After eight years, however, I find I’m losing my tolerance for those who use poetry and social networking – ostensibly to raise the community consciousness with regard to want and inequity – only to proceed to thoughtlessly undermine the care, hard work and long hours invested by others who actually do put the “active” in activism.

It is also one thing to use the tools of social networking to connect with family and friends, to form friendships based on affinity, and to earn our bread or to support those causes in which we believe. It’s quite another thing to do it as a narcissistic indulgence, especially when that indulgence is at the expense of people who need us to be – not self-concerned and histrionic – but measured voices that walk our talk in the daily play of living, working, spending, teaching (in the greater sense all good poets are teachers) and – yes! – social networking.

Poetry can be assertive and should be. If justice poetry, however, isn’t balanced and well-considered, if it isn’t complemented with right action and right living, it is the work of a poet who enjoys the sound of his or her own voice. It is in danger of devolving into an exercise of smug in the service of ego and sanctimony in the service of voyeurism.

If our compassion is all talk and no legs, it isn’t compassion at all. In the same vein, justice poetry needs teeth and its teeth come from actions consistent with values expressed. English poet and scientist, Jemma Borg, writes this in The Poet and the Planet, a feature article in the November 2015 issue of ARTEMISpoetry:

” . . . ‘art prepares us for thought’ and ‘thought prepares us for action’ (as the political activist and poet, Rukeyser wrote). There must be poetry, there must be activism; it is a continuum. So, poets can give society a guilty conscience, they can be legislators. But we also need people camped outside Shell to protest against drilling in the Arctic …”

© 2017, words and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

The recommended read for this week for children, Pizza, Pigs and Poetry: How to Write a Poem by  Jack Prelutsky,  named the nation’s first Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.

Pizza, Pigs and Poetry, How to Write a Poem is ideal for children grades 3-6.  He engages by sharing funny stories, light poems and creative technique, not forms. This seems entirely perfect for encouraging – not discouraging – this age group. Fun and funny Pizza, Pigs and Poetry would make great summer reading – and writing – and is perfect for a birthday gift or a gift for some other occasion.

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