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SAVE THE DATE: 100,000 Poets (and Allies) for Change, September 26, 2020; Call for Submissions to 100TPC Anthology

“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” Audre Lorde

SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

SAVE THE DATE

It’s twelve years since I started using poetry for activism, involving myself first with Sam Hamell‘s Poets Against the War. Almost ten years have passed since poet, publisher, musician and artist, Michael Rothenberg, and editor, artist, graphic designer, and translator Terri Carrion, co-founded 100,000 Poets for Change (100TPC) to which I am seriously devoted.

Through the decade our 100TPC poet-activist numbers have grown. We’ve expanded to include allies. These creatives from around the world share the values of peace, sustainability, and social justice. They speak out against corruption, cruelty, tyranny, and suppression through poetry, story, music, mime, art and photography, sometimes at personal risk.

INVITATION

If you’ve been involved before, please note the date and participate again. If you haven’t participated in 100TPC, we invite you to become a part of this worthy worldwide initiative.

By “we” I mean:

  • Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, founders and organizers of Global 100TPC;
  • Regional organizers for 100TPC (connect with yours via the 100TPC.org blog roll or contact Michael Rothenberg to set up your own event), and
  • The Bardo Group, publishers of The BeZine and hosts of The BeZine Virtual 100TPC.

FROM PRIOR YEARS:

SAMPLES OF POSTERS FROM

REGIONAL EVENTS

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THE BeZINE

~ Be inspired . . . Be creative . . . Be peace . . . Be ~

VIRTUAL 100TPC

Our banner was designed by Zine team member Corina Ravenscraft (Dragon’s Dreams)

The second year I invited poetry against war was 2011. I put up a post on Into the Bardo (the name of the site before it became The BeZine) and invited folks to share their poems in the comments section. That was the last year for Sam Hamill’s Poets Against the War and the first year for Michael and Terri’s 100,000 Poets for Change.

Since 2012, we (The Bardo Group) have hosted an annual virtual event on the fourth Saturday of September in concert with Global 100TPC. My thought for going virtual was that there were many others who, like me, are home bound but want to have their say, want to stand for peace, sustainability and social justice. Soon Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play) joined our team and a new tradition was born. Michael became our Master of Ceremonies.

This year – whether your are homebound or not – we invite you to join with us via The BeZine Virtual 100TPC on September 26.  Complete instructions for sharing your work will be included in the post that day.  Between us, Michael Dickel and I keep the event running for twenty-four hours or so. Mark your calendars.

Watch for more info here and at The BeZine on these initiatives and . . .

Upcoming:

  • Call for Submissions to the September 15, 2020 issue of The BeZine, which is a prelude to 100TPC;
  • The Poet by Day 100TPC Wednesday Writing Prompt, September 16, hosted by Michael Dickel; and
  • A contest (the heart-child of Zine team member, Corina Ravenscraft) to find the best The BeZine 2021 header for our Facebook Discussion Page.

In the spirit of love (respect) and community and
on behalf of The Bardo Group,
Jamie Dedes, Founding Editor and
now Co-Manager Editor with Michael Dickel

100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE: Ten years of evolution (2011-2020)
VOL 1: The Memoir

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

From Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion

In the tenth year anniversary of the movement, we are excited to invite all ​past and present 100TPC organizers and/or participants, to submit a three page ​essay to be considered for inclusion in ​the book ​100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE [100TPC]: Ten years of evolution (2011-2020),​ which will be published on a date to be announced.

This book will tell the story of 100TPC from the perspective of the poets who have been a part of creating and sustaining it. Through ​our personal essays, the reader will learn not only about the individual stories of the hundreds of poets-organizers from all corners, reflecting on the social and cultural effects of such poetic actions, but it will also offer an enriched summary and an organized way to learn about this grassroots movement and its impact on the history of poetry. It can also be thought of as a guidebook and manual, for future generations interested in the strategy of activists engaged in manifesting positive change–peace, justice and sustainability.

THEMES:

You can submit a ​maximum of two essays,​ only one (1) per theme. Be sure to send each essay in a ​separate e​mail (see details below).

1. FOUNDATIONAL EXPERIENCES.​ First experiences as organizer/ poet/ artist/ audience with ​100,000 Poets for Change.​
2. LOCAL EXPERIENCES.​ Experiences seen as a whole, after these ten years. Reflect on your achievements, or whatever you have witnessed, good and bad. You can choose to write about success or disappointments, benefits and limitations, even if you were not an organizer/participant consistently for the past ten years.
3. IMPRESSIONS​: Reflections and stories on the philosophy, ideas and spirit propelling the movement. How has this movement informed your poetics?
4. SALERNO.​ If you participated in the 2015 Salerno conference, you can choose to write about it, as a whole experience, and/or highlighting a specific story or aspects of the conference.
5. READ A POEM TO A CHILD.​ If you have been part of the Read a Poem to a Child initiative, you can also choose to write about that.

Submission deadline:​ December 1, 2020

Format guidelines​: Word document, Times New Roman, Font 12, Double Spaced.

Maximum 750 words.

Language​: If you are not an English speaking writer, please send your text in its original language along with the best possible English translation (three pages max, each). At this point, the project will only include the English version, but we’re studying alternatives to the issue of language, and world accessibility.
Bio & Photos:​ Please send a fifty word Bio as a Word doc. attachment. Also, and this is optional, you can attach three-to-five good quality images (jpg) related to your essay, and/or the events you organized in your community. Include photo caption and credits. Do not send bio photos. We want exceptional images that offer a glimpse either of the themes or aspects we’ve mentioned above, the collective drive, or the audience reaction.

Please send your submissions and/or any questions to: ​10yr100tpcbook@gmail.com In the email’s Subject Matter​, please write your essay’s t​heme.

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

Maintain the movement.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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FROM THE DESK OF MBIZO CHIRASHA: Opportunity Knocks for Women Poets

CALL for SUBMISSIONS as well as introducing our iconic Guest Editor for the June Edition Jamie Dedes:

Mbizo Chirasha

This edition gives women poets a platform to reflect as they share their experiences of the COVID 19 menace and  as well visualizing their lives and that of their communities after the COVID19 threats, loss and pain.  Sobriety and healing can be brought back by written word, writing, poetic reflections and reading experiences. We continue to value creativity and diversity. We say every positive change begins with writing. Every revolution  began and ended by WORD. We look forward to reading your  writings and reflections. Thumbs-up to Womawords 2020 Poet Laureate and June Edition Guest Editor JAMIE DEDES. Together We Rise.

The WOMAWORDS press June Edition is to be edited by our Poet Laureate and USA Associate to the WOMAWORDS Hall of Fame, Jamie Dedes.“The call is open to women poets from May 20 through June 20.“Ten poems and poets will be selected from the submissions, which should include a short third-person bio of thirty-to-sixty words and your photograph.“Submissions to be forwarded to BOTH Mbizo Chirasha womawordpress@gmail.com and cc’d Jamie Dedes at thepoetbyday@gmail.com.

JAMIE DEDES is a Lebanese-American poet and free-lance writer. She is the founder and curator of The Poet by Day, info hub for poets and writers, and the founder of The Bardo Group, publishers of The BeZine, of which she was the founding editor and is currently a co-manager editor with Michael Dickel. Ms. Dedes is the Poet Laureate of WOMAWORDS Press 2020 and U.S associate to that press as well. Her debut collection, The Damask Garden is due out fall 2020 from Blue Dolphin Press.

– Mbizo Chirasha

 

INSIDE  JAMIE  DEDES’

POETRY  LAB

MY EARS ARE DEAF, MY EYES HEAR A SONG

mountains rise round, Mother’s ever pregnant belly
and the aspens dance with paper-barked madrone
screeching their yellows and reds, brindle and feral
like the snaked hairs of Medusa, they are warning

looming over me as I lay miles away on a mesa
the bones of my ancestors, the heart of my child
the pelts of the brown minks my father sewed
the vultures circle, mesmerized by my demise

I feed on the pinion and ride mountain lions
down slopes, into valleys, a wanderer, lost and lost
looking eastward, seeking John Chapman
he has something to say, or maybe it’s westward

John Muir, my ears are deaf, my eyes hear a song
emerging from brown bear, a surfeit of salmon
burning sage, clearing America, the wild beasts
are defanged and declawed and I am hawk-eyed.

A CENTURY OF POSSIBLE PEACE

            after Muriel Rukeyser
.
I lived in the century of world wars and
into the century of “hot spots” and “conflicts,”
those isolated regions of hostility and battle, of
choreographed shows of military cliché and the
violent disaffected eruptions of the marginalized

Every day is an homage to some insanity
Media reports are conveyed with facile intensity
by hyperkinetic journalists delivering easy
and ominous conclusions based on seemingly
recondite facts, quickly moving to celebrity
gossip and other insipid topics . . .

I have lived in two centuries of wars
I know what it is to be exhausted by the
vain posturing of the ruling class and
the tired protestations of tribal unity and
supremacy based on accidents of birth

I know what it is to imagine peace across
the circumference of one small blue ball
in a Universe of inestimable size and breadth
I know that darkness can descend with the
speed of light and that love is more than an
anchor and that vision keeps our dreams alive

I have lived into the century where the world is
grown small, where the peacemakers are tireless
and perhaps enough hearts have grown large …
sometimes I think I am living in the century
where peace is as possible as war

THE SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION

the ghosts of our parents search vainly
for wildflowers near the beach at Big Sur

they were deaf to the threat in thunder,
but we were struck by lightning,
heaved in the rain and waves and
the overflow from the melting ice

the computers went down
their screens black as the wicked water,
in whirling chaos they morphed into drums

every fetus turned in the womb,
the men went to the mountain tops
and the women sheltered in caves

the souls of saints and sinners
were run through a cosmic wash cycle
after the spin dry, a new wisdom

but the shades of our parents remain,
they wait in vain for us at Big Sur,
in vain by the Santa Lucia Mountains

jamie100000

About Womawords Literary Press

Womawords, an international eZine based in Africa, is the heart child of multi-award winning Zimbabwean poet in exile, Mbizo Chirasha.  It was established to support women and girls through the publication of activist poetry by women.  Current projects are Womawords companion publication, Liberating Voices Journal, and the newly founded Womawords Hall of Fame.

The Womawords Hall of Fame seeks to amplify women’s voices through literary and other arts and comprises representatives from around the globe: writers, poets, editors, and mentors among others.

JAMIE DEDES is a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. She curates the Poet by Day Webzine [jamiededes.com], an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments. Jamie is also the founder and founding editor of The BeZine, which she currently manages and edits with American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel (Meta /Phor(e) /Play).

MBIZO CHIRASHA (Mbizo, The Black Poet)  \is the founder of Womawords Literary Press, which is dedicated to giving space to the voices of women and girls. He is a multi-award winning poet from Zimbabwe who is in exile and running for his life. We have been coordinating in the search for safe harbor for him. In part I am posting this today to remind everyone that while we’ve made progress with funding, we still need to find a host for Mbizo, preferably Germany. Open to suggestion.  Connect with me (thepoetbyday@gmail.com) if you are able to help, have leads, or have questions. You can read more about Mbizo and his story: Zimbabwean Poet in Exile: Award-Winning Poet Mbizo Chirasha, A Life on the Run, Interview.

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“The BeZine” Call for Submission, June Issue Themed SustainABILITY

THE BeZINE MISSION STATEMENT

Our goal is to foster proximity and understanding through a shared love of the arts and humanities and all things spirited and to make – however modest –  a contribution toward personal healing and deference for the diverse ways people try to make moral, spiritual and intellectual sense of a world in which illness, violence, despair, loneliness and death are as prevalent as hope, friendship, reason and birth.

Our focus is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film . . . We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.”

Please read our complete Mission Statement HERE.

 THE BeZINE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

SustainABILITY

Call for submissions of feature articles, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, art and photography, music videos, and documentary videos on diverse environmental topics including but not limited to: degradation, protection, greenhouse gasses, weather/climate change, justice, and agriculture, famine and hunger. This call is open from April 1 through May 15. 

While The BeZine does not pay for content, neither do we charge submission or subscription fees.

Work that is not properly submitted will not be considered.

  • Prose, poetry, and links to videos: submit in the body of the email
  • Please: no odd, unusual, eccentric layouts
  • Photographs or artwork: submit as an attachment
  • DO NOT send PDFs or a document with both narrative and illustrations combined.
  • By submitting work to thezinesubmissions@gmail.com, you are confirming that you own and hold the rights to the work and that you grant us the right to publish on the blog or in the Zine if your submission is accepted. Submissions via Facebook or other social networking or in the comments section, will not be reviewed or accepted.
  • Please include a brief bio in the email. No photographs.

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY: We are looking for something special to be the header for The Table of Contents Page.

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS are okay but please let us know immediately if availability changes.

Among the guidelines: our core team, our guest contributors, and our readership are international and diverse. No works that advocate hate or violence, promote misunderstanding, or that demean others are acceptable. Please read our Complete Submission Guidelines.

The BeZine is featured by
pf poetry
Second Light Live newsletters, website, and magazine
Duotrope®

Jamie Dedes
Founding and Co-managing Editor

Michael Dickel
Co-managing Editor

Jamie Dedes:

Your donation HERE helps to fund the ongoing mission of The Poet by Day in support of poets and writers, freedom of artistic expression, and human rights.

Poetry rocks the world!

FEEL THE BERN

For Peace, Sustainability, Social Justice

The Poet by Day officially endorses Bernie Sanders for President.

The New New Deal

“Democracy is not a spectator sport.” Bernie Sanders

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

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“The BeZine” Call for Submissions, International Poetry Month

To mark International Poetry Month April 2020, we at The BeZine blog invite submissions of poems on the current pandemic. To paraphrase R. Buckminster, think globally but write locally. Write from your context about your experience during this Time of Coronavirus, but at the same time, reflecting to larger global contexts. Write about glimmers from within the crisis that illuminate ourselves, our world, and the world(s) possibly coming to us afterwards.

This event is co-hosted by Womawords Literary Press.

We especially look for poetry that projects changes (positive or negative) that may evolve from this crisis:

• worldwide coordination/collaboration
• resources of one sort or another—old, new, emerging; shared or fought-over
• the impact the pandemic might have on:
° women and the role they play in assuring good health and hygiene
° the poor and low-wage or middle class workers
° water and the environment
° war and conflict, and
° addressing the climate issues that contribute significantly to this and looming pandemics.

What about the communities—perhaps yours—that have no running water and are also therefor ravaged by typhoid, cholera, and dysentry?

Guidelines HERE.

Email Word files to  thezinesubmissions@gmail.com (Please not this is our new email address)

Womawords Literary Press HERE.

In the spirit of love (respect) and community,
Michael Dickel, Co-Manging Editor, The BeZine
Mbizo Chirasha, Curator of Womawords Literary Press, Co-Host of The BeZine International Poetry Month
Jamie Dedes, Founding Editor and Co-Mnaging Editor, The BeZine