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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF COMPASSIONATE WORKS . . . “Mercy for the Displaced”

 “ . . . for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”  The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

COMPASSION ANTHOLOGY has been publishing anthologies of “compassion-based works of visual art, essays, stories, poems and video” since 2015.  The editors are interested in work that inspires and engages compassionate tendencies including mindfulness and meditation. It is partnered with The Charter for Compassion founded by Karen Armstrong. Submissions are open through January 31, 2019 for the next anthology, which is themed “Mercy for the Displaced.”  

“key terms: refugees, caravan, California fires, Puerto Rico, hurricanes, Syria, illegal immigrants, family separation, deportation, RAICES*, domestic violence)”. RAICES is a refugee aid project in South Texas.

Submission guidelines HERE.

I just found out about the Compassion Anthology and I think so many of us have something to say on this topic, but do note the deadline is pending.

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Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded.  I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”

The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others

“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA

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

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tears into light, a poem … and your Wednesday Writing Prompt

Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without the thorn. Martin Amis
“Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without the thorn.” Martin Amis

if my voice was an angel voice
i’d sing you into ecstasy
if my hand was a healing hand
i’d touch you into grace

would that i could measure poems
to turn tears into light
to put dance in your feet
if i knew my own soul, i could
touch the tarnished silver of yours
and bring your smiles back again

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

WRITING PROMPT

Write a poem about what you would do or what you would like to do in the hope of healing someone else’s pain.  When you are done and if you feel comfortable, leave the URL to your poem in the comments section below so I and others might read it.

51cipgnflbl-_sx331_bo1204203200_The Wordplay Shop offers a special selection of books to inspire beginning and emerging writers as well as recommended poetry collections and other books or materials of interest to poets, writers and readers.

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

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The Little Squirrel Who Stopped Traffic

When we left the café parking area the sky was a bit overcast but the late afternoon was delightfully busy with birds, bees and squirrels. It’s baby-season here for squirrels. Well, I guess maybe some of them are in their teens now. My friend was about to turn the car right onto Whipple Avenue, a main drag leading to a freeway. She stopped first to check for through traffic. Less than a half-block up the cars were at a standstill. Why? Finally we glimpsed a tiny squirrel huddled in the middle of the street. Some people left their cars. A quiet crowd gathered but no one beeped a horn. No one shouted. No one cursed in anger. Remarkable! Such uncharacteristic behavior, especially for commute time.

Since there were no cars behind us on the side street, we sat waiting to see what would happen. It appeared everyone was suspended mid-breath until a utility worker stepped out of the crowd and scooped up the poor thing. A large rough and tumble sort of fellow, he was petting it and cooing to it as he walked away, clearly pleased and not at all self-conscious. As drivers returned to their cars and started back down Whipple, I found myself smiling. What a delight: human beings at their kind and courteous best and the power of a wee creature to still our little corner of the world. It was a moment of grace and compassion juxtaposed against the stresses of a fractious presidential campaign and a citizenry anxiously awaiting election outcomes.

This post is dedicated to my neighbor, Jeanette, and her pet squirrel. 

© words, Jamie Dedes; photo Babbage under the CC A 2.0 Generic license

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THINGS FALL APART

Nigerian poet, novelist, professor and critic, Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
Nigerian poet, novelist, professor and critic, Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)

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CHINUA ACHEBE was a Nigerian poet and novelist. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is his major work and is said to be the most widely read book in modern African literature. He is considered the founding father of African literature in English.

Listen to a short interview with Achebe‘s daughter in pop-out player on BBC’s Witness. Published in 1958, Things Fall Apart “was set in pre-colonial rural Nigeria and examines how the arrival of foreigners – imposing their own traditions – led to tensions within the Igbo society. The book revolutionised African culture, and began a whole new genre of world literature. Witness radio program hears from Achebe’s youngest daughter, Nwando Achebe.”

Refugee Mother and Child Poem

No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture of a mother’s tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.
The air was heavy with odours

of diarrhoea of unwashed children
with washed-out ribs and dried-up
bottoms struggling in laboured
steps behind blown empty bellies. Most

mothers there had long ceased
to care but not this one; she held
a ghost smile between her teeth
and in her eyes the ghost of a mother’s
pride as she combed the rust-coloured
hair left on his skull and then –

singing in her eyes – began carefully
to part it… In another life this
would have been a little daily
act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she

did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave.

– Chinua Achebe, Collected Poems

“Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.”  Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

RELATED:

Africa’s Voice, Nigeria’s Conscience, New York Times
The Sacrificial Egg, The Atlantic