Call For Poems of Protest

I wrote written before about protestpoems.org, and we used it as a prompt on Poets Online.

They have a new editor - Richard Pierce-Saunderson. He sent out their projected publication dates for the first half of 2009 and included these submission guidelines.

We’re not looking for partisan propaganda. We’re not looking for party-political mouthings. We’re not looking for sentimental depictions of what you see on the TV. We’re not looking for rhyming greetings card verses.

We want you to champion, not yourselves, but human rights; the rights of those who don’t have the freedom to write and speak as we do. Rage. Celebrate. Mourn. Demand. Scream. Dance.

Formal complaints are especially exciting. There’s something wonderfully subversive about a villanelle that attacks a government deliberately making the same mistake over and over again.

If you need to be inspired, read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then check out any objective newsfeed or news site.

Paste your poems (a maximum of 3 one-page poems), into the body of an email and send to write@protestpoems.org. If necessary, you can email a single .doc or .rtf file containing all the poems you are submitting.

Include a brief bio.

We will accept poems previously published on paper, as long as you hold the copyright. We will not accept poems which are already (or have previously been) published online (including blogs). We will publish a poet only once a year.

If your poem deals with a specific call for action, or commemorates a specific person, please let us know.

Publication dates for the first half of 2009 are :

14 Feb
28 Feb
14 Mar
28 Mar
11 Apr
25 Apr
09 May
23 May
06 Jun
20 Jun

I'm really looking forward to reading your submissions, and want us to be able to publish high-quality, edgy material.

Hoping for peace in a violent world,

Richard

Consider a submission...