Call for Poems that Speak Against Violence and for Embrace

If the back & arms you carry riddle with black

spots & marks made by birds who don’t want us here—

I will remind you: There are people who did this before us,

brown & black-spotted, yellow, with rattails,

born from what others did not want & loathed & aimed

to never let belong, & so, we are here today—

the field is wide. We make saliva from root & light.

Our spikelets grow, & do you feel the wind?

       - Joe Jiménez, Smutgrass

Orlando. Dhaka. Istanbul. Baghdad. Medina. Nice. The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the murder of police officers in Dallas. This summer, terrible bigotry and violence have rent our global community. The killings must end, and we in the poetry community must contribute in any way we can. As we search for answers to these horrors and for ways to combat hatred and prejudice, we are reminded of poetry’s capacity to respond to violence, to help us regenerate, like spikelets sprouting in a contested field, claiming our public spaces for everyone.

In solidarity with all those targeted at home and abroad, from the LGBT community in the United States to devastated families of Baghdad, Split This Rock is offering its blog as a Virtual Open Mic. Over the next couple of weeks, from July 14 to 28, we are requesting poems in response to and against violence toward marginalized communities:

• Poems will be accepted until July 28, 2016. 
• Send us your poems in response to this violent summer, and we will publish them on Split This Rock’s blog, Blog This Rock (blogthisrock.blogspot.com), to create a Virtual Open Mic. We welcome poems new and old, whether previously published or not. (Please include credit information for previously published work.) 
• Thematically we are wide open: resistance, mourning, rage, celebration, love. We are especially open to poems focused on how we build again, how we heal, the places of light shining through the pain. 
• Unfortunately, Split This Rock's blog is not compatible with poems with complex formatting. Should we find that your poem can not be properly we will be in touch to request a different poem.
• Send the poem(s) as email attachments (.doc or .docx only) with the subject line “A Call in Response to Violence” to info@splitthisrock.org. Include the poem name and your name in the document title.
• Please include the poem's title and your full contact information in the body of the email. 
• We invite one poem per person. 
• From the open mic collection, we may occasionally choose poems to run as Poem of the Week in the weeks ahead. We will contact you directly if we decide to use your poem for Poem of the Week. 

After the Virtual Open Mic closes, we hope to print out and mail all of the poems to Congress and the National Rifle Association.

Split This Rock is also accepting poems for its 10th Annual Poetry Contest until November 1, 2016. For submissions guidelines, visit Split This Rock's website or Submittable.

Full Moon on K Street: Poems about Washington DC

Plan B Press will release a new print anthology in January 2010, edited by Kim Roberts, the publisher of the acclaimed online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Full Moon On K Street: Poems About Washington, DC will include 101 poems, written by current and former residents of the city between 1950 and the present.




Featuring over one hundred contemporary poems, the book captures DC's unique sense of place, from monuments to parks, from lawyers to bus stations, from go-go music to chili half-smokes. All poems were written between 1950 and the present, by past and current residents of the city. This anthology captures the city's many moods: celebratory, angry, and fiercely political.

Contributors include: two-time US Poet Laureate Reed Whittemore; DC's first Poet Laureate, Sterling A. Brown; senator and five-time presidential candidate Eugene J. McCarthy; Cervantes prize winner for lifetime achievement in Spanish-language literature, Jose Emilio Pacheco; renowned gay rights activist Essex Hemphill; and President Obama's official inauguration poet, Elizabeth Alexander.

Preorder from Plan B Press now and get 25% off!

The Poetry Instigator: A New Writing Blog for Prompts

Check out this new blog for writing prompts: The Poetry Instigator at www.writingprompts.org. Lucy Biederman and Eleanor Tipton, two George Mason University graduate students, created this new blog that we think you'll be interested in.

On July 20, we're launching a four week SUMMER JOURNALS CHALLENGE, for which we're collaborating with four awesome national literary journals to bring you four weeks of cool prompts, literary discussions, special features, and more. Each of the four weeks, an editor from one of the featured journals will read the poems based on the week's prompt & choose a winner, who will receive a free year's subscription to the journal, not to mention bragging rights!

*Visit The Poetry Instigator and register for the summer challenge today

*Forward this announcement to any friends who might be interested

*Visit us on Facebook, become a fan, and/or update your status with our website to help us advertise!

Consequence Magazine Announces the Consequence Prize in Poetry

The Consequence Prize in Poetry will be awarded for the best poem addressing current war or armed conflict. The award will be presented at a poetry event sponsored by CONSEQUENCE magazine at the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival on October 17, 2009. The winner will receive $100, have the selected poem published in both print and online editions of Consequence, be invited to read at the launch of Consequence Magazine’s next print edition, and receive a three year subscription to the magazine.(All poems submitted will be considered for publication in both print and online editions.)

Our Judge this year is poet and translator Kevin Bowen who will also present the award. No entry fee is required and the entry deadline is September 1, 2009. For more information, please visit www.CONSEQUENCEmagazine.org.

Opportunites from the Writer's Center

The Writer’s Center, established in 1976, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest literary centers. It provides over 60 free public events and more than 200 writing workshops each year, sells one of the largest selections of literary magazines in its on-site bookstore, and publishes Poet Lore, America’s oldest continually published poetry journal.

Emerging Writer Fellowships: Call for Submissions

The Writer’s Center, metropolitan DC’s community gathering place for writers and readers, is currently accepting submissions for several competitive Emerging Writer Fellowships. Emerging Writer Fellows will be selected from applicants who have published up to 2 book-length works of prose and up to 3 book-length works of poetry. We welcome submissions from writers of any genre, background, or experience. Emerging Writer Fellows will be featured at The Writer’s Center as part of their Emerging Writers Reading Series. The readings, held on Friday evenings, bring together writers in different genres with a backdrop of live music. The Writer’s Center book store will sell titles by the Emerging Writers throughout the season in which they appear in an effort to promote them and their work to a wide audience.

Selected Fellows are invited to lead a special Saturday workshop at The Writer’s Center, with compensation commensurate with standard Writer’s Center provisions.

Fellows receive an all-inclusive honorarium to help offset their travel costs in the amount of $250 or $500, depending on their place of departure.

Fellows for Fall 2009 include novelist Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), novelist Lisa Selin Davis (Belly), poet Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane), poet Aaron Smith (Blue on Blue Ground), Canadian fiction writer Neal Smith (Bang Crunch), poet Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and poet Nancy Krygowski (Velocity).

Their events will be held in September, October, and December. See events calendar for more information.

Spring 2009 events will be held in February, March, and April/May.

To be considered, please send a letter of interest, a resume or CV that details publication history and familiarity facilitating group discussions, and a copy of your most recent book. Self-published or vanity press titles will not be accepted. A committee comprised of The Writer’s Center board members, staff, and members will evaluate submissions on behalf of our community of writers.

The deadline to submit is August 15, 2009.

Applicants are encouraged to call Charles Jensen, Director, for more information at 301-654-8664.

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Undiscovered Voices Fellowship: Call for Applications

The Writer’s Center seeks promising writers earning less than $25,000 annually to apply for our Undiscovered Voices Fellowship. This fellowship program will provide complimentary writing workshops to the selected applicant for a period of one year, but not to exceed 8 workshops in that year. We expect the selected fellow will use the year to make progress toward a completed manuscript of publishable work.

The Writer’s Center believes writers of all backgrounds and experiences should have an opportunity to devote time and energy toward the perfection of their craft.

The selected fellow will be able to attend writing workshops offered by The Writer’s Center free of charge. In addition, the fellow will give a reading from his or her work at the close of the fellowship period (June 2010) and will be invited to speak with local high school students on the craft of writing.

To apply, candidates should submit
a) a cover letter signed by the candidate that contains the statement: “I understand and confirm I meet all eligibility requirements of the Undiscovered Voices Fellowship.” The cover letter should include information on the impact this fellowship would have on the candidate.
b) contact information for two references who can speak to the candidate’s creative work and promise
c) a work sample in a single genre:
• 8 pages of poetry, no more than one poem per page
• 10 pages of fiction, double-spaced, no more than 1 work or excerpt
• 10 pages of nonfiction (essay, memoir, etc), double-spaced, no more than 1 work or excerpt
OR
• 15 pages of a script or screenplay

These items should be sent in hard copy to The Writer’s Center, Attn: Undiscovered Voices Fellowship, 4508 Walsh St, Bethesda MD 20815. The deadline is September 15, 2009.

2010 Poets and Contest Winners Announced!

Split This Rock Poetry Festival, March 10-13, 2010, will feature a diverse array of some of the finest poets writing at the intersection of imagination and social change.

Featured at Split This Rock's second festival will be Chris Abani, Lillian Allen (pictured), Sinan Antoon, Francisco Aragón, Jan Beatty, Martha Collins, Cornelius Eady, Martín Espada, Andrea Gibson, Allison Hedge Coke, Natalie Illum, Fady Joudah, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Richard McCann, Jeffrey McDaniel, Lenelle Moïse, Nancy Morejón, Mark Nowak, Wang Ping, Patricia Smith, A.B. Spellman, Arthur Sze, and Bruce Weigl.

As usual, diversity of all kinds is a top priority at Split This Rock. As at the first festival, Split This Rock 2010 will feature performance poets, experimental poets, lyrical poets, and narrative poets. Poets of color are in the majority. There are gay and lesbian poets, poets of working-class origin, and poets with disabilities. The list includes international voices, with poets from Canada, Cuba, Nigeria, Iraq, and China, as well as DC poets who write and work in our own community. And we're pleased to bring back two popular poets from the first festival, Martín Espada and Patricia Smith.

All 23 of these poets are in the world, are poet-citizens in a variety of ways. Lillian Allen is an originator of dub poetry and a leader on diversity and culture in Canada. Fady Joudah was a field doctor with Doctors Without Borders. Cornelius Eady is a founder of Cave Canem, the organization for African American poets. Jan Beatty has worked as a welfare caseworker and an abortion counselor. Mark Nowak facilitates "poetry dialogues" with Ford autoworkers in the US and South Africa. These are just a few examples. Check out the website for more on these critical voices.

We'll also be profiling them and reviewing their books on Blog This Rock in the coming months, so keep an eye out here.

Save the date: March 10-13, 2010. This is a festival you won't want to miss!
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2009 Split This Rock Poetry Contest Results

First Place: "River, Page" written by Teresa J. Scollon, Traverse City, MI.


Second Place: "The Center for the Intrepid" by Jenny Browne, San Antonio, Texas.

Third Place: "Femincide/ Fimicidio- The Murdered and Disappeared Women of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico" by Demetrice Anntia Worley, Peoria, Illinois.

We are very grateful to this year's judge Patricia Smith and to all who supported Split This Rock by entering the contest. The competition was tough - it is heartening to see the poets continuing to write their poems for a better world. Thank you.

The winning poems will be posted soon on Split This Rock's web site. Stay tuned!