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.

Update on Ayat al-Qarmezi, via Amesty International

The following is an excerpt from an Amnesty International News item. To read the full article, click here.

A military court in Bahrain has sentenced a poet to one year in prison for reading out a poem criticizing the country’s King.

Ayat al-Qarmezi, 20, a poet and student was sentenced in a Manama court today following her arrest in March for reading out a poem at a pro-reform rally. She has reportedly been tortured while in detention.

...

Military trials related to the protests are under way after at least 500 have been detained and four have died in custody in suspicious circumstances.

Some 2,000 people have also been dismissed or suspended from their jobs, apparently as part of an ongoing purge of those who participated in the protests.

Bahraini poet set to face verdict for protest reading - via Amnesty International

Ayat al-Qarmezi Image via Amnesty International

The following is an excerpt from an Amnesty International article. To read the full piece, click here.

Ayat al-Qarmezi, 20, a poet and student was arrested in March for reading out a poem at a pro-reform rally in the capital Manama. She has been charged with "incitement to hatred of the regime" and has reportedly been tortured while in detention.

...

Its lyrics include the lines "We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery/ Don’t you hear their cries, don’t you hear their screams?".

Poems of Protest From Egypt

Be sure to check out this excellent footage of revolutionary poetry from Egypt:



From Poets & Writers:

This clip features photos of the demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square by Hany Soliman as well as footage of poet Kamal Abdel Halim reciting two poems in protest of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Poets Responding to SB 1070

Read Poems at Poets Responding to SB 1070 - and Submit!

Poets have been responding to Arizona's Racist Law - of course! Read the many powerful poems collected by clicking here.

To submit, you must be a Facebook member. Here's how, from the organizers (we praise them):
HOW TO PUBLISH HERE: a quick "refresher".... simply create your poem/piece in "notes" on your FB page...then tag any of us: Francisco X. Alarcón:, Alma Luz Villanueva, antoinette nora claypoole, Scott Maurer, Odilia Galvan Rodriguez, Lorna Dee Cervantes...we will then "publish" on the NOTES tab here. A "hard copy" anthology is planned to emerge from all these words...gracias ...antoinette

Poems Against the Regime at Foreign Policy In Focus

Check out Poems Against the Regime at Foreign Policy In Focus.

Iranian American Poets Persis M. Karim, Sholeh Wolpe and Roger Sedarat have poems up at the Foreign Policy in Focus website, edited by Split This Rock co-director, Melissa Tuckey.

Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) is a "Think Tank Without Walls" connecting the research and action of more than 600 scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the United States a more responsible global partner. It is a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.