Poetry
Poetry helps resist the tendency to package the world into too-easy, self-flattering, falsifying certainties. It can challenge us to re-think what we thought we knew. It can shout back—the times being what they are—and declaim, and stamp its angry feet, and present, in general, an “oppositional” aesthetic. But it might also simply strive for something honest and surprising, something that engages with the contemporary political and cultural situation in ways we hadn’t anticipated—without necessarily arriving at an answer or solution. Maybe a carefully observed moment of beauty, of humor, of attention, can be framed as its own act of resistance.
We are looking for poetry that opens up what it means to develop a new poetry of engagement. Ideally, we want our readers to hop up and down and say, “I didn’t know you could do that, in a poem.” Humor is welcome, since it can be a great way to get to serious matter. Above all, we are looking for an honest and accurate embrace of complexity and nuance—that, too, can be its own act of resistance.
We are open as to style, form and aesthetic. We like history. Anything that’s subversive, in the way that poetry can be, is what we’re all about. Mostly we want to be taken somewhere. Please do.
Please submit between 3 to 6 poems on a single document in MS Word, single-spaced, with your contact information--email is fine--on each page in the footer.
Please read the General Submission Guidelines in addition, before submitting. We look forward to reading your work.