call for submissions: nin journal of erotic poetics
nin is a new journal of erotic poetics engaged in the three-way of literature, words and pleasure. Submissions are now open until August 1 for the inaugural issue due out September 2013.
To submit, email ninjournal@gmail.com, and visit our website for more information at ninjournal.tumblr.com.
nin encourages exploration in what it means to be a poem, and as such all manner of ephemera, text with visuals and phonetics will be considered for publication. Named after novelist and lover of the erotic Anais Nin, the journal seeks to publish work that explores the body and sex through language.
nin is run by queers, and wants to represent all sexualities, gender expressions and ethnicities in our publication. You are encouraged to submit if you are non-native, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, genderqueer, transgender and/or a person of color.
We look forward to reading your work.
"It is untrue
that bravery can be measured
by a lack of fear.
It takes guts to tremble.
It takes tremble to love."
that bravery can be measured
by a lack of fear.
It takes guts to tremble.
It takes tremble to love."
— Andrea Gibson (via fieldoflilys)
(Source: richardsikendaily)
”(…) You’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”
— Richard Siken
(via richardsikendaily)
poem by E. E. Cummings (one of my favorites)
(Source: doriris, via theladycheeky)
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
(from Dream Work)
Call for Submissions: Trans & Genderqueer Poetry
Dear Author,
We want your words.
What is the project: We are creating an anthology. An anthology of the best poems out there by trans and genderqueer writers and we would love to include your work in the book. Our assumption is that the writing of trans and genderqueer folks has something more than coincidence in common with the experimental, the radical, and the innovative in poetry and poetics (as we idiosyncratically define these categories), and with your help we’d like to manifest that something (or somethings) in a genderqueer multipoetics, a critical mass of trans fabulousness.
This anthology is edited by TC Tolbert and Tim Peterson (Trace)—both trans-identified poets. It will be published by EOAGH Books in early 2012, and you can bet it will be widely distributed!
We encourage submissions by people of color, people with disabilities, people educated by life or school or some of both or neither, people with no publications or a gazillion. We encourage bilingual poems, poems by trans folks who are non-native English speakers, poems that do stuff with language we couldn’t even imagine until now. Here’s the deal: we want the best poetry by trans and/or genderqueer identified writers in the galaxy. Please help us make that happen. Send us your most phenomenal work!
Deadline for Submissions: Nov 30, 2011
What to Submit: 7-10 pages of poetry (no more than 1 poem per page), and a prose “poetics” statement (see below) in .doc, .docx, or pdf format. We prefer unpublished poems but will consider previously published work. Please let us know where, when, and by whom your work has been published when you submit. Thanks!
Where to Submit: email us at transanthology@gmail.com
Why is this anthology important: While trans and genderqueer poets have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, there has never been a collection of poetry exclusively by trans and genderqueer writers that also highlights a diverse range of poetics and other marginalized identities. Each particular understanding of self and gender creates an essentially complex and rich multipoetics that undermines any sort of universal trans aesthetic. Inherently multi-vocal and anti-hegemonic, a singular trans experience simply does not exist and, frankly, we don’t want it to. For this reason, an anthology is the most conducive venue for undoing any attempted whitewashing and/or homogenizing of an imagined trans voice. As we said, we want your words. The words, syntax, perspective, lyric, narrative, image (or the disruption of any of these) that could actually only come from you.
What kind of writing are we looking for: This anthology seeks writing that makes us wet our panties a little bit and wonder what the f* have we been doing with our lives all this time. Subject matter and/or content is open – you do not need to send us only poems about gender (although you may). While this project exists in a historical context of several important anthologies that gather marginalized and under-represented writers (This Bridge Called My Back, No More Masks, The World in Us, Premonitions, The Open Boat, etc), this will be the first anthology to foreground the poetic writings of trans and genderqueer authors. The book will feature 7-10 pages of work from approximately 35 poets and we hope you will be one of them!
A meta-layer of fabulous: One thing that makes this anthology unique is that it will include a statement on poetics by each participant, along with your poems. This is a chance for you to tell us something about your writing process, writing practice, theory of life, or whatever you like. It might include the relationship of the body and text, or the practice of reading and misreading text and the body, or locations, connections, and divisions of the self amongst text and the self amongst other bodies or…you get the point.
About the editors:
TC Tolbert is a genderqueer, feminist poet and teacher committed to social justice. S/he is the Assistant Director of Casa Libre en la Solana and an Adjunct Instructor at The University of Arizona and Pima Community College. S/he is the creator of Made for Flight, a youth empowerment project that utilizes creative writing and kite building to commemorate murdered transgender people and to dismantle homophobia and transphobia. TC’s chapbook, territories of folding, was recently published by Kore Press. His poems can be found in Volt, The Pinch, Drunken Boat, Shampoo, A Trunk of Delirium, jubilat, andEOAGH. His work won the Arizona Statewide Poetry Competition in 2010 and was a Sawtooth finalist in 2009 and 2010. His first full length collection, Gephyromania, is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press. www.tctolbert.com
Tim Peterson (Trace) is a trans-identified poet, critic, and editor. The author of Since I Moved In (Chax Press), and Violet Speech (2nd Avenue Poetry), Peterson also editsEOAGH: A Journal of the Arts (which published a special issue Queering Languagededicated to trans poet and mentor kari edwards in 2007). Peterson’s poetry and criticism have been published in Colorado Review, EBR, Five Fingers Review, Harvard Review, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Transgender Tapestry, and in the recent book NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life and Work of kari edwards(Belladonna/Limus Press). A Ph.D. student in English at CUNY Graduate Center, Peterson curates the TENDENCIES: Poetics & Practice talks series dedicated to queer writing and the manifesto. More information at http://tendenciespoetics.com
We are incredibly excited about this project and look forward to working with you!
Thank you!
TC and Trace
I have actually left this on a blackboard in an empty classroom before. but that is not my handwriting.
This quote captures me, wow.I love Mary Oliver, and this line from The Summer Day.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
(Source: misswallflower)
Spoken word poet, Beau Sia, responds to Alexandra Wallace’s Asians in the UCLA Library rant:
after watching “asians in the library,” and many subsequent postings in response, i wrote this. rather than attack alexandra wallace for her thoughts, i decided to write a persona piece in her voice, as a means to address some of the greater issues revealed in her rant. in the end, this poem isn’t really about her and what she said, but more the thoughts and beliefs people hold, without considering the entire history that may have led them to think and believe in the manner that they do. my hope is that we can all use this moment to recognize that we all need to improve our ability to understand and share this world with each other. this is just a small contribution to furthering that conversation. thank you for listening.
Hey! A response that has nothing to do with death boobs sex or the word “bitch”. Thank you.
Oh my god this is so wonderful! And so right on! One of the most brilliant things I’ve ever seen and a truly insightful takedown of exactly what white supremacy/privilege is and what it means why it motivates such rants as the one Ms. Wallace let loose on the internet.
Bookmark this video folks and come back to it often. It deserve frequent revisiting.
[Transcript of video:
Didn’t you hear me say that I’m not politically correct? I said that, but you’ve all been misinterpreting me so let me be clear. There are hordes of Asians at my school and it’s starting to freak me out. They act in a manner I wasn’t taught growing up and I don’t want to question who I am and how I was raised so they are starting to be a real problem for me. I don’t understand their language, their culture, the way they hold family sacred and shared and instead of consider whether or not that is threatening to me, I’d rather the things they do, the people they are be wrong.
It’s so hard maintaining fitting in when these Asian people clearly aren’t. They’re so not the TV I’ve seen, so not the stories I’ve read, so not my experience where I’m from, and I’m letting their existence jeopardize my idea of the world and I don’t like it.
And I’m not afraid to personally address those who’s behavior is affecting me so. I’m just choosing to find solidarity in my beliefs on the internet to prevent the course of questioning my statements would cause me. If someone directed similar comments towards whom I’ve had to represent in my life.
I don’t want to have to consider why I’ve based my observations on a number of Asians smaller than some Asian families. Or what exceptions I’d have to consider if I didn’t use blanket assumptions. Or if there’s a conflict about the world changing that I don’t want to face, because of the face I was born with. There are so many more important things in my life. I don’t want to have to explore my relationship to everything around me.
And there are many who think the way that I do. And, you know, from what I know of America, these Asian people are not supposed to be this way. And I’m not talking about the laws of this country. Requirements for citizenship or taxes paid in full. Nnn-nn!
I am talking about what I’ve been programmed to think family is. How manners prove native, who should decide how identity must conform, for whom identity must conform, and why identity must conform. If only these Asians would learn English! If only they understood. That I’m here too. That I share this place with them. That I belong here. That the hordes and swarms invading the system I’ve learned remember who I am as the world changes. I’m so afraid I’ll have to fend for myself. Without what I’ve been told was mine.] End Transcript.
YAY! THANK YOU FOR TRANSCRIPT!
(i haven’t even seen the vid yet since i can’t access video at work.)
yeah, thanks for transcript, can’t hear so..
this is awesome :D i like beau sia. i’ve watched a couple things he did on def poetry. it was cool.
Thank you for the transcript. Super.
Call for Submissions: Bodies of Work Magazine
Reprinted from http://www.bodiesofworkmag.com/call-for-submissions/ We, Cooper Lee Bombardier, Morty Diamond and Annie Danger, are three trans artists who believe art and literature are two of the most vital parts to our world today. At this moment, there is no magazine which brings transgender, transsexual and gender variant writers and artists to the forefront. We believe it is time to publish such a magazine! The purpose of Bodies of Work is to publish and promote literature and art that celebrates the diverse visions and understandings of the transsexual, transgender and gender-variant international community through language and image. We want to inspire and be inspired by the innovative output of our communities and come together with trans artists of all genres in creative discourse. We want to engage and support our creative processes and learn how trans artists and writers create. Bodies of Work will: Bodies of Work will be published both in print and on the web. Print costs are high, so our agenda is to build a website first and print 3 magazines a year when we have the funds. Thank you! We look forward to seeing your work!
We are currently seeking submissions for our inaugural issue! All trans and gender-variant artists, performers and writers are encouraged to submit work.
Morty Diamond, Cooper Lee Bombardier and Annie Danger
"
to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
—
Mary Oliver
(via enanti0dromia)
