Black Lives Matter: a Call for Poems and Microfiction

Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New Word (CivicLeicester, 2020) is now available*

CivicLeicester is inviting and accepting poems and short fiction on the theme, Black Lives Matter.

We welcome submissions exploring any of the images, issues, triggers, histories, lives, demands and outcomes that are being highlighted by Black Lives Matter and current and past protests.

We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.

The video of George Floyd dying as a white policeman pressed his knee against Floyd's neck and kept it there even after Floyd had stopped speaking or moving has triggered weeks of mass protests around the world.

The protests are taking place in the midst of a global pandemic that is also disproportionately killing people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds.

Around the world people are demanding justice.

"Black Lives Matter", "Hands up, don't shoot", "Am I a threat?", "I can't breathe", "White silence is violence", "No justice, no peace", "Is my son next?", "Get your knee off my neck" have become rallying calls against police brutality and against the killing of Black people by the police. They have become rallying calls against racism, racial profiling and racialised inequality, discrimination and oppression.

Please send the poems and short fiction to civicleicester@gmail.com by 2pm on Tuesday, 7 July 2020

Submission Guidelines

● Poems should be 40 lines or less, and short fiction, 100 words or less.
● The poems and short fiction should be on the theme, Black Lives Matter.
● Submissions must be in English. In the case of translated work, it is the translator’s responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holder of the original work.
● If submitting a poem or short fiction which has been previously published, please give details of where it has appeared and confirm that you are the copyright holder.
● Ideally submissions will be typed single spaced and submitted either in the body of an email or as a .doc attachment.
● Please include a short biography of 50 words or less. This will be included in the anthology if your poem is accepted. If you do not send a biography, it will be assumed you do not wish your biography to appear in the anthology.
● You may submit a maximum of three poems or three pieces of short fiction or a combination of poems and short fiction. You do not have to submit all three at the same time, but the editors can only consider a maximum of three submissions.
● We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.
● Please send the poems and short fiction to civicleicester@gmail.com by 2pm on Tuesday, 7 July 2020.

Notes:

1. Black Lives Matter poetry anthology fundraising page
2. Black Lives Matter, Wikipedia entry
3. CivicLeicester is an indy publisher that uses video, photography and the arts to highlight conversations
 
*Updated on 17 November 2020 to show that Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (CivicLeicester, 2020) is now available.

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