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.

Superheroes of Leicester

River Monster of Leicester

Superheroes of Leicester encourages people to imagine Leicester as home to a cast of superheroes.

Cities around the world that are similarly home to superheroes include Lagos, which is home to crimefighter, Abolaji Coker; Tokyo, Japan, which is home to the Super Young Team and Big Science Action; and, Boston, Massachusetts, which is the former home base of Wonder Woman, and the occasional residence of Aquaman and his wife Mera. (Massachusetts is also interesting because there's a place called Leicester in Massachusetts as well.)

Leicester, England where the Superheroes of Leicester will be from currently has two known monsters: the Dragon of Habitat Loss, which we first heard about at the St George's Festival Fringe that was held in the city in April 2018, and the River Monster which was discovered in the city in August 2018.

Superheroes of Leicester, the project will facilitate or bring out a graphic novel or comic book or series of such books imagining Leicester as a City of Superheroes.

If the project leads to books, the first books in the series could be published in 2019/20 by CivicLeicester, who have just given us Leicester 2084 AD: New poems about the city, a poetry anthology that encourages people to imagine what the city will be like in the year 2084, how it will get there and what it will mean to its citizens, residents and the rest of the world.

Expressions of interest in Superheroes of Leicester can be emailed to CivicLeicester@gmail.com

Notes:

i. Spotted on 25 August 2018, in Abbey Park, the River Monster is made from plastic waste dumped in the River Soar.
ii. For ideas on how to protect the environment, like and follow Leicester Friends of the Earth and the Canal & River Trust.
iii. See also: Red Leicester Choir's "Pointless Packaging".