Co-editors Jehan Bseiso and Becky Thompson are putting out a call for participation in an inclusive, collaborative, refugee-oriented new poetry collection called Making Mirrors:
Among those whose work is set to be included in the multilingual collection are prominent poets Naomi Shihab Nye, Zeina Hashim Beck, Zeina Azzam, and Hala Alyan.
Submissions are welcome in any language, and organizers aim to include them bilingually in the book and, going forward, website. According to project co-editor Becky Thompson: “We will grow this project as a book and as a site…and hopefully as a network.”
They are interested in work both by established and emerging poets. “We have some idea of what it will look like but in many ways, this crisis will require new skills, approaches, networks… that will necessarily be collaborative.”
From the submissions call:
This project, to offer a volume of poetry by, about, and for refugees, seeks to connect artistic voices of those fleeing violence from Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine, Somalia, Iraq, and other war torn countries. Edited by Palestinian poet and aid worker Jehan Bseiso and US poet and scholar Becky Thompson this volume, “Making Mirrors” will provide a multilingual interactive, collaborative volume of poems published as a book and as an on-line project. We see this offering as part of a long tradition of poetic responses to repression, the poems, a talisman for a world beyond displacement and exile.
Jehan Bseiso, aid worker and poet currently living in Beirut traces her family ancestry back to 17th century Gaza. She has been working with Doctors without Borders since 2008 and is the co-author of I Remember My Name.
Becky Thompson, poet, activist, mother and scholar, currently lives in Boston (USA). Her books include Zero is the Whole I Fall into at Night (poetry), Teaching with Tenderness, and Survivors on the Yoga Mat: Stories for Those Healing from Trauma.
What is the procedure for submitting?
You can send me an email or, in your case, I’ll just send you an email now.
Are you only looking for poems by refugees?
Let me put you in touch with the organizers, Bronwen.
How do I keep a track of the finished product (Book? Magazine? On line?) I would love to read and review, as I have a minor theme at my blog of writers fleeing persecution.
Good question! I’m sure I’ll write about it here, but don’t know if they have a email list set up yet. I’ll ask.
Hello, is this project still open and how can we get in touch for submissions?
I’ll send you an email.