Theme: My America
Reading: Saturday, February 18, 2017 at 8 PM
Place: ALL, 2021 Winnebago St, Madison, WI
Submission deadline: January 3, 2016
What does it mean to be an American in 2017? What has it ever meant? We want poems, stories, or short essays that illustrate your America. Think Geoffrey Brock writing, “Charles Graner is not America.” Think Ada Limón writing, “every song of this country has an unsung third stanza, something brutal snaking underneath us as we blindly sing the high notes.” Think Mary Margaret Alvarado writing, “Gun violence is weather. American weather." We want work that celebrates, challenges, historicizes, expands, and enriches our ideas of what it means to be American now.
Please send 4 – 6 poems or a short prose piece (one that can be read out loud in about 7-10 minutes) on the theme ALONG WITH a 50 to 75-word bio, IN THE BODY OF AN E-MAIL to literature@artlitlab,org by January 1, 11:59 p.m. We will make every effort to inform those chosen of our decision by January 10. Although we can't afford to pay readers, this is a great opportunity to sell books and read with other talented people in a very special environment.
Selections will be made with an eye to assembling a program that represents a diversity of poets, styles, and approaches to the theme.
Selected poets and writers MUST be available to read in person.