Peace Poems Anthology Seeks Submissions

From our friends at the National Federation of State Poetry Societies:

Submissions call: Words Not Weapons anthology

Submit at https://forms.gle/1KNLbbgejYydC26L9.

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Music and Words for Peace - May 14th in Cleveland

The Cleveland Non-Violence Network presents Music & Words for Peace, a coffeehouse fundraiser for the 10th Annual Labor Day Peace Show, with music by Deborah Van Kleef, Ian Heisey and the Cleveland Hip-Hop Club, and poetry by Kate Sopko, Phil Metres, Kazim Ali, Dianne Borsenik, John Burroughs and Sammy Greenspan.

Free will donations accepted at the door. Baked goods & fair trade coffee. Parking on Franklin Boulevard and adjoining streets. More info: www.clevelandnonviolence.org, 216-932-8546, engagepeace@gmail.com

It all happens Saturday, 7 p.m., at St. Paul's Community Church, 4427 Franklin Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. (Click on the image for a printable flier.)

Poems for Peace by Philip Metres

The Poetry Foundation has just published an article about "How to build a collection that moves beyond anti-war poetry" by Cleveland area author, educator and peace activist Philip Metres. Check it out here:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=240142

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About Philip Metres:

Professor of English at John Carroll University, Dr. Metres was recently awarded the 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize for Emerging Artist. His books include To See the Earth (2008), Come Together: Imagine Peace (anthology of peace poems, 2008), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (2007), Instants (2006), Primer for Non-Native Speakers (2004), Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein (2004), and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (2003). His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry. Find him online at www.philipmetres.com and http://behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com.

Poems of Peace

The issue

of writing poetry that is engaged with the struggles of the world is as old as verse itself, or maybe song. Poets in the Cleveland area seem to have no problem with this...from such early poets as Langston Hughes and Russell Atkins, through rebel poet d.a.levy and the mimeograph revolution of the 1960, up to more recent times with Daniel Thompson, Ray McNiece, Mary Weems, Terry Provost, and others. We poets write about what matters to us and the world.

That doesn't mean we don't write about Nature and our family and the immediate world around us. There is room for all types of poems, all ways of saying and witnessing. In the engaged poetry, say of Ohioan Kenneth Patchen, the work was immediate and yes often topical...yet the struggles of WW II, Vietnam, Iraq all seem to speak to each other, and to us. We learn to witness our world through the saying and naming, and hopefully the understanding we gain from this. There is discussion of this on my Blog...http://dogger-larry.blogspot.com/ I invite you to join in the discussion.

In our recent Bottom Dog Press anthology Come Together: Imagine Peace, the poets were asked to image peace...as John Lennon did in his songs "Imagine." How they did that was left to them, but the results speak to what matters. When we lose the ability to imagine peace, we lose the ability to bring it into our or our children's lives. My wife Ann and I joined with Phil Metres in the vision and art of so many fine poets, it has been its own reward. But we do want to share it with others...May it spread.