16 April 2017
“He fought because he actually felt safer fighting than running.”
– Richard Adams
It’s hard to empathize with the combative life attitude until we look below the surface and see it’s a protective mechanism, meant to combat the anxiety produced from a world perceived as hostile. The need to fight is really just a signal of deep fear.
Make art about the fear driving combative people, or about understanding and forgiving them.
The lover’s footprint in the sand the ten-year-old kid’s bare feet in the mud picking chili for rich growers, not those seeking cultural or ethnic roots, but those whose roots have been exposed, hacked, dug up and burned and in those roots do animals burrow for warmth; what is broken is blessed, not the knowledge and empty-shelled wisdom paraphrased from textbooks, not the mimicking nor plaques of distinction nor the ribbons and medals but after the privileged carriage has passed the breeze blows traces of wheel ruts away and on the dust will again be the people’s broken footprints. What is broken God blesses, not the perfectly brick-on-brick prison but the shattered wall that announces freedom to the world, proclaims the irascible spirit of the human rebelling against lies, against betrayal, against taking what is not deserved; the human complaint is what God blesses, our impoverished dirt roads filled with cripples, what is broken is baptized, the irreverent disbeliever, the addict’s arm seamed with needle marks is a thread line of a blanket frayed and bare from keeping the man warm. We are all broken ornaments, glinting in our worn-out work gloves, foreclosed homes, ruined marriages, from which shimmer our lives in their deepest truths, blood from the wound, broken ornaments— when we lost our perfection and honored our imperfect sentiments, we were blessed. Broken are the ghettos, barrios, trailer parks where gangs duel to death, yet through the wretchedness a woman of sixty comes riding her rusty bicycle, we embrace we bury in our hearts, broken ornaments, accused, hunted, finding solace and refuge we work, we worry, we love but always with compassion reflecting our blessings— in our brokenness thrives life, thrives light, thrives the essence of our strength, each of us a warm fragment, broken off from the greater ornament of the unseen, then rejoined as dust, to all this is.
15 April 2017
At some point every semester, I challenge my students to look everyone they meet in the eye, even the strangers they pass, to turn while standing in line and speak to the person behind them, in front of them, to make acknowledging other human beings around them a habit.
One of my current students asked me, sadness softening her young face, why other people won’t, don’t, look at each other, much less look each other in the eyes as they pass. We’re afraid, I told her, of revealing ourselves, of being seen.
Make art about seeing each other, about taking the risk of being seen.
500 Miles Magazine is a new publication for writers who create work a little outside the mainstream. We enjoy the funny, the experimental, and the generally well written. They are currently seeking submissions in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
No bio or cover-letter is required.
Submissions are free.
Please copy and paste your work into the body of your email to: :500milesmagazineATgmailDOTcom.
14 April 2017
Make art about service, about how the self is found in service to others.
SOME SPECIAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS LOVE!
HEARTWOOD BROADSIDE SERIES CONTEST
The brand spanking new issue of HeartWood comes out tomorrow! Thrilled to share amazing work from some amazing writers! 
And our second annual Broadside Competition is under way! Submit poetry, flash fiction, or micro memoir! Submit now! And share the call!
Partnering with West Virginia letterpress company Base Camp Printing, the winning entry (poetry or flash prose) will be featured on a limited-edition letterpress broadside with an original image inspired by the text.
Contest Judge: MAGGIE ANDERSON is the author of five books of poems most recently Dear All, (Four Way Books, 2017) and five edited or co-edited volumes of poetry. She was the founding director of the Wick Poetry Center and founder and editor of the Wick Poetry Series of the Kent State University Press. Anderson was also the Director of the Northeast Ohio MFA in creative writing from 2006-2009 and is the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as grants from the Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts. Maggie Anderson is Professor Emerita in English of Kent State University and currently lives in Asheville, NC.
13 April 2017
Make art about vision, about what you see, or are unable to see.
Birdsong brings relief
to my longing
I’m just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please universal soul, practice
some song or something through me!
From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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