Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
In the family of things.
WILDNESS: Call for Submissions
Submissions accepted year-round.
WILDNESS is an online literary journal that seeks to promote contemporary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that evokes the unknown. Founded in 2015, each thoughtfully compiled issue strives to unearth the works of both established and up-and-coming writers. For submission guidelines visitreadwildness.com/submitor email submissions@readwildness.com.
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Apalachee Review: Call for Political Poetry
Deadline: April 15, 2017
The Apalachee Review is currently seeking poetry submissions for our 67th issue. Alongside regular submissions, we are seeking poems for a special political poetry section. We’re looking for dynamic pieces regarding democracy, identity, politics, social justice, and other areas of political concern. Please send 3-6 poems with an SASE to Apalachee Review, Special Political Poetry Section, PO Box 10469, Tallahassee, FL 32302. For further submission details, please check our website: apalacheereview.org.
6 March 2017
Make art about the Other, about Otherness, about being the Other, about fearing the Other, about discovering the Other.
26 February 2017
Make art about monsters of our own making
27 February 2017
Make art about everyday magic.
The Broke Bohemian Spring Edition
Deadline: March 14, 2017
The Broke Bohemian is now accepting submissions for our Spring Edition! Get wild. Wear your activism proudly. Bare your teeth. Rise up, and rave in the name of Beauty. We commit ourselves to fostering the voices of all people, especially those who’ve been disenfranchised and unheard among the ever-booming holler of the bourgeoisie! Up to three poems, flash fiction, art (photography, digital media, illustrations, paintings), prose, microfiction, nonfiction. We publish pieces at the forefront of unconventional thought and outlandish perspectives.
Be sure to read our submission guidelines before submitting. brokebohemian.com
These last few months, the upheaval, uncertainty, not only in the world at large, but in my own life, with the loss of my sister, knocked me back on my heels a bit. Things–actions–activism–I knew I had to do took over, but now I feel I have found a rhythm, found my feet, and so much of what I’ve worked through, thought through, clarified for myself in these last weeks, has been about what I will not surrender.
Art is at the heart of what I refuse to surrender, making it, sharing it, learning from it, from those with the courage to make it. Nope. No amount of fear-mongering will move me to abandon the making, or the makers.
Make art about what you will not surrender.
1/9/2017
My daddy was a sweet, gentle, and wildly imperfect man. But one thing that we all knew, without question, was how much he loved our mama. And lest we forget, periodically, he would sit down and write a letter to each of us kids, telling us how much, and all the reasons why. We all lived in the same town, for so many years, but these letters would arrive unexpectedly in the mail, missives of fierce and eternal Love.
Make art about an unexpected letter, or about fierce Love.
Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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