Taking Submissions: Midwest Futures: Poems from Tomorrow’s Heartland
Deadline: July 1st, 2024
Payment: Contributor’s Copy
Theme: Speculative poems and micro-prose (300 words max.) engaging with themes of environmentalism, climate change, technology, and more through a lens of Midwestern experience.
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Field Guide to Invasive Species of Minnesota: Poems by Amelia Gorman
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“Five Indigenous Poets Explore Loss and Love of their Native Lands” – Natural Resource Defense Council
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Forever War by Kate Gaskin
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“Imagining the Future of Phoenix” – Arizona State University climate-writing exercise
Our intent with this project is to have fun, but also to illuminate, interrogate, and challenge (via the still-human domain of poetry!!!) the ways people think about place, people, and culture. We are looking for terrain-shifting, mind’s-eye-bending, firmament-rending expressions of new and future realities. Be provocative. Be poignant. Be human. Even if you write like a Giant Robot Tractor.
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How could we change the ways we build, grow, live, work, and travel on the land? What would be the results?
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How could we change the ways we interact with and honor the land (and our predecessors, ancestors, and neighbors), toward visions of a “new” Midwest?
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Paul Bunyan’s companion blue ox Babe is likely the result of genetic engineering.
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The first binary electronic digital calculating device was constructed at Iowa State University. It was not powered by corn.
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George Washington Carver both attended and later taught at Iowa State University. What futures did he imagine?
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Deadline for submissions is Jul. 1, 2024. Notifications will be sent not later than Nov. 4, 2024. Target publication date for this project is Spring/Summer 2025.
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Submit from 1 to 3 poems in the same file (.DOC or .DOCX).
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Work generated using ChatGPT and similar computer-assisted word “AI” will NOT be accepted. Human-generated poems only, please.
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New and original work is preferred. Please note in cover letter whether specific works have previously been published elsewhere.
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Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Please notify the editors via Submittable if one of more poems becomes unavailable during the consideration period.
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Publisher requests non-exclusive, worldwide, English-language print and e-book anthology rights.
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Contributors will receive one complimentary print or digital (where postal delivery is not available) contributor’s copy.
Via: Middle West Press.
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Stuart Conover is a father, husband, published author, blogger, geek, entrepreneur, horror fanatic, and runs a few websites including Horror Tree!