CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: POETRY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

STAND FOUNDATION, IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CENTRE FOR CREATIVE ARTS AND THE FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

The University of KwaZulu Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) presents the 24th edition of the Time of the Writer International Festival hosted virtually on the festival’s social media channels from 15-21 March 2021.
During the festival, Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation will co-host an online event as part of the Poetry for Human Rights project in which poetry is used to popularise, reflect on, critique and celebrate the state of human rights in South Africa. The Foundation for Human Rights in South Africa is the sponsoring partner of the project.

“Poetry is a powerful medium for addressing social injustices, to shift consciousness and it works as a particularly evocative call to action. This is not a new practice or form of activism for South African poets nor indeed for poets around the world,” says Mike van Graan, Coordinator of the STAND Foundation.

The event will take place on 21 March, a momentous day since World Poetry Day and Human Rights Day coincide. The audience can expect a livestream on the festival’s social media including readings and performances by selected poets.

Poets – including foreign nationals who reside in South Africa and South African poets who live abroad – are hereby invited to submit poems for the Poetry for Human Rights Project.

Established poets and co-curators Malika Ndlovu and Siphokazi Jonas, together with the organisers, will make a selection of the poems for an online and physical publication as well as for an online event on 21 March where some of the selected poems will be performed as part of Time of the Writer, and to mark Human Rights Day.

Submitted poems need to follow the guidelines below:

1. The themes of the poems should deal with human rights in South Africa – any of the human rights enshrined in the country’s Constitution. The poems can be critical, celebratory, educational or satirical in their commentary.
2. The poems will be selected/curated according to both their thematic content and their aesthetic form.
3. Poets may submit up to three poems, of any length.
4. Poems that are submitted are not to have been published before.
5. Poems may be submitted in any official South African language. In the online publication, the poems may be translated into English.
6. Each poem selected for the publication will earn the writer R750.00.
7. Poems that are selected for performance/presentation at the Human Rights Day event will earn the writer – who will be invited to perform the work – R1500.00 (in total, not in addition to the R750 above).
8. Poems selected for the online and/or physical publication will credit the writer. Royalties earned through the sale of the publication will be shared among the writers included in the publication/s.
9. The CCA, STAND Foundation and Foundation for Human Rights reserve the right to post the poems on their respective websites, on posters and in other formats to popularise the poems, all the time crediting the writers.
10. Those closely associated with the CCA, STAND Foundation and Foundation for Human Rights (staff, board members, etc) may submit poems and may be selected for the publication and Human Rights Day event, but may not receive payment for their work.
11. The decisions about the selected poems are final and no correspondence will be entered into once the decisions are made public.
    
    Poems are to be submitted to [email protected] by 17:00 on Monday 8 March 2021.
    Writers are to submit their poems along with their name, email address, mobile number, city of residence, province, their website (if any) and a brief bio of up to 150 words.
    For further information, write to [email protected] or Siphokazi Jonas at [email protected].

Tags: call for submissions, Centre for Creative Arts (CCA), Malika Ndlovu, Mike van Graan, Poetry for human rights, siphokazi jonas, Time of the Writer