Forced Migration and The Arts, in collaboration with CivicLeicester, is inviting and accepting poems on the theme of African migration.
We welcome submissions exploring any of the images, enslavement, issues, visa applications, deportations, time spent in immigration queues, triggers, drownings, borders you crossed, the histories, killings, borders that crossed you, causes, deaths, cases, brutalisation, armed conflict, lives, exploitation, hopes, births, dreams, criminalisations, demands, plundering, detentions, pillagings, realities, personal, family and community histories of migration, the effect that funding from the European Commission and others is having on how African refugees and migrants are being treated on the continent, in deserts, at borders, in camps, in slave markets, in mass graves, at sea, in informal refugee camps, in roadside graves, on barges, on the streets, in prisons, for fleeing conflict and persecution, outcomes, futures that we are seeing, being, witnessing, experiencing, living, dreaming, feeling, hearing, screaming at, sensing, dying to get out of, dying to live, arrival, departure, journeying, memories, encounters, experiences, … past, present, future … around African migration.
We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.
The provisional title of the anthology, Africa Migration Report: An Anthology of Poems is inspired by the 2nd Edition of the Africa Migration Report published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Speaking at the launch of the report, on 26 March 2024, H.E. Ambassador Minata Samate Cessouma, AUC Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs, and Social Development (HHS) described the report as a “joint initiative between the AU and IOM aimed at preserving historical perspectives, portraying the right narrative on African migration. While informing policy frameworks to support migration and human mobility on the Continent”.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
● Poems should be 40 lines or less, and short fiction,100 words or less.
● The poems and short fiction should be on the theme, African migration.
● Submissions must be in English. In the case of translated work, it is the translator’s responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holder of the original work.
● If submitting a poem or short fiction which has been previously published, please give details of where it has appeared and confirm that you are the copyright holder.
● Ideally submissions will be typed single spaced and submitted either in the body of an email or as a .doc attachment.
● Please include a short biography of 50 words or less. This will be included in the anthology if your poem is accepted. If you do not send a biography, it will be assumed you do not wish your biography to appear in the anthology.
● You may submit a maximum of three poems or three pieces of short fiction or a combination of poems and short fiction. You do not have to submit all three at the same time, but the editors can only consider a maximum of three submissions.
● We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.
● Please send the poems and short fiction to forcedmigrationandthearts@
