On the Blink

Below is a call for submissions from Nine Mile Magazine.

Call for Poetry

Nine Mile Art & Literary Magazine 

Special Issue: Neurodivergent, Disability, Deaf, Mad, and Crip Poetics 

Publication Date: Fall 2019  

Guest Editor: Diane R. Wiener

Background

Nine Mile‘s Fall 2018 issue (Vol. 6, Issue 1) included a section called “Other Engines,” devoted to the work of neurodivergent writers.  Our Fall 2019 issue (Vol. 7, Issue 1) will be devoted entirely to the work of self-identified Disabled, Deaf, Mad, and Crip poets, with particular attention paid to Neurodivergent—including Autistic—poets.  Neurodivergent, Disability, Deaf, Mad, and Crip poetics are at the heart of poetics, well beyond the too-often hurtful and ignorant ways in which disability is used as a metaphor or to forward a storyline.  Neurodivergent, Disabled, Deaf, Mad, and Crip poets (whether or not we write about disability) must in our view be represented at the center of poetry publishing.  (More information is below about the Special Issue and Nine Mile.) 

Submission

For consideration, please submit 10 to 15 poems in Word or Text by July 1, 2019 to Diane@ninemile.org, with the subject line “Fall 2019 Submission.”

Previously published work is welcome.  If accepted, it will be the author’s responsibility to acquire republication permission from the appropriate source(s).  

We are not equipped to accept video content or visual images, at this time.  Please only submit written poetry.  

Please also include:

1. your name, email address, and home address
2. a paragraph about yourself (background, achievements, etc.)
3. a statement about your aesthetic intentions (why and how you write “the ways you do”)
4. a photograph of yourself

If your work is accepted, you will receive $5 per published poem.  

About Nine Mile Magazine

Nine Mile Art & Literary Magazine publishes twice yearly, showcasing the best work we receive from authors whose work, energy, and vision are deeply entangled with life.  

At Nine Mile, we are committed to featuring diverse writing by diverse writers, including: disabled writers/writers with disabilities; Writers of Color; writers with marginalized genders, sexual and asexual orientations, religious/nonreligious identities and belief/non-belief systems; young and senior writers; experienced and never-before-published writers; and writers from outside the proverbial mainstream.  We are likewise committed to producing inclusive and accessible content, in multiple formats.  Poetry is everyone’s art. 

For more information about Nine Mile, visit our website.   

More About This Special Issue

Since 2007, the online journal, Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature (Editor-in-Chief, Michael Northen), has done stellar work in featuring disability poetics, and literary work by and about disability.  However, Neurodivergent (including Autistic), Disabled, Deaf, Mad (including Emotionally Variant and Mentally Ill), and Crip poets have generally not been well represented in other mainstream or outlier literary journals, magazines, and anthologies.  Moreover, we often do not feel welcomed to or within literary conferences and creative writing spaces, both public and academic, due to exclusion whether intended or accidental.  

The groundbreaking collection, Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (edited by Jennifer Bartlett, Michael Northen, and Sheila Black; Cinco Puntos Press, 2011), disrupted this pattern, in its foregrounding of poets with physical disabilities.  In particular, Bartlett’s recent essays in Poets & Writers and The New York Times (including new work by disabled poets, published in August, 2018), and Jillian Weise’s contributions—as herself, and as Tipsy Tullivan (via social media, and in myriad other venues)—have taken issue with the exclusionary trend.  Increasingly, commentaries about these issues are appearing by other disabled and nondisabled poets and writers.  

This Special Issue is part of Nine Mile‘s ongoing commitments, in these and many other important areas.