Call for Submissions: The Poet's Quest for God

The Poet's Quest for God: 21st Century Poems of Spirituality
(cross-posted from The Wonder Reflex)

Edited by Dr. Oliver V. Brennan and Dr. Todd Swift
For Publication by Eyewear Publishing 2013-14
Deadline for submission: August 1, 2012

A trimmed version of the call for submissions:

Eyewear Publishing is planning to publish an anthology of new, mostly previously-unpublished poems, written in English, concerned with spiritual issues in this secular age, by persons of any faith, or none. Submissions will be welcomed via email as word documents, containing no more than three poems, and including contact details and a brief 100 word biographical note about the author.

One of the characteristics of our contemporary culture which is generally described as post-modern is the human search for the spiritual. The advent of post-modernity has been accompanied by the dawn of a new spiritual awakening. Many spiritual writers say that desire is our fundamental dis-ease and is always stronger than satisfaction. This desire lies at the centre of our lives, in the deep recesses of the soul. This unquenchable fire residing in all of us manifests itself at key points in the human life cycle. Spirituality is ultimately what we do about that desire. When Plato said that we are on fire because our souls come from beyond and that beyond is trying to draw it back to itself, he is laying out the broad outlines for a spirituality.

This new emphasis on and openness to the spiritual dimension of human existence which is characteristic of contemporary lived culture is accompanied by a new emergence of atheism as well as a sometimes-aggressive secularism. Perhaps the best response to this rage against belief in a Divine Power at work in the universe is a poetic one. 

The purpose of this collection is to awaken debate, create an imaginative discourse and generally open a space for religious poetic practices in the contemporary world, while at the same time refusing to delimit the horizon of the possible.

For more information, or to submit, contact Dr Swift at T.Swift@kingston.ac.uk. I certainly intend to submit, though not in an attitude of resisting secularism. My involvement in secular activism, and my impulses to write and study poetry, are for me two sides of the same coin. I recognize the stone of the world doesn't reveal any message on its surface left by its Maker: not any commandment or token of assurance, no instructions, no threat; and I take that blankness as an invitation to write my own message upon it, and to see what others have written there.

Related reading: Norman Finkelstein's On Mount Vision: Forms of the Sacred in Contemporary American Poetry.