Arachne Press has launched an open call for new poetry anthology, ‘Afonydd’.
They want submissions from poets born in Wales, living in Wales or writing in Welsh by 31 July.
Arachne Press is the publisher of bilingual Welsh/English poetry anthology ‘A470: Poems for the Road/Cerddi’r Ffordd’ (2022), a collection of 52 original poems by Welsh poets, all written in response to the 186-mile road which runs the length of Wales.
‘Afonydd’ is a spiritual follow-up to that, with all the poems included published similarly in both English and Welsh, with the translations side-by-side.
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The poems in ‘A470’ took in the seashore, slate quarries, nuclear power stations, fighter plane flypasts, forests, mountains and the capital city, taking readers on a journey through memory, myth, love and grief.
The fully bilingual anthology included 52 poems. The poems, which were submitted by writers in either English or Welsh in response to an open call, were chosen on merit and then translated into the other language, meaning that each work in the anthology is side by side with its translation either from, or into, Welsh, intended to celebrate the magnificence of both languages and the artistry of poets and translators.
Arachne Press is once again looking for short poems, but this time they must be linked to the rivers of Wales.
They can be written in Welsh and/or English, by poets born in Wales, living in Wales or or writing in Welsh.
“We are not looking for generic river poems, but for specific poems inspired by particular rivers, that are more than descriptions,” an Arachne Press spokesperson said.
Full details can be found at https://arachnepress.submittable.com/submit.
Deaf writers may submit by video in BSL.
Submissions using AI will not be accepted.
Judges will not publish erotica, and aren’t keen on horror of any kind, gore or torture, detest sexist and other stereotypes and deplore derivative plotlines, sloppy writing and clichés, and are bored by romance and chick-lit and if poems are motivated by hate of any kind they won't be considered.