"Go Back Where You Came From"
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
--because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
--because I was not a trade unionist.
They they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
--because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
-Martin Niemoller (1946)
Sherman Alexie, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, is a terrific writer and member of the Spokane Tribe. He included the story, "Go Back Where You Came From," in one of his many fantastic books. He was walking down a street in Seattle when a pickup truck pulled up, and a person leaned out and yelled, "Go back where you came from," then sped off. Alexie thought about it a moment, started to laugh, and said "After you."
Write a us poem in this spirit.
Deadline: May 25th, 2025
Event: June 8th, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for the anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com
Remembering William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
An Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer, Yeats is one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature, and later served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State. While in London, he became a part of the Irish literary revival. He had become the chief playwright for the Irish Literary Theatre in 1897, and early on promoted younger poets such as Ezra Pound.
An excerpt from The Second Coming by Yeats (1919)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Virtual Event: June 15th, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for the anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com
Betrayed - Violence Against Women
Inspired by Not If I Can Help It by Meg Groff
In a rare starred review, Kirkus Reviews states:
"The cases she recounts range from harrowing to infuriating: The police shrugged away potential murders as suicides, children were left unsupervised with dangerous fathers with devastating results, doctors assumed that struggling young mothers must be alcoholics. Each episode carries a tremendous punch, as well as a searing lesson about the failings of society to help those in need. Groff deftly narrates her personal experiences to set engrossing scenes, like a last-minute courtroom speech to keep a baby out of protective services or the immense relief from a colleague’s simple affirmation, while never losing sight of the bigger picture. “Abusers do not think of themselves as criminals,” she writes in one of the many examples of the smart, big-picture analysis she offers. Despite such heavy details and subject matter, Groff balances her book with warmth and humor."
Write us a poem about your experience.
Deadline: June 15, 2025
Live reading: July 15th, Central Free Library Philadelphia
Virtual Reading Event: July 20, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for our Betrayed: Violence Against Women anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4.5 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com
Freedom
Freedom has become a rallying cry for those in power who aim to exploit, to lie, and to endanger the less powerful with impunity. They demand Freedom to contaminate the earth, to deny history, to claim the Holocaust never happened, and to teach that slavery was good. They demand Freedom to deny science and abolish vaccines, to ban books and open dialogue, and to teach their version of history.
What do poets think about Freedom and the state of the Union?
Deadline: June 15th, 2025
Virtual Event: July 13th, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for the anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4.5 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com
National Book Lovers Day
From clay tablets to today’s eBooks, literature has played a crucial role in preserving cultures, educating the masses, and storytelling. Thanks to Johannes Gutenberg’s 15th-century printing press, anyone, not just royalty, monks or landed gentry, could read and own books.
The modern book is made by binding paper, but before the invention of paper, books came in the form of tablets, scrolls, and engravings. Every civilization had its own way to document events. Sometime in 3500 B.C., the Mesopotamians would make markings on clay tablets using a pointed device, made from the stem of the reed plant, called the calamus. These writings on the moist clay were called ‘cuneiform.’ Approximately 20,000 of these tablets were discovered in modern-day Iraq.
Paper was invented in China in the 1st century A.D. By experimenting with various materials such as hemp, fishnets, and the mulberry plant, Ts’ai Lun invented the first paper. With time, printing on woodblocks also became the go-to way of reproducing books in China. The ancient scrolls dating back to the 4th century B.C. are considered the first ‘books,’ but by today’s definition, the oldest surviving compiled book is “The Diamond Sutra” which was published in China on May 11, 868. Send us a poem in praise of books.
Deadline July 13th, 2025
Virtual Event: August 10th, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for our World Press Freedom anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4.5 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com
Banned Books Week 2025
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. Typically (but not always) held during the last week of September, the annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas. Send us a poem about censorship or in praise of your favorite banned book.
Deadline: September 7
Virtual Event: Sunday October 5, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for our World Press Freedom anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4.5 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com
Remembering Wallace Stevens
(October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955)
Wallace Stevens is one of America’s most respected 20th century poets. He was a master stylist, employing an extraordinary vocabulary and a rigorous precision in crafting his poems. But he was also a philosopher of aesthetics, vigorously exploring the notion of poetry as the supreme fusion of the creative imagination and objective reality. Because of the extreme technical and thematic complexity of his work, Stevens was sometimes considered a difficult poet. But he was also acknowledged as an eminent abstractionist and a provocative thinker, and that reputation has continued since his death. In 1975, for instance, noted literary critic Harold Bloom, whose writings on Stevens include the imposing Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate, called him “the best and most representative American poet of our time.”
Deadline: September 28th, 2025
Virtual Event: Sunday October 5th, 2025
Submission Guidelines: Please submit one poem for the anthology.
Keep this poem limited to 35 lines total. When determining the total line length for each poem, include spaces between stanza (ex: a poem of 5 couplets would equal 14 lines). Numbers or section breaks should also be included as lines when calculating the total line length. Count an epigraph as 3 extra lines. A line that has more than 60 characters (including spaces and punctuation) should be counted as two lines. If lines are staggered like a Ferlinghetti poem, estimate the width of the line.
The final book will be printed in 11 point Garamond font on pages that are 4.5 inches wide. Poems with lines longer than 4.5 inches may be changed or denied due to printing constraints.
For questions or inquiries, please email Larry Robin at larry@moonstoneartscenter.com