In this gripping time, we need to find unity with as many others as we can...not just our typical "tribes." We need to reach across all kinds of lines...caring about humanity in all its forms. Find sympathy, compassion...walk in someone else's shoes. Find similarities in our humanness.
Please join my Unity Poetry Challenge so we can demonstrate to the world that love and kindness are not gone but stand strong to help us build a better world, country, home. "Find the friend" in unusual places, with those you've never considered before...find the commonalities. Then send me a poem about it. (Written word, word prose all kinds are fine.) More info below.
Unity Poetry Challenge
I’d love to have you share my Unity Poetry Challenge with
other writers, too.
Submit your non-divisive poems to Ariele M. Huff, author of
several anthology books of writing and poetry under the brand of Candy Bar
Books. Ariele has solicited poetry for and edited Northwest Prime Times
Poetry Corner for over twenty years.
If a poem is selected for the book, the poet will get a free
eBook version that they can share with family and friends.
I do edit most poems I receive for Poetry Corner (rarely I
only use excerpts) and will certainly do those as needed for Unity Poetry.
Please send poems that address non-divisiveness in any
groups—male/female, black/white, Democrat/Republican, city/rural, chocolate
lovers/those who like other candies, etc. Extra points for submitting a list of
types of divisions. The most important rule for inclusion in the book is that
no negatives about either side are in the poem. Feel free to send limericks,
haikus, tankas, free verse, classic rhyming, prose poetry, Sestina, Villanelle,
English or Italian Sonnets, Cinquain, Quatrain, Spoken Word, even sagas or
epics though really lengthy poems will have a harder time winning a position in
the book.
FYI—some of the selected poems will also be used in the
website segment (Sharing Stories) that I host for Northwest Prime Time.
Position in the eBook and in Sharing Stories is a nice
opportunity to have published poetry for a portfolio and to help other people
get through this time with more comfort and hope.
Send poetry to ariele@comcast.net. Submissions will be copyrighted in the
anthology.
Example of a unifying, non-divisive poem follows,
re-written from a published original.
Parties
“Everything’s-for-Sale”
sale.
Ten-dollar
local antique—so frail.
Newcomer
leaving for a “safer, redder” place…
wants
to leave without a trace.
Old
lady Dem and young bearded GOP,
we
talked and laughed without a stop.
He
carried my new/old treasure,
his
kindness a touching pleasure.
Sad
to see you go, departing friend,
but
thanks for sharing at the end.
Ariele
Huff
