the compassion anthology
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  • Archives
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    • Winter 2018 Letter from the Editor
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    • Poetry, 2019 >
      • Robbie Gamble
      • Robert Okaji
      • Nicholas Samaras
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      • Sarah Wernsing
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      • Seres Jaime Magana
    • Fiction, 2019 >
      • Ruth Mukwana
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      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Rebecca Keller
    • Essays, 2019 >
      • Review of the movie GIFT
      • Jalina Mhyana
      • Stephen Dau
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      • Olive Paige
    • Art, 2019 >
      • Krisztina Asztalos
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      • Laura Gurton
    • Winter 2018 Art >
      • Dawid Planeta
      • Liliana Washburn
      • Ellen Halloran
    • Winter 2018 Fiction >
      • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
      • Herman Melville
    • Winter 2018 Essays >
      • Nikki Hodgson
      • Ciara Hall
      • Sara Roizen
      • Review of Claudine Nash's The Wild Essential
    • Winter 2018 Poetry >
      • Parker Anthony
      • Crystal Condakes Karlberg
      • Julia Lisella
      • Cynthia Atkins
      • Claudine Nash
    • Essays Summer 2017 >
      • Interview with Gail Entrekin
      • Patricia Reis
      • John Nelson
      • Mary Baures
      • Monette Bebow-Reinhard
      • M.J. Iuppa
    • Fiction Summer 2017 >
      • Jean Ryan
      • Daniel Hudon
      • Ray Keifetz
      • Anne Elliott
      • C.S. Malerich
      • Sascha Morrell
    • Art Summer 2017 >
      • Sara Roizen
      • Jill Slaymaker
      • John Mark Jennings
      • Janel Houton
      • Brandon Gorski
      • Tara White
      • Nancy Dudley
      • Elisabetta Lucchi
    • Poetry Summer 2017 >
      • Megan Merchant
      • Joey Gould
      • Claudine Nash
      • M.R. Smith
      • Kim Aubrey
      • Vivian Wagner
    • Winter 2017 Poetry >
      • Dan King
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Sam Bresnahan
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Danny Romanovitz
      • Kyle Quinn
    • Winter 2017 Art >
      • Elliott Grinnell
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Brendan Brown
      • Lauren Waisnor
    • Winter 2017 Essays >
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Eddie Marshall
      • Sofia Colvin
      • Ishita Pandey
      • Mohsin Tunio
    • Summer 2016 Fiction >
      • Jyotsna Sreenivasan
    • Summer 2016 Art The Women Artists and Writers Exhibit
    • Summer 2016 Poetry >
      • Colleen Michaels
      • Jennifer Markell
      • Tara Masih
      • Holly Guran
      • Heather Nelson
      • Bahareh Amidi
      • Alison Stone
      • Julia Travers
      • Amy Jo Trier-Walker
    • Summer 2016 Essays >
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Katelyn Gilbert
      • Kim-Marie Walker
      • Bahareh Amidi
    • Winter 2016 Fiction >
      • Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl
      • The Cresting Water
    • Winter 2016 Art >
      • San Giovanni D'Asso Landscape Paintings
      • It's All About the River
      • Jellyfish Sculptural Drawings
    • Winter 2016 Poetry >
      • Poems from Songs in the Storm
    • Winter 2016 Essays >
      • The Gleaners
      • The Aliveness Project
      • Named
    • Summer 2015 Fiction >
      • The Cloak
      • Sanctuary
    • Summer 2015 Art >
      • Environmental Art
      • Compassion in the Midst of Violence
      • Burn Myself Completely for Him and Souls
      • Eye of Oneness
      • Stepping Forward
    • Summer 2015 Poetry >
      • Poem With a Question From Neruda and INDICTMENT
      • The Humans
      • Afghan Boy and other poems
      • Reparations
      • Transference and other poems
    • Summer 2015 Essays >
      • The Ineffable Aspects of Forgiveness
      • He Was Better Than I’ll Ever Be
      • A Voice in the Desert
    • Winter 2015 Fiction >
      • White Heron
      • Freeing a Little of the Madness
    • Winter 2015 Art >
      • Cascade of Care and Life
      • Sentience
      • A Paternal Instant
      • Aurora, Paloma, and the Melangolo Tree
      • Seated Pose
      • Antigone's Map
      • Ladder
    • Winter 2015 Poetry >
      • Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      • Nicknames
      • Stopped at a Light,
      • Why mate for life? Red crown crane
      • The Prisoner
      • Stigmata
      • "Oh don't," she said. "It's cold."
      • Convene
    • Winter 2015 Essays >
      • The Forgiveness Project
      • A Stranger on a Subway
      • A Journey to Compassion
      • The Question of Compassion
      • Reflections on a Childhood Deforested
      • Click, Click, Click

Picture
Image by Laurette Folk
Call for Submissions: Hope and the Human Spirit

Submissions are now closed. Thanks to all our submitters for sharing their work.

​Our targeted publication date is May 1 for this edition.


Hope is the thing with feathers

Emily Dickinson - 1830-1886
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

What is this thing, the human spirit? What is this thing, hope, the tenacious part of us that makes us rise not only to the occasion, but out of bed? What is this human spirit that fumbles forward through the dark, powered by a peculiar knowing? Dickinson acknowledges its perseverance ("never stops at all"), but sees it as a separate entity ("Yet, never, in extremity/ it asked a crumb of me") exempt from the human element, perhaps divine. For the spring edition of The Compassion Anthology, we are looking for poems, essays, fiction, and visual art that inspires this universal and at the same time intensely personal attribute without being sentimental or cliché. Like the Italians in Siena singing to one another from their balconies as covid-19 ravages their country, we want flashes of beauty, of courage and power to get us through this fearful and foreboding March. I write this, coincidentally on the ides, a historically ominous time, when the Roman senators murdered Caesar, when, according to Plutarch, "the orb rose pale and without radiance...and the fruits, imperfect and half ripe, withered away and shrivelled up." Send us your own published work (see below) or give us recommendations (we will attempt to secure permission, however it would be best if the public domain applies).

Deadline: April 15, 2020


General Submission Guidelines

To submit to the anthology, please observe the guidelines below for your genre. There is no fee to submit to the anthology, however, we welcome donations via our Donate button on the home page. Not all submissions are guaranteed acceptance into the anthology and exhibits.

For this edition, we will consider only PUBLISHED work for poets and writers. Permission must be obtained by the author from the original publisher.

A maximum of 3 accepted submissions is allowed per artist/writer for an anthology edition, and a
ll authors/artists retain the rights to their work.

Examples of our favorite compassion-themed literature and art are as follows: "Strokes of Compassion," a series by Anne Neilson, and "Sentience" by Dawn Fisher for visual art; "The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me" by Sherman Alexie and "On Compassion" by Barbara Lazear Ascher for essays; "Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros and "The Bear Came over the Mountain" by Alice Munro for fiction; "Singapore" by Mary Oliver and "Translucence" by Denise Levertov for poetry.


General Visual Art Guidelines

Visual art includes drawings, paintings, photography, sculpture, video and mixed media collage. Images of work must:


  • be included in the body of the email or attached as a jpg.
  • include an artist statement (no more than 50 words) in the body of the email
  • include size, medium
  • include a bio with contact information in the body of the email 
  • include the genre in the subject line, as well as your last name

Emails must be sent to [email protected].


General Poetry, Fiction, and Essay Guidelines

All poetry, fiction and essays must:


  • be previously published works
  • include permission to reprint
  • be typed in 12 point Times New Roman or be linked to the email
  • include a short bio (50 words) in the body of the email with name and contact information
  • be 1500 words or less (for poetry, 3 poems each a page)
  • include the genre in the subject line of the email as well as your last name.

Emails must be sent to [email protected].

Exhibits

There is no exhibit at this time.

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