YOU DON'T NEED GOOD ENGLISH. YOU JUST NEED TO WRITE :)

Editor's Note:

What is this? This is the slogan for our first event and my brainchild. To encourage other Malaysians who love writing poetry and those who want get published, my fellow editors and I have organised this event where we want people to write poetry and well, tell their story.

This occurred to me one day, when I just told myself that I am going to self-publish an anthology of poems, but then again, I thought it would be far more interesting if we published a poetry anthology for Malaysian youth by Malaysians beacause our generation is most unique and diverse with different understandings of race, politics, culture and much more. And I thought, why not poetry?

Poetry is a dying art, and although it thrives in different parts of the world, in Malaysia there is a sad lack of appreciation for poetry. Most Malaysians wirte poetry as pasttime but do not seek to develop their raw efforts that sometimes give off a glimmer of a potential work of art. What we seek to do here is to gather these different voices and give space for talented Malaysians to get published and a platform to speak to the world.

 Regulations

1. Theme: Our theme is "Love"

Although our theme is "Love", what we want to do here is to promote young Malaysians to think outside the box by considering other types of love - the unconventional "love" that is not necessarily pure and enduring.

Think of:

The politics of sexuality,
the age divide,
Cultural erosion,
Political reform,
Drug abuse,
trangsgender issues,
postcolonial identities,
Love of fashion,
Marriage,
Entering the working world,
family,
Love as defined by things etc...




2. Wordcount: More than 50 words.


3.You may write in English, Malay or a mixture of English and Malay. You are allowed to use culture specific words such as "vibuthi" (Tamil) and the same for Chinese - but the author is responsible to provide an explanation for the said word in a footnote.


4. Heavy cultural significance and usage is would be very welcome (although it is not a criterion in the selection process).


5. Should you wish to include previously published poetry, kindly check with your publisher regarding copyright issues.

6. Any person is allowed to submit up to four poems.

Submission

To submit, download our cover page from http://www.mediafire.com/?zmolz5re6gew7sh

Dateline is 31st November 2011.

All entries are to be emailed to writinghive@gmail.com.

Notifications

All selected poems will be published in the poetry anthology.  There is no prize. In fact, winners may have to contribute to printing costs, but we will try to get some sponsors and maybe some donations.

Winners will be notified via email and their names will be published on this blog.

Tips and the kind of poems we are looking for will also be published on the blog.

Queries

Please email us all queries, questions and curiosities with the subject titled 'Query'.

If you have a group of more than five people who are interested to participate, we are willing to conduct short poetry writing classes to show the different ways literary devices can be used to achieve effect. The coaching is free of charge.

All the best. Carpe diem.

With love,

Loe.