Accepting Submissions: New Journal from Istanbul -- and Me!

Someday I hope to travel to Istanbul. I want to see the Blue Mosque, the marketplace, and be immersed in the culture. Because I have traveled to Bosnia Herzegovina and spent time in Sarajevo, I feel I've learned something about Turkey. On my last trip to Sarajevo, I gave a reading at the International University of Sarajevo, and met some fantastic people. Among them were Mustafa and Reyan Bal.




Flash forward two years later and an email arrives inquiring as to whether I would like to be the poetry editor for a new endeavor, The Human journal. I'm on sabbatical so I say "yes, thank you!" not thinking about the work involved. Another year or more slips by and suddenly there is Mustafa again, filling my inbox with poetry.




Now that idea, those few emails, have turned into an international journal including poems by Kelli Russell Agodon, Lauren Camp, Jennifer Markell, and Hilary Sallick. There's work in English and Turkish. And yes, we are accepting submissions right now.




Here is the beginning of "Where We Live" by Hilary Sallick




Where We Live




There are places in the world

that aren’t in the world,

where we hold what’s missing

or never understood,




where a meaning

lies hidden

in the seam of things,




in a handful of stones

from a distant stone beach,

colorless and dry

in the basket by the window




where the edges of the pink

flowers slowly beginning

to darken turn

inward




whole other lives

submerged inside this one,



ghost-prints the artist (to continue reading click here to download)