City Seeks Poetry Submissions for Albuquerque Anthology

August 23, 2021 - The City of Albuquerque's Department of Arts & Culture recently announced an open call for poetry submissions for an upcoming anthology. Poets currently residing in Albuquerque or those who formerly resided in the Albuquerque Metro Area for three or more years are invited to submit up to three poems inspired by Albuquerque to be considered for inclusion in a University of New Mexico Press publication next year.

Submissions will be accepted through 3 p.m. on Friday, September 17, 2021 at https://bit.ly/37UyVHN.

This anthology will provide a snapshot of this historically vibrant community in 2021, featuring works by a wide range of living poets, Poets Laureate, and youth poets as well as a range of kinds of poetry, including collaborative poems written and performed in Albuquerque and beyond.

Over the years, a few anthologies have focused on and featured Albuquerque poets--Voices from the Rio Grande (1976), The Indian Rio Grande (1977), A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Poetry Slam Scene (2008), Poetry from the Other Side (2013), Rolling Sixes Sestinas (2016), and That Poet is Dope (2020).

Albuquerque poets have also been included in anthologies of New Mexico poetry, including New Mexico Poetry Renaissance (1994), the Adobe Walls series, and the upcoming New Mexico Poetry Anthology (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2022).

A comprehensive anthology featuring works by contemporary Albuquerque poets is long overdue, especially for a city that has been a busy hub for poetry for a very long time. Albuquerque is characterized by poets and poetries of all kinds—from formal and Modern to post-Modern, experimental, performance, spoken word, and slam. It is also a place where poets—across styles and modes and subject matters—lean toward mutual support and collaboration.