Voicing Suicide – a poetry anthology

Suicide is difficult and complex. It can entangle us in unending loss, grief and sometimes guilt and anger. Suicide casts shadows over many lives, not only on those who have died, and those who have survived a suicide attempt but also over the friends, family and loved ones of those who die at their own hands.

voicing suicide

Yet suicide is often cloaked by silence, remaining unspeakable, as if words could never do justice to the unspeakable. Who can understand why a suicide happens? How did we know so little about the ones we loved who decided to kill themselves? What can be said that might explain or make sense when there seems to be no explanation, no sense to be had.

Poetry offers an opportunity to understand some of the difficult aspects of suicide. Poetry allows us to meet grief, give it voice; allows memory, and elegy. In poetry we can give voice to suicide and enter the difficult spaces of loss and sorrow.

We seek poems that are willing to be intimate, courageous and honest. We seek poetry that explores suicide with a generous and considered perspective, that acknowledges the larger social, political and cultural contexts of suicide as well as the personal experience of loss. What can poetry say to and of suicide to bring insight and compassion to a difficult conversation? What links poets to suicide?  Writing and suicide? Why do some of us, writers included, desire death so strongly? What has happened to the cultural and moral views of suicide over the centuries? What do we think of suicide now?

Poets are invited to submit up to 3 poems (5 pages total maximum) of new work (not previously published) that explores perspectives on suicide.

Deadline for submissions:

January 15, 2019

Please submit poems to [email protected] with the poems in a single attached file. In the body of the email include all contact information, email address and phone number, a brief bio and the title(s) of your poem(s).  Please ensure each poem has your name on it in the header.

The anthology will be published by Ekstasis Editions.

Volume Editor: Daniel G Scott