THE NEW SENT(I)ENCE seeks poems that do one or more of the following:
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- That in some way address current and/or historic human-animal relationships;
- That imagine or urge new ways of relating to animals;
- That acknowledge or enact the animal’s capacity as a change-making being, possessed of its own creative agency;
- That engage with animals on their own terms;
- That pay attention to animals as individuals, each “the experiencing subject of a life,” protagonists of their own unfolding dramas rather than mere backdrops or props for our own;
- That explore our own animality as connected to non-human animals;
- That exhibit empathy toward the plights of animals;
- That demonstrate awareness of the minds and emotional lives of animals;
- That demonstrate concern for the harms humans cause to animals;
- That interrogate the ways humans relate to, conceive of, and treat non-human animals.
In the same spirit in which we seek better and fuller representation of nonhuman animals in literature, we are also committed to more inclusive representation of human voices in literature. We welcome and encourage submissions of poetry from marginalized groups, including authors of underrepresented race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability.
We also affirm our support of Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives, and our commitment to seeking out and including Black voices and other voices of color.
In addition to a diversity of voices, we are also interested in a wide variety of styles, approaches, and themes, and not only poems where an animal or animals are the central subject. Please see our Featured Poems to get a sense of (some of) the sorts of poems we believe are meaningfully engaging with animals and animality. See also Allison Davis’s excellent short essay, Writing About Animals, on our website.
Please submit for consideration new or previously published poems to thenewsentience@gmail.com.
THE NEW SENT(I)ENCE 