Building the Wall Anthology

The submission deadline for the upcoming "Poets Facing the Wall" anthology (The Raving Press, 2018) has come and gone. We have received an abundance of amazing poetry. We were astounded at the level of sophistication of most of the submission material we received. This anthology will be our first to include three different languages, and contributions by writers from as far as New Delhi, India, making this not just an international publication, but a global one.

Many of the works you will see in this anthology come from prize-winning authors, as well as from writers relatively new to the publishing process, but who exhibited a lot of heart and passion. And that is why we went to the poets primarily for this project.

It is the poets who speak from the heart. It is the poets who are historically willing to risk liberty, life, and limb to stand up for justice, for humanity in an inhumane phase of history, and for beauty in an otherwise savage world. Poetry may not bring riches. Poetry may not win wars. Poetry may not even sway the masses when the track that's been laid before them leads the train down a dark and irreversible path to their own destruction. But poets (as opposed to historians, politicians, media talking heads, and Monday-morning quarterbacks) call the plays as they should be in real time regardless of the fury and fire they may spark in those whose interest is to keep the people blind to the truth. 

We hope that this project and future ones (here's wishing the First Amendment a very long life still) will inspire and fill with hope everyone who comes across it. That they may sample the brilliance of the minds that contributed the sacred fruit of their ponderings to this publication and feel elevated. That they may repurpose the walls that ignorance and hate erect to divide people and use them as bridges on which all can walk in each other's shoes and see a common humanity. 

Thank you, poets, friends, authors, editors, reviewers, our introduction writer (soon to be revealed), collaborators, teachers, family, and compatriots. We will be announcing the publishing date in early Fall. 

Until then, keep writing and reading books. If you are ever in need of reading material please consider getting yourselves a copy of one of our latest titles  like "Lost:Children of the River" ​

or "Bad Hombres & Nasty Women". ​