Open Call for Submissions - The Poetics of African and African Diasporic Migration

The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is inviting poems (40 lines of less) and short, micro or flash fiction and prose (100 words or less) on African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility.

We welcome submissions exploring any of the images, enslavement, issues, visa applications, deportations, time spent in immigration queues, triggers, drownings, borders you crossed, the histories and borders that crossed you, the causes, deaths, cases, brutalisation, armed conflict, lives, exploitation, hopes, births, dreams, criminalisations, demands, plundering, detentions, pillagings, realities, personal, familial, communal histories of migration, the effect that funding from the European Commission and others is having on how African refugees and migrants are being treated on the continent, in deserts, at borders, in camps, in slave markets, in mass graves, at sea, in informal refugee camps, in roadside graves, on barges, on the streets, in prisons, warehouses, hotels, disused barracks, for fleeing conflict and persecution, outcomes, futures that we are seeing, being, witnessing, experiencing, living, dreaming, feeling, hearing, shouting, screaming at, sensing, dying to get out of, dying to live, arrival, departure, journeying, memories, encounters, experiences, past, present and future, about, around African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility.

Submission Guidelines

● Poems should be 40 lines or less, and short fiction,100 words or less.
● The poems and short fiction should be on any aspect related to or concerning African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility.
● Submissions must be in English. 

● In the case of translated work, it is the translator’s responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright holder of the original work.
● If submitting a poem or short prose which has been previously published, please give details of where it has appeared and confirm that you are the copyright holder.
● Ideally submissions will be typed single spaced and submitted either in the body of an email or as a .doc attachment.
● Please include a short biography of 50 words or less. This will be included in the anthology if your poem is accepted. 
● You may submit a maximum of three poems or three pieces of short prose or a combination of poems and short prose. You do not have to submit all three at the same time, but the editors can only consider a maximum of three submissions.
● Please send the poems and short fiction to forcedmigrationandthearts@gmail.com 

● The call for submissions is open 365 days of the year. 

● All submissions received will be read and considered for possible inclusion in anthologies in the Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series.

The series also has open calls for poems exploring:

● how African and Asian refugees are being left to drown in the English Channel, and

● Edward Nkoloso, Afronauts and the 1960s Zambian Space Programme.

We take the African diaspora to include all people of African descent in all the ways they define themselves, e.g. African, African American, African Asian, African Brazilian, African Canadian, African Caribbean, African Italian, African Latino, African Palestinian, Afropean, Afro Turk, Black, Black British, Black Canadian, etc.

We welcome submissions from writers of all ages, based anywhere in the world.

About the Anthology Series

The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series is coordinated by Forced Migration and The Arts and CivicLeicester in association with the migrants' rights collective, Regularise. 

The series was inspired by the Africa Migration Report: 2nd Edition published by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). On 26 March 2024, speaking at the launch of the report, H.E. Ambassador Minata Samate Cessouma, AUC Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs, and Social Development (HHS) described the report as a 'joint initiative between the AU and IOM aimed at preserving historical perspectives, portraying the right narrative on African migration. While informing policy frameworks to support migration and human mobility on the Continent'. 

We commend the AUC and IOM for the report. We stress that freedom of movement is a fundamental human right that should be enjoyed by all, including Africans, and we urge the African Union to also ensure it informs policy frameworks that support African migration, mobility and rights both on and beyond the Continent. 

We invite poems that explore the personal, familial, communal, continental, intercontinental, transnational past, present and possible futures of African and African diasporic migration across time and space, in and around this world and beyond.

What is Africa? 

Where is Africa? 

When is Africa?
What does it mean to be African? 

Who is African?
What is Africa and Africans' relationship or experience of or with migration?
What are the images, feelings, associations, realities, hopes, practicalities, logistics, textures, rhythms, the day to day bits, dreams, pasts, presents, futures etc. of African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility? 

What are we seeing, hearing, feeling and sensing? 

What do we know? 

What are we not seeing, hearing, feeling, knowing, being, living, when, why and how etc.?
The African migrant, 

who is he

she

they? 

Whose mother, father, sister, daughter, friend, relative, benefactor, lover, rival, foe? 

What is the present of the African past? 

What is the future of their tomorrow?
Who is the African migrant coming into contact with? 

Who or what are they encountering where, when, and how? 

What is happening on that contact? 

Why are things happening this way? 

Is this new? 

How long has this been going on?
How are African governments, the African Union, the European Commission, the United Nations (UN), International Organisation of Migration (IOM), NATO, ECOWAS, countries in Asia, North America, South America, Antarctica, Australia and the Caribbean, Africans on the continent, Africans in the diaspora, communities etc., 

how are they responding to African and African diasporic migration and (im)mobility? 
What are Africans' experiences of migration on the continent and beyond?
What pasts, presents, futures, hopes, dreams, nightmares, joys, loves, memories, griefs, visions, seeds etc. are African migrants carrying, loving, singing, experiencing, living, gaining, losing, feeling, dancing, being, dreaming, moving, reaching towards, living with, through, by ...? 

What is happening to all this that they are carrying?

What are the pasts, presents and futures of African migration?

NOTES

[1] CivicLeicester is an indy publisher that uses print and digital technologies to highlight glocal issues, and publishes poetry anthologies, among them, Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (2023), Poetry and Settled Status for All: An Anthology (2022) and Bollocks to Brexit: An Anthology of Poems and Short Fiction (2019).

[2] Regularise is a collective of humans made up of migrants, citizens and allies who are committed to centreing and amplifying the voices and needs of undocumented migrants. The collective was founded in late 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, to address the years of sustained hardships that undocumented migrants experience in the UK and continues to organise and campaign for justice and for the rights of undocumented migrants.

[3] Forced Migration and The Arts is a global network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, refugee and non-refugee artists, academics and activists from around the world. The network was started with support from the University of Manchester's Global Scholars Fund and hosts regular discussion panels around forced migration and the arts, and encourages mutual support and collaboration. A playlist of conversations we have hosted so far is accessible here. The Network is currently purely volunteer-driven. If you would like to make a donation to the project, you can do so here.

[4] So far, we have edited and published two collections: Japa Fire: An Anthology of Poems on African and African Diasporic Migration (2024, edited by Munya R and I) and From Here To There (2025, edited by Nandi Jola and Omobola Osamor). More are on the way. To cover some of the costs associated with the work, we have a crowdfunding appeal. Any support you can lend us around this and in spreading the word about books in the series will be most appreciated.