SUBMIT
TO ISSUE X: DISCURSION
DISCURSION
discursion
noun
1. an instance of discursive writing, speech, etc.; a wandering or logically unconnected statement
2. a movement to and fro
3. a discourse
4. the process or procedure of rigorous formal analysis or demonstration, as distinguished from immediate or intuitive formulation
yes, The Madrigal is back, with a brand-new theme, Discursion, a word that gestures towards both analytical stringency and the abandonment of clear logical flow. a contranym, or at least a contradiction, of sorts. we are looking for poems that are at play with reasoning and the sounds that facts and logic make even when divorced from any actual grounding. send us your Metaphysical argumentation, your nitpicky critiques and all the other skills you have up your sleeve to pull the rug from beneath us. or maybe just let us sit on it, nodding profusely, as it flies across a terrain of axioms and conceits. all poetry is a kind of discourse, but here we are looking for poems in which discourse acts as a subject matter in and of itself, be that through an attention to dialect, to didactic media diatribes, or to the kinds of found material your work might be drawing on.
so, in this spirit of discursion, we are for the first time open to submissions of essays and creative non-fiction that might accompany a featured poem. we want a section of this edition to be dedicated to the dialogue between the artist and their work, and so we are looking for essays about the work you’ve sent our way. the task is not to explain the poem to us, or defend its merits, but to be in dialogue and thereby bring something new to it.
submissions will remain open from 22 march to 1 may, and will close promptly at 11:59pm on the 1st. send all work to THEMADRIGALPRESS@GMAIL.COM – as always, we cannot wait to read your work!
this issue will also have the honour of being guest edited by my dear friend, jacob burgess rollo!
as ever,
helen & jacob
specific submission guidelines:
i. you may submit between 1-3 poems. you may not submit twice in the same reading period.
ii. all work must be centered around this theme of 'discursion', as this is an issue thematically dedicated to such. do not send us work which does not connect to this theme.
iii. submissions will remain open until 1 may. any work sent after this deadline, no matter how close, will NOT be read.
iv. as stated above, during this reading period we are open for submissions of essays and pieces of creative non-fiction that ACCOMPANY a featured poem -- that is, these pieces of writing MUST reflect upon the paired poem, and discuss your process as a writer in the crafting of the work. these submissions will be counted in tandem with the poems, so they will count as one submission. for these submissions, we ask for a maximum of 2,000 words.
PLEASE REVIEW OUR STANDARD SUBMISSION GUIDELINES HERE.