Free Verse Revolution:

Submissions are now closed for Free Verse Revolution’s third issue of 2021! Issue III will be centred around the goddess Hestia (Vesta), home, belonging, heart(h), family and our foundations.

Hestia was the guardian of the home, the family and the state. She refused to be married and stayed a virgin goddess, seen as the centre of all things we tie our identity to. Her Roman equivalent was Vesta, which led to the Vestal Virgins in the city: a cult of six priestesses who watched over a flame in Rome. It was said that if this flame was allowed to burn out, Rome would fall. 

Issue III invites you to interpret the ideas of home, the hearth, belonging, and guardianship, as well as explore Hestia’s story or the cult of the Vestal Virgins. Home is not always a place. We seek belonging in people, in feelings and in our history. Family dynamics are often given rather than chosen. Do we perhaps all have a constant in our lives, like a flame, that if it should burn out, we will fail? And there is a dark history intertwined with the Roman priestesses forced into becoming guardians upholding the corruption of Rome with a facade of innocence and kept morality. What voice will you give to Hestia?

I will be posting prompts over the next few weeks to help inspire your submissions (but do not feel as if you must use these!). 

Free Verse Revolution is accepting poetry, prose/creative nonfiction, visual poetry/art and photography. In particular, we would love more visual poetry/photography submissions this time to visually explore what home and belonging mean to our contributors. 

The submission deadline is Friday, 20th August 2021.