SUBMISSIONS CLOSED.
It is with excitement that I announce that submissions for Issue VII are now open and the issue will be titled Issue VII: Tahmina (love & loss). The deadline for submission is Sunday, 21st August and we accept poetry, prose, photography, art, visual poetry & creative non-fiction. Previously published work is accepted and former contributors may submit. You can also submit to multiple categories.
Who is Tahmina?
Tahmina’s story is one of both love and loss. She is a female character in the 10th century Persian epic the Shahnameh; she is mentioned as both the wife of Rostam and the daughter of Samanganshah, the sovereign of Samangan.
The story itself is about Rostam and how he eventually kills his own son, Sohrab, in battle. Tahmina is pivotal to this as after seducing Rostam, becoming his wife and bearing his child, Sohrab. She gifts Sohrab a jewel so if he should ever meet his father in battle, Rostam will know. Unfortunately, he finds out too late.
Tahmina is famed for her role as a powerful seductress having said ‘I am daughter of the king… I come of the stock of lions and leopards. On earth I have no peer among persons of royal birth; indeed beneath the dome of heaven there rarely exists anyone like me.’ As well as declaring love for Rostam, unafraid, ‘I have craved for your shoulders and arms and breast’.
But she is also the mother who loses a child through war and the will of men. Her final words when hearing of Sohrab’s death are ‘Woe for his soul and body, eye and lustre, That dwell in dust instead of hall and garden!’
What will Issue VII be about?
Issue VII encourages you to explore love, desire & loss whether that be through pieces which court a lover, sensual poetry and prose, or works on motherhood, loss and grief. Tahmina experienced both the headiness of love and the heaviness of loss. This issue will encapsulate how often both emotions walk hand in hand in any relationship.
We welcome work which explores more than heteronormative relationships as well as atypical presentations of motherhood. Do not feel beholden by society’s norms when submitting. Both love and loss are a kaleidoscope and this issue will endeavour to represent this.
Free Verse Revolution: 
Leave a Reply