Tongues of the Ocean: call for submissions

This morning I got an intriguing email from Nicolette Bethel--writer, anthropologist, and blogger--announcing the launch of a new online poetry journal based in the Bahamas: Tongues of the Ocean (if I'm not mistaken, the title refers to the super-deep undersea trench off the coast of Andros). The journal is associated with the still-evolving Bahamas International Literary Festival, and is edited by Nicolette herself, along with Nadine Thomas-Brown. One of its exciting elements will be the incorporation of spoken-word poetry--three cheers for multi-media--alongside old-fashioned written text.

Here's what Tongues of the Ocean is looking for:

Poems that excite. Poems that move us, that make us laugh, or cry, or stop and say wow. Poems that present familiar things in a fresh way, that make old packages new. Poems that suggest you have some passing acquaintance with the greats of our region, or with the greats of the world. Poems that dance. Poems that sing. Poems that test the boundaries of our language, and poems that show its beauty. Poems that make us think; poems that make us go ooh.

To find out how to submit your work to be considered for the inaugural issue, see here. The deadline is 15 January, 2009.

It's exciting to hear about an ambitious new project like this. I hope it's a great success, and I'm certainly looking forward to the journal's first issue--hoping to come across some familiar voices, but also some new and unexpected ones.