NEWS

Calling all poets: Women’s history

Thomas Zimmerman, an English professor at WCC and faculty advisor for the Poetry Club, holds previous anthologies published by the Poetry Club. Lily Merrit | Washtenaw Voice

Narine Verdiyan
Contributor

The WCC Poetry Club is encouraging students to submit poetry, prose, flash fiction and visual art for “Can’t Keep Quiet,” their forthcoming anthology that will celebrate Women’s History Month.

Submissions should be “by, for, and/or about women,” and the deadline for submissions is Feb. 28.

“I believe that having an anthology like this is important for both men and women to celebrate women and their work,” said Natalie Rinehardt, one of the editors for the anthology. “As an enthusiast of literature and as a woman, it has been so amazing reading these submissions.”

The Poetry Club has been publishing anthologies since 2006, and they’re photocopied directly on campus, said Thomas Zimmerman, the club’s faculty advisor.

“I get as many students as I can involved,” said Zimmerman. “As a long time English teacher, I think one of the best opportunities that an English teacher can give students is a chance to get their work published.”

The order in which anthologies are pieced together comes quite naturally, Zimmerman said.

“Generally, what I like to do is start and end with a really strong piece. From there, I try to let the pieces play off each other,” he said.

In addition to Rinehardt, Zaynab Elkolaly, and Jennifer Wiland are also the editors for the anthology.

“It’s actually pretty odd, because in the Writing Center, what we help people improve on is sentence structure, grammar, basically more mechanical things,” said Elkolaly. “However, poetry is a lot more subjective. When I’m looking over poetry submissions and rating them for eligibility to be in one of our publications, I base it a lot off of how a poem makes me feel.”

On March 12, a “Can’t Keep Quiet” release party and open mic event will be held in the Bailey Library at 11:30 a.m., where the anthology will also be available for check-out, along with previous Poetry Club publications. Students interested in submitting work for the anthology can find submission guidelines via wccpoetryclub.wordpress.com, where the anthology will later be posted, as well.