Day 24: Polyphony Lit

Celebrating National Poetry Month by highlighting 30 days of literary publishers who produce poetry you can listen to, watch, or read, in 5 minutes or less.

I just discovered a group of fifth grade writers in my neighborhood who are eager to create poetry and stories. They want to learn to refine, edit, and ultimately submit to journals. They want to work on words after homework and swim team and baseball. (In case you’re wondering what that has to do with the image above, what you’re looking at is a praying mantis egg case.) I tell my young writers that to succeed they’ll need a hard shell, a little prayer, and many hours in an undisturbed space.

And, they’ll need to read literary journals to become acquainted with the freshest writing out there.

I found Polyphony Lit for my newfound neighbor friends. I share it with them and anyone else who wants to encourage young writers.

From the Polyphony Lit About Us page:

Polyphony Lit is the global online literary platform for high school students. We invite high school students worldwide to submit creative writing, join our editorial staff, write blog posts, take workshops, and grow into leadership roles. Because developing young writers is central to our mission, our editors provide feedback on every submission.

Since our founding in 2004, we’ve received submissions from students in 87 countries and 52 U.S. states / territories. Our student editors have given feedback to every submission, over 21,000 and counting!

Polyphony Lit publishes a quarterly journal, hosts virtual poetry salons, offers workshops like Summer Editing Apprenticeship, Editor Training, and Around the World of Poetry in 80 Days, a sliding tuition scale, “self-paced course for students aged 12-18…broken into 80 bite-sized lessons that explore poetry as seen through the eyes of experienced editors and award-winning writers from around the globe.”

Whew! So much to explore and inspire. But for Honoria, the first young poet who sat at my kitchen table and read aloud a poem she worked hard on, a girl who walks both sides of shadow and light with big dreams, I chose “ghazal for my lost lives” by Ananya Kharatt.

The poem begins this way:

ghazal for my lost lives

& it was all technicolor, true blue, call it day dreams –
when we left our coats in the grass, we thought up reggae dreams.

we used to like anarchy, but now we’re taller, burning.
orange, rust. no one told us the past’s for throwaway dreams.

& dear god, we thought we were strong.

FROM GHAZAL FOR MY LOST LIVES BY ANANYA KHARATT

Please read the entire “ghazal for my lost lives” by Ananya Kharatt on Polyphony Lit.

And may you dance through “reggae dreams.”

May you be strong today.

May you listen to the dreams of a young person and encourage them whenever possible.