Our ‘Disarm Hate x Poetry‘ project sees the album ‘We Will Keep On‘ released on 12 June, to mark the five-year anniversary of the Orlando massacre. It features specially commissioned poems from 16 leading LGBTQ poets alongside interview excerpts from the ‘Disarm Hate‘ documentary.

However, we don’t want to stop there. The Orlando massacre sent shockwaves around the global LGBTQ community and we want to engage as many members of the community as possible. So, we’re issuing a call-out for audio responses to ‘Disarm Hate’ and/or the aftermath of Orlando.

A selection of these submissions will be released on a free digital album through our Bandcamp site, alongside the main ‘We Will Keep On’ album. There’ll be an option for customers to make a donation if they choose, and as with ‘We Will Keep On’, all donations will be split between Contigo Fund and Stonewall UK.

We encourage submissions from a diverse range of LGBTQ poets at all stages of their careers. Any poems that are accepted will be subject to a very basic written agreement with the label. However, full copyright on the poem will remain with the individual poets and any agreement will only be for clarification’s sake.

As part of this call-out, we’re staging two free virtual workshops with poets featured on the album. Joelle Taylor is leading the session on Monday 24 May (tickets) and Andrés Nicolás Ordorica will be leading the session on Wednesday 26 May (tickets).

Also, toward the end of June, we’ll be staging another two workshops which will be linked to a call-out for written submissions. We’ll be dedicating our Instagram feed to these submissions and will publish a selection of them in a digital presentation booklet.

Our requirements for the audio submissions are as follows:

• Submissions deadline: Sunday 6 June at midnight BST
• Send via email attachment or WeTransfer to matt@nymphsandthugs.net
• Recordings to be no longer than 2½ minutes
• Most smartphone microphones are of sufficient quality. However, we strongly recommend recording under a duvet (or similar) as it significantly increases the quality of the recording
• You’re fine to say the title of the poem before reading it if you like, but please don’t give any preamble
• This goes without saying, but any poems that are deemed to be offensive or inappropriate won’t be considered
• Finally, just be yourself

This is our first ever public call-out of this nature and we can’t wait to hear your responses. The five-year anniversary is a landmark event for the LGBTQ community and we want these poems to show the world what it meant, what it continues to mean, and what will be done in resistance.

Thanks in advance!