GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION TO POETRY MONDAY – 2018

The first Monday of each month, International Psychoanalysis features a different poet  in a column called Poetry Monday.  Since its inception in April 2008, most poems have been solicited from poets whose work we know and admire. Now, however, we also consider submissions, year-round, from all poets.  We welcome all types of well-crafted poetry, both formal and free verse, regardless of theme. We ask that you first review our archives and then consider sending your best work.  While we do not guarantee acceptance, we do guarantee careful consideration and prompt reply.  Please follow these guidelines for each submission:

5-7 poems, typed on white paper, one side of the page only.  Single-space within each stanza; double-space between stanzas, and indicate stanza breaks.  Include contact information in the upper right-hand corner of each page, and number the pages of each poem separately.

Salman Akhtar

Good morning, and Happy New Year, everyone—the first day of 2018, after a tumultuous 2017.

In times like these, or at any time, it’s refreshing to read poetry, and I’m happy to say that our poet this morning is someone we’re honored to have on our pages, Salman Akhtar, who has contributed so much to our understanding of both poetry and psychoanalysis.

Dr. Akhtar, who comes from a family of renowned poets and writers in India, is himself the author of eleven poetry collections. I first encountered his work in a volume he edited called Between Hours: A Collection of Poems by Psychoanalysts (Karnac Books, 2012) and was struck by his poem in that book, “Summary.” With his permission, I was proud to include it in an anthology I edited, Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry (IP Books, 2017).

Six of his eleven collections, The Hidden Knot (1985), Conditions (1993), Turned to Light (1998), After Landing (2014), Blood and Ink (2016), and Freshness of the Child (2018) contain his poems in the English language; the other five are in his native Urdu. He is also a prolific contributor to the psychoanalytic literature, having authored or edited eighty-nine books. For his distinguished contributions to psychoanalysis, he received the prestigious Sigourney Award in 2012. A psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and teacher by profession, Dr. Akhtar has been a Visiting Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and currently is Professor of Psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Supervising and Training Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia and (probably of the greatest interest to poets) a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theater Company in Philadelphia.

We hope you will enjoy the following three poems by Salman Akhtar: “The Limit of Instruction,” “A Wish,” and, reprinted here from Between Hours, “Summary.” In times like these, the third one is particularly instructive.

                                                                  –Irene Willis
                                                                     Poetry Editor

THE LIMIT OF INSTRUCTION