Brno’s home-grown artistic community, Brno Arts Collective, is currently seeking submissions for the most recent edition of its literary magazine, Thus Spoke. Work can be submitted in multiple languages, and should be around the theme of “What is left when ardor fades?”
Founded in the bleak early months of 2023, Brno Arts Collective (BAC) was formed with the intention of creating a space for creatives to commune together, sharing each other’s work and growing as artists. The intent was to cultivate a shared cultural community in Brno. What began with a small poetry reading in a tea room in Brno grew steadily into a vibrant community across countries, languages and cultures to create an international literary magazine called Thus Spoke. The name, inspired by Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, represents the fundaments BAC was founded upon, to recall the necessity in reading and respecting those who came before, while paving the way for those who will come after.
“As artists we bear the corpses of those who have braved the tightrope and fallen allowing our work to tell their tale and echo of their greatness, yet this is only part of the act in creating and to propel the arts forward, we must reach a point where we bury said corpse, making room for the future generation,” say BAC.
Thus Spoke embodies this philosophy by each edition taking inspiration from a past piece of work or art and using it as a theme or foundation upon which new work can be created. Thus Spoke: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is inspired by the medieval poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and the theme, “what is left when ardor fades?”, touches upon the theme of decadence and virtue within the poem. It posits the question of when the vibrancy of life fades, when what was once sprung full of life crumbles to dust, what is it that drives our existence, and is our virtue reduced to dust or does it prevail under the cruel currents of time?
Thus Spoke: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is currently accepting submissions in both poetry and prose. As an international literary magazine, they accept submissions in English, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, Arabic, Czech and Slovak, and will print the work in the original language alongside an English translation. The guidelines for poetry are anywhere from one to three poems and prose not exceeding three pages.
If you would like to submit work you can do so via email at thusspokebac@gmail.com. The editors kindly ask that the work corresponds to the theme and does not contain anything overtly explicit, no offensive or discriminatory speech and does not centre around a political agenda.
