CEArts is accepting submissions of artwork images, poetry & song lyrics, and prose for our 2025 edition of The Polk Street Review!

Info and Submission Form (due by 01 Nov):

https://cearts.org/2025-the-polk-street-review

2025’s Optional Theme: Behind The Veil

If you choose to use our optional theme, we want your creative responses to Behind the Veil. The questions below on the are just to get you thinking about the unlimited possibilities evoked by this prompt ~ innermost thoughts, secrets, spiritual insights, beliefs, desires, and so much more ~ it’s always up to YOU to creatively interpret our optional theme!

What lies behind the veil? What has remained hidden for too long and has now been exposed as we draw the curtains back? What’s the excited or nervous bride thinking under her veil? What happens when the veil between life and death thins and loved ones pass beyond? How does a veil shift how we perceive different cultures?

For the first time, we’ll have TWO special sections in the book!

One will be devoted to submissions from Northwest Arkansas (NWA) and the other will be devoted to submissions from Northwest Arkansas’ Native American Nations! Our partnership with The Empowerment Initiative (which is based in Bentonville AR) has brought the people of NWA into our global family. We’re excited about these two new sections, and we look forward to receiving submissions from a variety of NWA creatives! All submissions in these sections will be considered for a “Best In Section” award, one from each section.

Still a bit cold here in central Indiana, but Spring has officially sprung ~ in fact, it’s already April! We’ve definitely been getting some April showers ~ well, actually, they’ve ben thunderous thunderstorms with wind gusts of up to 70mph! The sounds of wind and rain and thunder often evoke feelings that lead to stormy poetics and artwork from some creatives (I’m one of those types), so Spring is often a time when our creative instincts get all stirred up. After a gray-hued Winter, especially one like this past one that was fraught with a myriad of challenges (including viruses ranging from “ordinary” to COVID), an infusion of creativity feels like a blessing!

In the next several weeks, as the rainy days of Spring roll through, we’ll start to see the the sun a bit more often, and the air will get a little bit warmer. All around us, the vibrant colors of an Indiana Spring will burst forth in all the glory of a drag queen! (Yep, politically speaking, CEArts is among the organizations here in Indiana that embrace and honor the glory and diversity of human nature.) May your own creativity blossom this Spring!