DUA ANTHOLOGY - the cherita

D U A A N T H O L O G Y I N F O

and submission guidelines

storytelling

bikini style

ai li
from the journey east by ai li

. . . your Dua are really cool.

I should add that I am charmed by your Dua. It feels as if it has great potential. I’m sure you’re right that it will take its place alongside cherita and gembun.

Larry Kimmel
godfather of cherita

WoW .. the challenge of the dua …thank you !

Your creativity is endless and amazing …
the challenge of dua will definitely stretch my writing
as the cherita and gembun have.

I still remember my excitement when I first learned of the
cherita format for story telling.

Peace and love always,
Siggy Sarandun

This is new beautiful and amazing.

Love
And smiles admiring your energy and creative work!
Kathabela Wilson

– the ‘dua’ form looks very exciting and I hope to explore it further. such an elegant and concise form!

with warm wishes,
Penny Lowery

Submission Guidelines

This is an ongoing invitation for lovers of short form genres to submit their virgin Dua for the ongoing Dua Anthologies. All submissions will be selected, collated and edited by ai li, creator of cherita, gembun and dua, and the anthologies will be published by the 1-2-3 Press which publishes the cherita.

We invite you to submit your best Dua for the Dua Anthology.

Please send me your Dua gems on Life, Love, Loss and Renewal.

Please submit up to 30 Dua to the editor for each anthology in the body of a single email.
There are no deadlines and submissions ongoing.

Please note that we do not accept AI generated submissions.

They can cover births, deaths, anniversaries, betrayals, disappointments, abortions, bankruptcies, joblessness, vendettas, suicides et al; and also about travel, work, hobbies, light and dark passions, eating disorders, night shifts, cross dressing, the erotic, mindfulness and any other subject matter that I may have missed or forgotten. The list is endless.

Please do not send run-of-the-mill, conveyor belt, journal entries, religious or angry, political poems. There is always a place for these but they are not for these anthologies.

Your words are allowed to breath in all that space
and enables the reader to slow right down to be in the quiet to fully appreciate
the timeless of your stories, and to be in the moment.

The copyright of all submissions to the cherita has to belong to the submitter, and the poem or poems have to be created by the submitter and not generated by AI [artificial intelligence].

Send your Dua submissions to ai li at aili@thecherita.com
Please double click and use the standard submission email above. Thanks.
Please do not copy and paste this link elsewhere to use as this will not work.

All submissions must be in the Arial 11 font size, left justified and not in italics.

You may send your submissions in at any time and you must be at least 18 years old to submit.

For collaborations, please include the email addresses of all involved poets. Thanks.

All poems must be the author’s original work. We prefer previously unpublished poems. We will consider previously published Dua from print or online journals, Facebook, twitter, blogs, social networking sites, personal websites, etc., only if you include appropriate acknowledgments and credits with these submissions.

We will disqualify all previously unpublished submissions which are under consideration elsewhere, or entered into competitions.

B A C K G R O U N D

Dua was created and conceived by ai li on Friday 4 March 2022 to accompany Cherita and Gembun on their storytelling journey. These are two other genres by ai li which poets and writers have now deemed iconic, and which are both instantly recognisable by their unique and distinctive formats.

Dua now joins them with its very own unique 2-line storytelling format.

Cherita, Gembun and Dua are now a trinity of short form storytelling genres by ai li, along with nineteen other linked forms which were all created by ai li.

This new genre invites you to further distil and share the very essence of a minimal story. Your words should be brief, meaningful, and hold captive your reader.

The plural for Dua is Dua.

Duaiga [do-er-eager] is for Dua with Art

and

Duabun [do-er-boon] is for Dua with Prose.

Five Dua from ai li’s the journey east :

the longest night

all is not lost, there is pen & paper

ai li

you move me

keyhole apology

ai li

the night is young

age before candlelight

ai li

tiger orchids

you bring the roar home

ai li

cold night

i light your fire

ai li

More examples of virgin Dua can be found in the first two books of Dua by ai li – the journey east and dancing shoes which both have 90 Dua poems for reference, and all 8 published Dua Anthologies remembering, i know the way, the light dying, the rain, something rare, all is dark, listening to the ocean and no longer sky. These books are all available in paperback and kindle on Amazon, and can be used for reference if you are new to the Dua genre.

For more information and examples of Dua, please visit www.aili.co.uk/dua/

The Original and Official Guidelines
D U A A N T H O L O G Y G U I D E L I N E S

DUA [1-1] [pronounced do-er]
[dua means two in the Malay language]

Dua is a short form storytelling poetry genre of only 2 separate lines of 1-1 [the ultimate 2-piece] and can be written with up to two poets.

The Cherita, Gembun and now Dua, in my opinion, embody the true essence of short form poetry which is saying more with fewer words.

The secret is to distil, distil and distil to arrive at the essence of your story.
The pause between the two lines is the key as it amplifies the quiet before the relevance of the story sets in.
What you want to avoid is writing a diary or personal journal entry.

Like most linked forms, Dua can be written and used in a sequence if preferred but it remains at its most powerful as it was created – as a 2-line poem that need no other distractions, and the genre shares the same strong spirit of storytelling as Cherita and Gembun.

ai li
creator of Dua, Cherita and Gembun
editor and publisher of the cherita

N.B.

The original guidelines for Dua are as above and are the only official valid guidelines for the Dua genre. There can be no variations to these guidelines without the permission, consent and approval of ai li, the creator of the genre. All rogue attempts to vary these guidelines remain rogue attempts and should be ignored when you write Dua.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT NOT UNLIKE CHERITA AND GEMBUN, DUA TOO, DOES NOT HAVE A TITLE.

The plural for DUA is DUA.

If a Dua is titled, then it is rogue and not to be considered a Dua.

G E N E R A L C O N D I T I O N S

Once we notify you that we have accepted your poems for publication, in the print, e-book, and/or online versions, please do not share or submit your work elsewhere until we have published your work, or the editor will withdraw your work from publication.

We also ask that you refrain from republishing your work in any medium [including facebook, instagram, twitter and blogs etc.] for 90 days from publication in the anthology.

the 1-2-3 press does not pay its contributors nor does it offer contributors’ copies, although they will be available for purchase. Copyright reverts to the author or artist upon publication.

the 1-2-3 press reserves the right to reprint contents from its publications on its website and in future print anthologies without having to seek further permission from its submitters, and all submissions to the cherita, the Gembun and Dua Anthologies constitute acceptance of this condition.

the 1-2-3 press reserves the right to print online or in print journals and anthologies, in whole or in part, in its sole discretion, all letters and comments to the editor without having to seek further permission from the author, and submission of comments or letters to the editor of the cherita, the Gembun and Dua Anthologies constitute acceptance of this condition.

Published poets of cherita, gembun, dua in the cherita and all its publications, and other original genres created by ai li, will be informed if any of their poems are featured in any published and online essays, audio and visual interviews by ai li or featuring ai li.