Hooray for the Essay 2020

An essay contest for young people between the ages of 18 and 30

Do you have strong opinions, a razor-sharp pen, and a passion for sharing your thoughts with the public? Enter the second edition of the “Hooray for the Essay!” essay contest! Following a successful first edition in 2019, deBuren, rekt:verso, and Pilar are launching a new edition of “Hooray for the Essay!” The winner will take home plenty of fame and 500 euros. The winning essay will also be published in rekt:verso!

Participate

Be inspired by the quotes below from the work of essayist and poet Audre Lorde (b. 1943, d. 1992). No prior knowledge of her work is required to participate in the contest. Throughout history, change has been driven by a multitude of forms of action, carried out by a diverse range of activists. They used their pens, voices, bodies, and minds to bring about change. Even today, activism shapes our social change—on both the right and the left, by young and old alike, across a multitude of intersections, and for a multitude of goals. What will tomorrow’s world look like? And how can we best bring that about?

We expect to receive your essay, which should be no more than 2,000 words, by Monday, October 12, 2020 (before 10:00 a.m.). Please email your essay to Lieselotte.Vaneeckhaute@vub.be and nora@deburen.eu.

Awards ceremony

A jury—including Scherpsteller Warda El-Kaddouri and columnist Orlando Verde—will select the final top three.

During the Closing Night of Pilar ASAP: The Fluid Identity Edition on Thursday, November 12, 2020, Pilar and deBuren will put the winning writing talent in the spotlight. That evening, we’ll bring the multidisciplinary arts festival to a festive close. We’ll raise a glass, and Radna Fabias, Jaouad Alloul, Loulou João, and Lisette Ma Neza will each premiere their own artistic interpretation of Lorde’s work.

Quotes from Sister Outsider

Poetry is not a superfluous luxury

The white fathers taught us, “I think, therefore I am”; and the Black mother who lives within each of us—the poet—whispers in our dreams: “I feel, therefore I can be free.” Poetry creates the language to give voice to this revolutionary demand and to define the substance of that freedom.

Eroticism as power

Eroticism has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has degenerated into a confusing, trivial, psychotic, and plasticized sensation. For this reason, we have regularly rejected the awareness and exploration of eroticism as a source of power and knowledge, confusing it with its opposite: pornography. But pornography is a outright denial of the power of the erotic, for it embodies the suppression of emotions. Pornography emphasizes feeling without emotion.

The transformation from silence to language

What words have you not yet mastered? What do you want to say? What kind of tyranny do you endure day after day and try to internalize, until it makes you sick and you die from it, still in silence? Perhaps, for some of you here today, I am the embodiment of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself—a Black female warrior-poet who does what she must do—I am here to ask you: are you doing what you must do?

With the Master’s Tools, the Master’s House Will Not Be Demolished

For with the master’s tools, the master’s house will never be demolished. They may temporarily let us give him a taste of his own medicine, but they will never allow us to bring about real change.

Lessons from the 1960s

There is no single struggle, because we do not live single lives.

Organization: Pilar, deBuren, and rekto:verso / Translation: Jenny Mijnhijmer

We expect to receive your essay, which should be no more than 2,000 words, by Monday, October 12, 2020 (before 10:00 a.m.). Please email your essay to lieselotte.vaneeckhoute@vub.be and nora@deburen.eu.