Matthew Ladd’s poetry collection, The Book of Emblems, reminded me of a modern take on Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings. Larkin, perhaps an influence on Ladd’s work, is referred to in his poem “Imitation,” which begins “When I read Philip Larkin / and picture him mugging to Kingsley about WATCHING SCHOOL-GIRLS” and goes on to say, admiringly, “Larkin is such an unrepentant asshole / and for all that, still beautiful, // like an aging circus performer.” The author admires and identifies with Larkin in the difficulty of writing poetry, concluding “how impossible the accurate naming of things: / cathedrals, children, the blank self-regard of the bachelor.” Continue reading “The Book of Emblems”
NewPages Blog
At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!
The Book of Emblems
Spread the word!
Beauties
Delicate, patient, and loving, Mary Troy’s novel Beauties offers what only good novels can: a world the reader can escape into. Set in the year 2000 in a seedy neighborhood in St. Louis, Beauties tells the story of two cousins who move in together. Bev, a woman born with severe physical disabilities (she is missing a leg and all but one of her fingers), has just opened a café and, in addition to cooking, is busy fending off a lawsuit from her previous job. Her cousin, Shelly, fresh from a divorce, moves in to help run the café. Soon, both women are handling all the drama life in an urban café can provide. Continue reading “Beauties”
Spread the word!
A New Red
Once upon a time there was a poetry book that re-imagined the popular fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” in a modern context through more than 120 pages of Red Riding Hood poems divided into nine chapters. Most of the poems, with a few exceptions, were introduced by titles in the present tense announcing an act by Red Riding Hood or one of the other familiar characters from her story (“Red Riding Dreams of Another Winter,” “Red Riding Hood Ends Up with the Hunter”; “The Hunter Has His Say”). Continue reading “A New Red”
Spread the word!
In the Kingdom of the Sons
Bonnie Bolling’s collection In the Kingdom of the Sons, winner of the 2011 Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry selected by Tom Sleigh, is a sensual work from a distinctly female perspective, exploring topics of motherhood, sexuality and domesticity, and how these aspects of being a woman interplay. Continue reading “In the Kingdom of the Sons”
Spread the word!
Lightning’s Dance Floor
Ronald Wardall’s collection of poems Lightning’s Dance Floor examines the ordinary, what surrounds us everyday, and finds the extraordinary in it. In “Necessity,” the author sets the poem in his “blue-bright child-memory.” Among the details of the train on “the Nebraska track like spaghetti,” “the star-struck window,” and “tell-tale neighbors,” he finds, as a child, that “like my father, my soul / was willing.” “Seeking the Minotaur” works as a type of thesis for the poems, setting the author in the detailed landscape of New York in “immutable / November.” The author “summon[s] up ambition enough to map / the waves” and to “practice prying apart / my ribs with a tuning fork,” a metaphor for his undertaking to pull meaning from the simple everyday actions and objects around him. Continue reading “Lightning’s Dance Floor”
Spread the word!
Animal Magnetism
Animal Magnetism was the winner of The 2009 Pearl Poetry Prize, selected by Debra Marquart, who describes the book as having “great buoyancy” and a “stubborn clinging to life, to love, to human connections.” I agree wholeheartedly with Marquart’s judgment about what makes Animal Magnetism especially worthwhile reading: Continue reading “Animal Magnetism”
Spread the word!
The Paris Poems
BlazeVOX’s tagline is “publisher of weird little books,” and The Paris Poems qualifies, beginning with the dedication: “This book is equally dedicated to my husband and traveling partner, my parents, Victor Hugo, and the French macaron.” But, who isn’t captivated by the allure of Paris? (“Always arrive in Paris / on a Sunday afternoon / the skeleton of this fastened city / will become your bones”). Who can forget that Paris has given us some of the most memorable of artistic characters, stories we can never relive or truly adequately duplicate? (“Paris can never be our poem / it belongs to / Gertrude Stein and Alice B. / Henry and Anaïs / the filaments of a million lights / totemic in the tourists’ eyes”). Who doesn’t know that Paris is fashion central? (“Admit / it was a little sadistic / that 249 mile jaunt from / farm country / into history / the soles of your shoes / diffusing the gold medallions of dawn,” from the poem about Louis Vuitton). Who doesn’t long for the patisseries of Paris? (“Pledging my loyalty / like an immigrant seeking citizenship / I drank a cup of chocolate chaud / in a dessert house / steps from where Marie Antoinette / lost her head.”)Who doesn’t believe that Paris is about romance? (“Paris makes you want a man / who understands how to wear a scarf”). Who doesn’t realize that Paris is overrated? (“Most people fly to Paris to see the Louvre / between you and me / Mona Lisa isn’t that pretty / really”). Who doesn’t wish for (nationless) salvation? Continue reading “The Paris Poems”
Spread the word!
Brushstrokes and Glances
A lovely gallery of a book. The poet contextualizes his museum/art-inspired poems in a note at the end of the book. His mother, Juanita Rice Guecione and aunts, Dorothy and Irene Rice (Pereira) were visual artists and they, and museums, have long fueled his imagination. In fact, he cannot imagine his life, he says, without them. Poems in the collection were informed by artworks in The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Chelsea Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Frick, art forgeries, artwork he has encountered in journals, and his mother’s paintings, among other works. Continue reading “Brushstrokes and Glances”
Spread the word!
The Patience of Horses
Lott’s chapbook of 16 poems, the majority of which appeared previously in a variety of journals (Texas Review, Mid-America Poetry Review, and Crazy Horse, among others), is the winner of The Ledge 2009 Chapbook Award. I happened to be reading Lott’s book while the debate over the “cleaning up”/“contemporizing” of Mark Twain’s language was being played out in the press (like most items in the “news,” any mention of it quickly disappeared), so I was particularly interested in the chapbook’s opening poem, “Passage,” with its description of a “Negro church”: Continue reading “The Patience of Horses”
Spread the word!
Perishables
Perishables is the winner of the publisher’s fiction chapbook contest, and it’s certainly prize-worthy work. Egnoski’s a fine storyteller and the four stories in this handsomely produced little chapbook provide strong support for the recent interest and increase in chapbook fiction. Continue reading “Perishables”
Spread the word!
From the Box Marked Some Are Missing
This volume contains poems from Pratt’s two previous published collections, from an unpublished earlier manuscript, and new poems. The collection is bookended by poems that consider the poet in the world: an early poem (1986) that situates the poet “In the Woods” (“What’s he doing, you’d wonder, here in the very / Middle of the woods, shouldering logs from a stack / Someone cut and left so long ago”) and a new poem, “Resolution” that is decidedly more global in scope and perspective (“When the tsunami draws back its fistful of waters / And crushes the city, let me for once be ready /…When the suicide bomber squeezes the trigger / And fierce flames spurt and wild the body parts fly, / Let me be holding my lover or drinking my coffee // Let us be drinking our coffee, unprepared”). Continue reading “From the Box Marked Some Are Missing”
Spread the word!
No Eden
Kindred’s poems are carefully composed examples of the successful intersection of lyric and narrative impulses. No Eden opens with “Prayer for Mrs. Snead,” which is representative of the poet’s style and sets the tone for the collection: Continue reading “No Eden”
Spread the word!
Odyssey Fans: College Lit Special Issue
College Literature Volume 38 Number 2, Spring 2011 is a special issue dealing Homer’s Odyssey and more specifically with the second half of the Odyssey (books 13-24), which in Homeric scholarship has been much debated since P.W. Harsh’s 1950 article “Penelope and Odysseus in Odyssey XIX.” The special issue includes essays by Edwin D. Floyd (“Linguistic, Mycenaean, and Iliadic Traditions Behind Penelope’s Recognition of Odysseus”), Bruce Louden (“Is There Early Recognitions between Penelope and Odysseus?; Book 19 in the Larger Context of the Odyssey“), Steve Reece (“Penelope’s ‘Early Recognition’ of Odysseus from a Neoanalytic and Oral Perspective”), Scott Richardson (“The Case for the Defense”), John Vlahos (“Homer’s Odyssey: Penelope and the Case for Early Recognition”), and Naoko Yamagata (“Penelope and Early Recognition: Vlahos, Harsh and Eustathius”).
Spread the word!
BULL Needs Votes to Win
Jarrett Haley at BULL Men’s Fiction has asked readers to participate in the Dockers $100,000 national “Wear the Pants” contest that takes place until May 1 on Facebook. BULL has got a great plan for the money, including a Best of Men’s Fiction anthology series, expansion into e-books and other digital platform, as well as online and print journals. In addition, BULL is developing a Young Adult division, Buckaroo Books, to bring a new generation of readers to men’s fiction. Visit VOTE BULL for more information and links.
Spread the word!
Colm T
Colm T
Spread the word!
Why Couldn’t THIS Have Been on the Final Exam?
This spring’s final exam is from Paste Magazine: 23 Band Names Inspired by Literature. Below are the band names – can you identify the source text? Visit Paste for annotated answers.
1. Titus Andronicus
2. The Doors
3. The Velvet Underground
4. Modest Mouse
5. Steely Dan
6. Belle and Sebastian
7. Esben and the Witch
8. Steppenwolf
9. Veruca Salt
10. Oryx and Crake
11. The Romany Rye
12. Gogol Bordello
13. The Fall
14. The Boo Radleys
15. Heaven 17
16. Campag Velocet
17. Moloko
18. As I Lay Dying
19. Of Mice and Men
20. Opeth
21. Art of Noise
22. Stryper
23. Marillion
Spread the word!
Pongo Techniques for Teaching Therapeutic Writing
Pongo offers a one-day workshop in their approach and techniques for teaching therapeutic writing – how to use poetry to help distressed teens understand and express their important issues and feelings. In addition, they offer a free consultation to any agency or school that participates in the workshop, to help start a teen poetry group. The next workshop will be held in Seattle on May 14, 2011.
Spread the word!
Launching Late Night Library
Late Night Library is a monthly podcast devoted to new voices in poetry and fiction by Erin Hoover and Paul Martone. Recorded from Brooklyn, New York, and Portland, Oregon, each episode of Late Night Library is a conversation about an emerging writer whose talent and creativity warrant a greater audience, featuring first books whenever possible.
The first episode introduces Paul, a fiction writer, and Erin, a poet, both graduates of the University of Oregon’s MFA creative writing program. Late Night Library is a cross-country continuation of the informal conversations the two would have outside of class. Erin and Paul hope both readers and writers feel ‘invited’ into these discussions. Each episode will end with a preview of the next month’s authors and works to encourage the audience to read ahead and better be able to connect with the conversation.
The inaugural episode, to debut April 30, 2011, features poet Kara Candito and her first book Taste of Cherry (2009, Bison Books).
Late Night Library is planning two parties/readings for the date of the launch, one in Brooklyn and a second concurrent event in Portland, Oregon. Visit Late Night Library on Facebook for more information.
Spread the word!
Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers Winners :: April 2011
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Short Story Award for New Writers.
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation greater than 5000. The next Short Story Award competition will take place in May. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Joanna Arnow [pictured], of Brooklyn, NY, wins $1200 for “Waiting for Food Stamps.” Her story will be published in the Summer 2012 issue of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Brian Zimbler, also of Brooklyn, NY, wins $500 for “Dumbguy.”
Third place: Jason Wallace, of Sacramento, CA, wins $300 for “Chasing Murakami.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline soon approaching for Family Matters: April 30
Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and it is open to all writers for stories about family. Most submissions to this category run 3000-6000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place is $1200 plus publication in the journal. Click here for complete guidelines.
Spread the word!
Buy a Lit Mag – Help the Elephants
Benjamin C. Krause, Publisher, Diamond Point Press, writes: “. . .we are in the process of moving all our journals away from GoDaddy over the elephant debacle. . .[and] until the end of April, we are donating 100% of our profits from sales of Muscle & Blood (issue 1) and Liebamour (issue 2) in any format (print or e-book) to a charity called Elephants Without Borders, which works for elephant conservation in Africa.” Visit the individual journal sites from Diamond Point Press for more information.
[Hover is a domain service recommended by Leo Laporte that is offering free “valet” service – meaning they will do all the tech work for your transfer – until May 15.]
Spread the word!
Five Chapters is Just That
FiveChapters is a online venture edited by Davide Daley, curator 20-Minute Fiction in issue 12 of McSweeney’s, creator of the Tag-team Fiction series for The Journal News, and former features editor of Details magazine.
FiveChapters publishes a five-part story every week, serial-style, beginning on Monday and followed by a new installment each weekday.
Recent works and authors include “The Disappearance of Miranda Željko” by Rebecca Makkai and “Sleeping With John Updike” by Julian Barnes. The archives are packed with works (which can be read in a single click) by authors Lauren Grodstein, Lori Ostlund, Adam Davies, Jennine Capó Crucet, Samantha Peale, Victor Lodato, Tania James, Joe Pernice, Dwight Allen, Susannah Felts, Peyton Marshall, Nick Ekkizogloy, Nancy Mauro, Ashley Warlick, Tod Goldberg, David Gordon, Dawn Ryan, Jami Attenberg, Marisa Matarazzo, Paul Yoon, Brent Krammes, Priscilla Becker, John Jodzio, Angi Becker Stevens, Gina Frangello, Dallas Hudgens, Kevin Grauke, Robin Antalek, Edan Lepucki, Katharine Weber, and Eric Puchner.
FiveChapters accepts story submissions online through Submishmash. FiveChapters stories work best between 5000 and 10,000 words.
Spread the word!
Iambik Audiobooks We All Can Love
Iambik is an audiobook publisher making “audio out of books we love.” Luckily, what they seem to love most of all are books published by small and independent presses, currently including Akashic Books, Biblioasis, Coach House Books, Coffee House Press, Cursor/Red Lemonade, Graywolf Press, HandE Publishers Ltd, Hard Case Crime, Invisible Publishing, McSweeney’s, Minotaur Books, OR Books, Soft Skull Press, Soho Press, Tin House Books, Tyrus Books, and Unbridled Books.
Iambik authors include Preston L. Allen, Helen Benedict, Katharine Beutner, D. C. Brod, Rick Collignon, Bernard DeVoto, Laird Hunt, Andrew Kaufman, Lynn Kostoff, Luna Lemus, Kristin Hughes, Robert Lennon, Gordon Lish, Dustin Long, Jon Loomis, Lydia Millet, Arthur Nersesian, Rebecca Pawel, Max Phillips, Anna Quon, Sam Savage, Seymour Shubin, Ray Smith, Akimitsu Takagi, Keith Temple, Lynne Tillman, James Greer, Hans Eichner, Joe Coomer, Jessica Westhead, and Alexander MacLeod.
All books are available in mp3 and m4b formats.
Spread the word!
Poets on Adoption
“Adoption is complicated. Poetry is complicated.” These are the lead lines for a new literary blog curated by Eileen R. Tabios, Poets on Adoption. The site features works by “poets with adoption experiences” as they “mine the intersections of poetry and adoption,” sharing some of their experiences with adoption and how it may or may not affect their poems and/or poetics. Poets on Adoption will be updated over time as more poets send in their contributions.
The inaugural post includes works by Allison S. Moreno, Amanda Mason, CB Follett, Christina Pacosz, Craig Watson, Dana Collins, Dana R. LePage, Dee Thompson, Eileen R. Tabios, Giavanna Munafo, Jan VanStavern, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Jim Benz, Joy Katz, Judith Roitman, Laura McCullough, Lee Herrick, Marcella Durand, Mary Anne Cohen, Michael D Snediker, Michele Leavitt, Natalie Knight, Ned Balbo, Nick Carbo, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Rosemary Starace, Samantha Franklin, Sharon Mesmer, and Susan M. Schultz.
Poets on Adoption is “always looking for more POETS WITH ADOPTION EXPERIENCE to participate in this project.” Visit the site for more information.
Spread the word!
Sad News
Our hearts are broken with this news of the loss of our dear friend and colleague Jeanne Leiby, writer and editor of The Southern Review. TSR‘s blog, Lagniappe, pothumously published Jeanne’s blog “Poems I’m Glad I Know” in honor of National Poetry Month – now as a tribute to Jeanne. Strength and peace to family, friends, and colleagues at this time.
Spread the word!
The Pirate Tree: Social Justice & Children’s Literature
Young adult authors Ann Angel, Nancy Bo Flood, Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Peter Marino and J.L. Powers are the collective of writers at The Pirate Tree, a site for literature and writers for children and teenagers that delve into themes of social justice and social conscience.
The title, The Pirate Tree, comes from a picture book that Lyn Miller-Lachmann once wrote about two children whose grandfathers fought on opposite sides of a war. The children were prohibited from going into each others’ yards, but they figured out a way to meet and play pirates together by climbing a tree with limbs and branches above both their yards.
“Like the story suggested, we are interested in books and writers that question and rebel against the status quo, argue for peace and reconciliation, take the side of the marginalized and powerless, and use creative solutions to overcome obstacles.”
Current topics include: Economic Justice/Poverty/Immigration; Environment; Out of the Mainstream: Gender, Ethnicity, and Disability; and Violence/War & Peace/Refugees.
Review recommendations, suggestions for topics, interview subjects, and guest writer inquiries are welcome.
Spread the word!
Memorious Art Song Contest Winner
The winner of the Memorious 2nd Annual Art Song Contest is poet Katie Peterson, who will have her work set by guest composer Luke Gullickson. The work will be performed live as part of the Singers On New Ground series in Chicago, and a recording of the work will be available in issue 17 of Memorious along with poems by finalists Sean Hill, Ishion Hutchinson, and Hyejung Kook. Last year’s contest winner is available for listening in issue 14: composer Randall West’s settings of Jill McDonough’s poems.
Spread the word!
Community Published Poetry: allwritethen
allwritethen is a literary endeavor out of Columbia College Chicago that intends to be a “community published” magazine. Anyone can publish anything so long as they follow a few simple rules. A voting system allows readers to vote on poems they like so that every six months, the ‘put-it-together people’ will publish the 40 most popular poems in a print issue.
Spread the word!
AROHO Spring 2011 Orlando Prize Winners
A Room of Her Own has announced the Spring 2011 Orlando Prize Winners. Winning submissions and excerpts of the finalists will be posted on AROHO’s website following publication in the Los Angeles Review.
Creative Nonfiction
“Six Bright Horses and the Land of the Dead”
Jen Silverman
Short Fiction
“A Strange Woman”
Laura Brown-Lavoie
Poetry
“The Green Season”
Jennifer Beebe
Flash Fiction
“A Woman’s Glory”
Ashley Kunsa
A full list of finalists for each category is available on the AROHO website.
Fall 2011 Orlando Cycle Begins April 15, 2011
Genre judges to be announced
Online Application Deadline July 31, 2011
Spread the word!
Beltway Celebrates DC Poets
Beltway Poetry Quarterly celebrates ten years of publishing with the publication of a print anthology Full Moon On K Street: Poems About Washington, DC, edited by Kim Roberts and published by Plan B Press. The anthology includes 101 poems, written by current and former residents of the city between 1950 and the present.
Contributors:
Karren L. Alenier, Elizabeth Alexander, Kwame Alexander, Abdul Ali, Francisco Arag
Spread the word!
New Lit on the Block :: All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved is an online annual publishing works from emerging and established writers and artists. Although volunteer-run, the publication enlists a full editorial and production staff: Ryan Jones, Managing Editor; matt robinson, Senior Editor; Kathryn Bjornson, Editor (Non-Fiction & Poetry); Trina Hubley, Editor (Fiction & Visual Storytelling); Jonathan Bjornson, Editorial Assistant; Afton Doubleday, Creative Director; Atilla Vass, Acquisitions Editor & Sales/Distribution Manager; Kristen Sutherland, Sponsorship & Advertising Manager.
The first issue features works by Lynn Atkinson, Jean Braithwaite, Trey Edgington, yaqoob ghaznavi, Emily Graff, Maria McInnis, Kimberley-Blue Muncey, Shari Narine, Melissa Plourde, Robin Richardson, Mark Sampson, Terry Sanville, Edith Speers, J. J. Steinfeld, Qiana Towns, Davide Trame, Yi-Mei Tsiang, Yassen Vassilev, Paul Vreeland, Darryl Whetter.
All Rights Reserved accepts previously unpublished poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, as well as literary stories told through visual art/photography. Deadline for submissions: May 31, 2011
Spread the word!
Utne Reader Names 22nd Annual Independent Press Awards Nominees
Utne Reader 22nd Annual Independent Press Awards Nominees appear in the May-June issue, which is on newsstands April 19, and online at Utne.com. Winners will be featured in the July-August 2011 issue.
The nominees are:
General Excellence — The American Scholar, The Believer, High Country News, Mother Jones, Orion, The Sun, Wax Poetics, YES! Magazine
Best Writing — The American Scholar, The Believer, Brick, The Brooklyn Rail, Creative Nonfiction, Portland, The Sun, Tin House
Political Coverage — Dissent, In These Times, Mother Jones, The American Conservative, The American Prospect, The Nation, The New Republic, The Progressive
Arts Coverage — American Craft, Film Comment, Offbeat, The Oxford American, Public Art Review, Theme, Vintage Magazine, Wax Poetics
International Coverage — NACLA Report on the Americas, New Internationalist, New Statesman, Prospect, Red Pepper, The Wilson Quarterly, World Affairs, Z Magazine
Science/Technology Coverage — Alternatives, Discover, IEEE Spectrum, Johns Hopkins Public Health, Make, Miller-McCune, Science News, Technology Review
Social/Cultural Coverage — Bitch, Brain, Child, Gastronomica, Good, make/shift, mental _floss, Oregon Humanities, This Magazine
Environmental Coverage — Audubon, Conservation, Earth Island Journal, Environment, Environment Yale, High Country News, OnEarth, Orion
Body/Spirit Coverage — The Christian Century, Commonweal, Geez, Resurgence, Sojourners, Tikkun, Tricycle, YES! Magazine
Spread the word!
Jupiter 88 Allen Ginsberg Edition
JUPITER 88 ALLEN GINSBERG EDITION is CA Conrad’s “celebration of Allen Ginsberg for the HOWL Festival in NYC, 2011. Poets are invited to share the importance of Ginsberg’s poetics and activism which continues to CHANGE THE WORLD!” The first video features Mark Nowak, with regular installments to follow. Poets interesting in participating should contact CA Conrad.
“Allen really taught me that poetry is a great device for political protest.” Mark Nowak
Spread the word!
What if…
New Orleans Review (v31n2) opens with this quote from James Whitehead in New Orleans Review, volume 1 number 4, summer 1969:
“What if the planet is being ruined by smoke and gas and oil? What if we’re killing the whales and eagles: killing even our natural symbols? What if shortly, by way of waste or the bombs, we don’t have us a good ole planet around any more? Where do we stage our tragedy and comedy then?”
Spread the word!
100 Thousand Poets for Change – 2011
From organizer Michael Rothenberg:
“What kind of CHANGE are we talking about?”
The first order of change is for poets, writers, artists, anybody, to actually get together to create and perform, educate and demonstrate, simultaneously, with other communities around the world. This will change how we see our local community and the global community. We have all become incredibly alienated in recent years. We hardly know our neighbors down the street let alone our creative allies who live and share our concerns in other countries. We need to feel this kind of global solidarity. I think it will be empowering.
And of course there is the political/social change that many of us are talking about these days. There is trouble in the world. Wars, ecocide, the lack of affordable medical care, racism, the list goes on.
It appears that transformation towards a more sustainable world is a major concern and could be a global guiding principle for this event. Peace also seems to be a common cause. War is not sustainable. There is an increasing sense that we need to move forward and stop moving backwards. But I am trying not to be dogmatic. I am hoping that together we can develop our ideas of the “change/transformation” we are looking for as a group, and that each community group will decide their own specific area of focus for change for their particular event.
“I want to organize in my area. How do we begin to organize?”
100 Thousand Poets for Change will organize “participants” by local region, city, or state, and find individuals in each area who would like to organize their local event. Just let me know if you want to be an organizer by sending a message to me directly through Facebook, or to my e-mail: [email protected].
If you are an organizer for your community this means that first you will consider a location for the event and begin to contact people in your area who want to participate in the event. Participation means contacting the media, posting the event on the web, in calendars, newspapers, etc., reading poems, performing in general, supplying cupcakes and beer (it’s up to you), demonstrating, putting up an information table, inviting guest speakers, musicians, etc., organizing an art exhibit, and documenting the event (this is important, too), and cleaning up, of course.
Organizers and participants will create their own local event as an expression of who they are locally. Do they want a candlelight vigil or a circus, a march or a dance, do they want absolute silence, a group meditation on a main street; it’s up to the local organization. However, groups should be sure to hold some part of the event, if not all of it, outdoors, in public view. The point is to be seen and heard, not just stay behind closed walls. It is also important that the event be documented. Photos, videos, poems, journals, paintings! Documentation is crucial. The rest of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change want to hear what you have to say about change and enjoy your creativity too! The documentation will be shared through a blog/website that I will set up, a blog/website where groups can share and announce event information, as well as post photos, videos, poetry, art, and thoughts. But an event doesn’t have to involve tons of people. It can be just you (the organizer) and your pet, on a street corner, with a sign. Just let me know what you are planning! Every effort counts!
Each local organization determines what it wants to focus on, something broad like, peace, sustainability, justice, equality, or more specific causes like Health Care, or Freedom of Speech, or local environmental or social concerns that need attention in your particular area right now, etc. Organizations will then come up with a mission statement/manifesto that describes who they are and what they think and care about. When the whole event has taken place all the mission statements can be collected from around the world and, I hope, worked together into a grand statement of 100 Thousand Poets for Change.
Spread the word!
Work for Guernica
Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics seeks a publisher, membership coordinator, and art, editorial, and publishing interns. See Work for Guernica blog post for specifics on each open position.
Spread the word!
NewPages Updates :: April 18, 2011
Additions to The NewPages Big List of Literary Magazines
Haigaonline – haiga
Modern Poetry in Translation – poetry, essays, reviews
Anomalous – literary works of texts (poetry, fiction, nonfiction and translation) and hybrid, muti- and new media, audio or video literary works, and images
Cordite (Australia) – poetry, essays, interviews, reviews, audio
Pirene’s Fountain – poetry, reviews, interviews
Dragnet – fiction
Asymptote Journal – poetry, fiction, drama, criticism, interview, essay
Toad – new poetry, prose, and visual art
Foam:e – poetry, interviews, reviews
StepAway Magazine – flash fiction, poetry
Temporary Infinity – short stories, flash fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, artwork, comics, plays, photographs, film
Contemporary Haibun – haibun, essays, interviews
All Rights Reserved – poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, literary visual art/photography
Curbside Quotidian – poetry, fiction, non-fiction, art
NAP – poetry, fiction, chapbooks
Additions to The NewPages Big List of Alternative Magazines
The Jewish Daily Forward
Additions to The NewPages Guide to Independent Publishers & University Presses
Fifth Planet Press
Kenning Editions
La Presse
Lightful Press
Paper Kite Press
Sibling Rivalry Press
Additions to The NewPages Guide to Podcasts, Video, Audio
Aloud – A audio/video series by the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles going back to 2005.
Jupiter 88 – CA Conrad hosts this video poetry magazine featuring one poet reading one poem per issue.
Reading the World – An ongoing series of podcast discussions about the world of international literature.
Spread the word!
New Lit on the Block :: StepAway Magazine
StepAway Magazine is a new, online literary magazine publishing “the best urban flash fiction and poetry by writers from across the globe.”
The title of the magazine draws inspiration from Frank O’ Hara’s landmark flâneur poem, A Step Away from Them.
Editor Darren Richard Carlaw says, “Our magazine is hungry for literature that evokes the sensory experience of walking in specific neighborhoods, districts or zones within a city. This is flânerie for the twenty-first century. Our aim is to become an online repository of walking narratives. Our writers will lead our readership through the streets of his or her chosen city. They will do so in one thousand words or less. There are no further rules. We want whatever you can share.”
Issue #1 now available online features works by Gem Andrews, Jaydn DeWald, David Gaffney, Kyle Hemmings, Matthew Hittinger, P.A. Levy, Joan McNerney, Tom Sheehan, Sarah Schulman, and Changming Yuan.
Spread the word!
Dissertation Haiku
Dissertation Haiku is exactly that: dissertations in haiku form. Not holding true to more than syllable pattern, scholars are asked to submit discipline, name of institution, a sentence or two in plain English about what they do, and any email address or link.
Dissertation Haiku is the creation of Drew Steen who finished his Ph.D. in Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now doing postdoctoral work in the Biology Department (microbiology section) and the Center for Geomicrobiology at Aarhus University in Denmark. As he puts it: “I’m currently in my eighth year of being paid to study how stuff rots in the ocean.”
Spread the word!
Brick Street Poetry Prize Winners
On February 12, 2011, Brick Street Poetry celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Preseident-Elect Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural train in Zionsville, Indiana. Winner Shari Wagner’s poem, “Lincoln Field,” appears in the Winter 2011 issue of Tipton Poetry Journal, along with poems of finalists John Cardwell, Jared Carter, Joseph Heithaus, Jennifer Lemming and James Murdock.
The issue also features Rita Dahl’s “Haukka leikkii kyyhkysellä” self-translated from Finnish to English as ”A hawk plays with a pigeon.”
Spread the word!
American Literary Review – Spring 2011
Jude Nutter’s starkly eloquent “16 October, 2009, 17.55 PM: Little Elegy” is illustrative of the issue’s approach and strengths, with its description of life with horses, somehow both intimate and personal, yet distant, a portrait of another life: Continue reading “American Literary Review – Spring 2011”
Spread the word!
Another Chicago Magazine – 2010
This is the journal’s 50th issue includes the work of 14 poets, the most recognizable or established among them being David Trinidad; 10 fiction writers, the most recognizable or lauded among them being Achy Obejas and Bayo Ojikutu; two nonfiction writers; a number of reviews; and “Et Al.” hybrid and uncategorized work by Joseph Gallimore and Jill Summers. Continue reading “Another Chicago Magazine – 2010”
Spread the word!
Assaracus – 2011
Editor Bryan Borland introduces readers to this new journal by announcing that Assaracus has “no formula” other than that all poems are authored by gay men, a “place for our poetry to dance with its own kind.” Poems are preceded by bios documenting writer’s credentials (poets who are both quite experienced and first-time in print are included in this premier issue), and the poems reflect much diversity in style, tone, and approach. Shane Allison contributes a spare “Dream” of bare single lines, “Used to / wonder / late at night // Boxers / or / Briefs”). Jay Burodny contributes a sense poem all in italics, “A Needy God.” Raymond Luczak contributes a prose poem, “Six Gallery, San Francisco: October 7, 1955.” Matthew Hittinger contributes a long poem of couplets, “A Bus Journeys West”: Continue reading “Assaracus – 2011”
Spread the word!
Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2011
The work in this issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review is terribly moving, highly accomplished, and unexpectedly inspiring. How not to be simply undone by Deborah Ager’s “A Poem in Which My Father is Not the Villain,” which opens the issue? “I believe we commit errors we want no one to know about, / that we wish we could bathe and be healed and sip whisky and be clean.” Continue reading “Birmingham Poetry Review – Spring 2011”
Spread the word!
Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2011
Issue 40 is a special theme issue on animals, the centerpiece of which are an excerpted essay and an interview with the talented, perplexing, and always-provocative Lauren Slater, who has a book forthcoming on animals, and who was first published many years ago by this journal. Essayist par excellence Phillip Lopate contributes “Show and Tell” about the human animal, “the ethics of writing about other people.” Well-known writer Susan Cheever describes her encounters with much maligned house mice in “Of Mice and Women,” and Jennifer Lunden, Kateri Kosek, Randy Fertel, Jeff Oaks, and Chester F. Phillips contribute strong essays on butterflies, starlings, grunions, zoos, dogs, and lions. Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction – Winter 2011”
Spread the word!
The Fiddlehead – Winter 2011
The Fiddlehead has been a Canadian literary delight since 1945, when it began as the mimeographed paper-child of The Bliss Carman Poetry Society. Published quarterly by the University of New Brunswick, this treasure is an eclectic journal. I relished five stories and was enthralled with deliciously crafted writing from fifteen poets. Continue reading “The Fiddlehead – Winter 2011”
Spread the word!
Front Range – Spring 2010
I know that I’m not the ideal reader for journals that feature art. I usually don’t pay attention as I should, and consider the pieces selected as speed bumps. In this aspect, the art in Front Range isn’t exceptional, but it has been selected with an informed eye to complement the text. The journal’s words, however, are satisfying and, dare I say, practical. Continue reading “Front Range – Spring 2010”
Spread the word!
Fugue – Summer-Fall 2010
Fugue is one of my favorite journals. There is always something exciting, inventive, original, and unexpected; something that reinforces my confidence in the state of American literature; something I am grateful to have encountered; something special in the best and truest sense of the word. In this issue, this includes prize-winning fiction from Colette Sartor and Paul Vidich; poetry from Margarita Delcheva, Bryan Narendorf, and Patty Crane, among others; fiction from Luther Magnussen and Heather Jacobs, among others; nonfiction from Sarah Fawn Montgomery, David Shields, and David McGlynn; and interview by Steve Heim with George Saunders; and an “Experiment” by Kevin Sampsell, “This is Between Us.” Continue reading “Fugue – Summer-Fall 2010”
Spread the word!
Grist – 2011
There is a point in the conversation between poets Adam Clay and Timothy Donnelly in this issue of Grist where they are discussing truthfulness in poetry. Both poets agree that when reading a poem it doesn’t really matter to them whether what’s happening in the poem comes directly from the poet’s life or not, whether it is “true” to life outside the poem. But then Donnelly brings up the issue of what to do when you, as a poet, do want to “engage with realities outside the poem in a sincere way.” How do you communicate this to a reader? As Donnelly so pithily remarks, “it’s not like you can use a special font for sincerity.” Continue reading “Grist – 2011”
Spread the word!
The Journal – Autumn/Winter 2010
This issue of The Journal flexes its tensile strength in both poetry and fiction. The first poem to shake me was Frannie Lindsay’s “To the Petermann Glacier,” which seems to portend an environmental holocaust (the glacier moving “down each torn strand of latitude”) while hinting at the post-disaster world to come, one where we find “the newly erected Cathedral of Zero / with its pulpit tangled in sumac.” Meanwhile, “the lost gulls float inland scavenging sticks // as you lay down the calm heat of listening before / the great barrier requiem.” Continue reading “The Journal – Autumn/Winter 2010”
Spread the word!
Juked – Spring 2011
The annual Juked print issue opens with a tight piece of historical fiction by James Scott titled “Watertown,” in which two of Babe Ruth’s questionably well-meaning associates decide to do something about Babe’s addict wife: Continue reading “Juked – Spring 2011”