What is a Chapbook?

When I first delved into serious poetry reading, exploring book-stores and web-sites I kept seeing the word "chapbook" having no clue what it was.
So if you are unfamiliar with it, now is your chance to find out. A chapbook is a very short collection of poems by a poet. Usually less than 30 pages long. They are very thin, sometimes flimsy books. They can be professionally bound although some are actually stapled together--and yes, they are sold in book-stores that way.
Chapbooks are also a popular way for beginning poets to get their start in publishing. I highly recommend reading chapbooks first when you encounter one, if you like the poems you can buy them and make a beginning writer's heart soar. If you like it a whole lot, see if you can find a way to write a fan letter.
Poets love to know their hard work has paid off. Hundreds of thousands of poets a year compete against each other trying to get published and usually have only small windows of opportunity to submit their volume of work. The slim little volume of poetry you are reading in a chapbook has beat innumerable odds, the poets deserve a ton of credit and I hope you will spend a little more time gazing among the poetry shelves of any book-store with those odds of publication in mind.
P.S. I will be on vacation this Labor Day Week-end and will not be bringing my computer with me. So there will be a two-day lull here at Poet Hound. Thanks for stopping by and we'll meet again soon.

A Poem by Poet Hound

Coffee at the Gas Station

Every morning they gather
like crows on abandoned picnics:
Old men at the gas station
on highway 19, Old Town,
all lined up along a concrete
low-wall “telling lies”
as my grandpa always says.
It seems as if they appear on the cusp
of dawn, delighted to be awake
at an hour that would leave
bushy-tailed squirrels astounded.
They sit together with steaming
hot coffee and fellows older
than Plato describing their lives
in the past and updating them
with taller and taller tales.
Small town Florida presented
in a bright sunny postcard
cannot capture the sunny
and silver-haired men populating
gas stations across the sunshine state.

How to submit poetry, basics

Hello, sorry about the technical difficulties that resulted in "Musings" being published twice!
Today we are talking about very basic poetry submission guidelines. Your best bet is the internet since you are already reading this.

Keep in mind you should search for tabs/key words in the journal or publishing web-sites that say "guidelines" or "submissions" and read their criteria.

Next, see if you can find out the name of the Poetry Editor. If not, by all means when you write a cover sheet you can address it to Poetry Editor so that there is some semblance of trying hard.
Unless they have the capability to accept poems through e-mail, you should always type and print your poetry on clean paper, one poem per page, with your name, address, and phone number on each poem. In e-mails, be sure all your contact information is IN the e-mail.

Postage is important, too. Be sure you have enough postage on the envelope to handle the amount of poems you are sending. Also, when including a Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope (SASE) be sure there's enough postage for your poems to RETURN if that is what you'd like.
Biographical notes are sometimes wanted by journals and what that really means is they want to know where else you've been published, what poems they were, and your general information such as town and state you're living in.

*Cover letters are not a necessity unless specified by the journal/publisher, so you can always send your poems without one.

*If you want an incredibly detailed description of how to send out poems you should click on the Comstock Review link on the side of this web-page, they have an EXCELLENT guide for you to read, print, and refer to over and over. I re-read their guide and their submission guidelines frequently. Let's face it, if you had to edit thousands of poems you would want them to be easy to read, clean, and delivered with enough postage that you wouldn't have to pay for the poets who didn't add enough postage. Try to be the most gracious poet you can when submitting your work.

Musings

Strive to find poets who are living, breathing writers. After all, they are able to answer your questions about particular poems and inspiration. Also, poets never get rich writing poetry and seek only to share their vision and artistry through words. Definitely find a way to write to your favorite living poets, after all, they can respond to questions you may have about a poem, their lives, and their inspiration.
The list of living poets could go on for pages, but here are a few of my favorites: Lucille Clifton, Tony Hoagland, Li Young Li, and Lola Haskins.

Musings

Strive to find poets who are living, breathing writers. After all, they are able to answer your questions about particular poems and inspiration. Also, poets never get rich writing poetry and seek only to share their vision and artistry through words. Definitely find a way to write to your favorite living poets, after all, they can respond to questions you may have about a poem, their lives, and their inspiration.
The list of living poets could go on for pages, but here are a few of my favorites: Lucille Clifton, Tony Hoagland, Li Young Li, and Lola Haskins.

Nerve Cowboy, the Web-site and Magazine

If you like things that are "off the beaten path" then this place is for you! Whether you like to read or write poetry, or have a fondness for the state of Texas, it behooves you to check them out.

Nerve Cowboy's website is http://www.onr.com/user/jwhagins/nervecowboy.html

Do check them out, they do not publish "Cowboy Poetry" they publish items that are a little off the wall, and off the beaten path.

And in true cowboy fashion, I would venture to say this place isn't for "sissies", this is a strong kick in the teeth in the best way possible.
Drink some strong, black coffee, read, and enjoy.

Lucille Clifton, Poet Extraordinaire

Hello and welcome to Poet Hound! Today we are talking about Lucille Clifton. She has recently won the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement. She is a living example of all that is excellent in poetry. Her works depict human nature in all its forms. Even her shortest poems cause vibrations, as though a giant were walking the countryside and everyone could feel the tremors. She is well respected and admired by all who come across her poems. PoetryFoundation.org has a collection of her poems for you to look at, but I will also type in one of my own favorites here:

here yet be dragons

so many languages have fallen
off of the edge of the world
into the dragon's mouth. some

where there be monsters whose teeth
are sharp and sparkle with lost
.....who

among us can speak with so fragile
tongue and remain proud?

Lucille Clifton

Isn't she wonderful? She was born in Depew, New York, the first in her family to finish high school and go to college. Lucille is a powerful writer and I highly recommend any of her books. I will admit that it can be difficult to find her in book-stores in the Poetry section so you may want to try your local library. She is fabulous! That's all for now, thanks for your interest in poetry.