Poetry Tips: Ridiculous Rant

You know those days where even the coffee pot is uncooperative? Or, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t prevent your sandwich from getting soggy overnight in the refrigerator? Your challenge is to write a Ridiculous Rant Poem. That small, banal, stupid little thing that is just driving you up the wall: It’s time to write a poem about it. Let it all hang out, experiment with whipping that rant all over the page, or control it into a sensible set of stanzas. Either way, it’ll be cathartic. May the muse rant with you!

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Conjunctions Open Submissions

While I wasn’t able to find too many requirements, you can always find out more at their web-site by using the link below. I directly copied what they had under submissions below:

“Submissions should be directed to the editorial office at 21 East 10th St., New York, NY 10003. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Electronic and simultaneous submissions will not be considered.”

http://www.conjunctions.com/about.htm

My recommendation is to send 3 to 5 poems, that is typical of most any journal. Good luck to you all who submit, may the muse be with you.

P.S. If you happen to know of a journal or are the editor of a journal/poetry site and you would like your Open Submissions call featured here, please send me an e-mail and I’ll be happy to oblige the following Thursday. Several editors have asked me to do so in the past and I always appreciate it on behalf of my readers. Thanks!

Thanks for checking in, please return tomorrow for another Poetry Tip…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.alicebluereview.org/main.html
Mathew Savoca’s “Two Hundredths of a Woman”

http://cimarronreview.okstate.edu/currentissue_sample1.html
Jeremy Gregerson’s “Long Division”

Thanks for dropping in, please stay tuned for tomorrow’s Open Submissions…

Poetry Magazine for May

Sometimes when I run out of time to get to the library I resort to my subscription to Poetry and this is one of those times! What I love about being able to review this magazine is that you can also check out parts of it at their site, whose link I provided below:
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/

Luckily, they have a link to a poem I enjoyed titled “Photo (Op/tative) Synthesis” by Liz Waldner. The stanzas seem to break into two subjects, the idea of photosynthesis according to plants but utilizing it in regards to human relationships. She mentions the natural world yet you know she is speaking of sensuality between people, herself and another. Lines such as “with a growing and specific gravity/about –it hopes--/ to be undone like a bud,” are an example. Being able to tie unlike things from the title at the top of the poem all the way to the ending line are admirable in my eyes. I hope you’ll check out the poem which is available on the site so that you can enjoy it also.

If you already have a subscription or are able to buy a copy at the book-store, there are several other poems I enjoyed. One of them is: “I Imagine My Father’s Death” by Bryan D. Dietrich. In a sense, you could take this to be a biblical reference because lines such as “My father’s death is bigger/than a planet, bigger than the gravity/wells worlds make…” but I personally assume this is about Dietrich’s own father. There is a void that has been left behind as a result, a personal one. A clue to that for me are lines in the beginning “It is bigger than a Ford/Escort, than a Zeppelin, black and vast/and slow moving, oozing over an Oklahoma/arena.” References to moments and places that mean something to the author and the loved one, then expanding out to planets, the universe… I enjoy this poem because I imagine it would be how I felt if my own father passed away, which I certainly hope isn’t for countless years to come. This poem is good at bringing you in without overwhelming you with despair and sometimes you want a poem that touches you without also rattling you too much. You are left feeling the void and the power of loss but also the sense that all is not lost, there are still ways to reach out to the void and perhaps even cross it.

I hope you are able to enjoy Poetry magazine where you are and I thank you for reading. Please stop by tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Flying Guillotine Press

I stumbled onto this site via Press Press Press and hope you’ll check it out. There’s a chapbook available and they seem very new, not sure when they offer open submissions but keep it on your radar.

http://flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com/

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…