Never be afraid to seek advice from other writers, especially if you enjoy their work. While small press poets seem to be more easily accessible, it never hurts to write the ones in “the big leagues” who have a major publisher behind them. Some writers have a web-site with an e-mail address and it is a convenient way to get in touch with them, just be sure to be sincere and do not feel letdown if you do not receive a response. Sometimes e-mails get lost, or there may be so many e-mails the author or poet cannot respond quickly. Otherwise, you can always write to the publisher with the request that your letter be sent directly to the writer—I have done that and I received a response from the writer. Then of course there are plenty of blogs by writers where leaving comments is another way to connect and seek advice. If you are afraid of coming across as naïve or uneducated, do not let that stop you. When I first started trying to figure out how to publish I naively sent out letters to publishers asking for advice and a publisher directed me to one poet who finally responded kindly with some basic books to check out. It never hurts to ask, right?
Good luck to all who seek advice from those they admire, please drop in next week for another featured site…
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Etched Press Open Submissions
“Query for full-length poetry collections, novels, or non-fiction titles. Do not send complete unsolicited manuscripts. Submissions may either be e-mailed to submit@etchedpress.com or sent by postal mail to
Etched Press
P.O. Box 3063
Wilmington, NC 28406
Include a SASE if you wish to have your manuscript returned.
Submissions by postal mail must be on letter-sized paper with one-inch margins on all sides, stapled in the top left corner, and have your name and contact information listed on the first sheet along with the title of your work. All individual poems must also have titles in bold and each poem must be on a separate page.
Poetry:
We invite you to submit twelve to eighteen pages of poetry to our chapbook series. We read submissions all year. Selected submissions will have their chapbook set, printed, bound, and the poet will receive 25 copies of the chapbook and further copies are sold in the online bookstore. Authors receive substantial royalties on all copies sold and can obtain their own copies at a discount. We will work directly with the author throughout the entire process. The layout, binding, and cover of the chapbook will be a few of the things the author will help decide.
Prose:
We are equipped to publish short stories, novellas, short memoirs, and how-to guides. Any prose we publish must be exceptional or extremely informative. Submit five to twenty pages of a complete prose piece or collection of shorter work with the title in bold at the top of the first page.”
http://www.pw.org/content/etched_press
Good luck to all who submit, please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…
Etched Press
P.O. Box 3063
Wilmington, NC 28406
Include a SASE if you wish to have your manuscript returned.
Submissions by postal mail must be on letter-sized paper with one-inch margins on all sides, stapled in the top left corner, and have your name and contact information listed on the first sheet along with the title of your work. All individual poems must also have titles in bold and each poem must be on a separate page.
Poetry:
We invite you to submit twelve to eighteen pages of poetry to our chapbook series. We read submissions all year. Selected submissions will have their chapbook set, printed, bound, and the poet will receive 25 copies of the chapbook and further copies are sold in the online bookstore. Authors receive substantial royalties on all copies sold and can obtain their own copies at a discount. We will work directly with the author throughout the entire process. The layout, binding, and cover of the chapbook will be a few of the things the author will help decide.
Prose:
We are equipped to publish short stories, novellas, short memoirs, and how-to guides. Any prose we publish must be exceptional or extremely informative. Submit five to twenty pages of a complete prose piece or collection of shorter work with the title in bold at the top of the first page.”
http://www.pw.org/content/etched_press
Good luck to all who submit, please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Poems Found by Poet Hound
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173000#
Among The Rocks by Robert Browning
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19998
Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe
Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions...
Among The Rocks by Robert Browning
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19998
Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe
Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions...
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Charles Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil
Charles Baudelaire was born April 21st in 1821 and was a fan of one of my favorite poets, Edgar Allen Poe. Mr. Baudelaire’s collection of poems, The Flowers of Evil, became infamous and banned by mainstream society when it was published in 1861 because his poems were thought to be gruesome and immoral in its depictions of humanity’s lesser, baser sides. I thought his poems would be a wonderful way to close out the month of October and a perfect accompaniment to all things related to Halloween so here are a few poems:
The Temptation
The Demon, in my chamber high,
This morning came to visit me,
And, thinking he would find some fault,
He whispered: “I would know of thee
Among the many lovely things
That make the magic of her face,
Among the beauties, black and rose,
That make her body’s charm and grace,
Which is most fair?” Thou didst reply
To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:
“No single beauty is the best
When she is all one flower divine.
When all things charm me I ignore
Which one brings most delight;
She shines before me like the dawn,
And she consoles me like the night.
The harmony is far too great,
That governs all her body fair.
For impotence to analyse
And say which note is sweetest there.
O mystic metamorphosis!
My sense into one sense flow—
Her voice makes perfume when she speaks,
Her breath is music faint and low!”
Reversibility
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
And the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,
When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,
And makes herself the captain of our fate,
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain,
Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls
The cold length of the white infirmary walls,
With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Know you the fear of age, the torment vile
Of reading secret horror in the smile
Of eyes your eyes have loved since long ago?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Angel of happiness, and joy, and light,
Old David would have asked for youth afresh
From the pure touch of your enchanted flesh;
I but implore your prayers to aid my plight,
Angel of happiness, and joy, and light.
The Corpse
Remember, my Beloved, what thing we met
By the roadside on that sweet summer day;
There on a grassy couch with pebbles set,
A loathsome body lay.
The wanton limbs stiff-stretched into the air,
Steaming with exhalations vile and dank,
In ruthless cynic fashion had laid bare
The swollen side and flank.
On this decay the sun shone hot from heaven
As though with chemic heat to broil and burn,
And unto Nature all that she had given
A hundredfold return.
The sky smiled down upon the horror there
As on a flower that opens to the day;
So awful an infection smote the air,
Almost you swooned away.
The swarming flies hummed on the putrid side,
Whence poured the maggots in a darkling stream,
That ran along these tatters of life’s pride
With a liquescent gleam.
And like a wave the maggots rose and fell,
The murmuring flies swirled round in busy strife:
It seemed as though a vague breath came to swell
And multiply with life
The hideous corpse. From all his living world
A music as of wind and water ran,
Or as of grain in rhythmic motion swirled
By the swift winnower’s fan.
And then the vague forms like a dream died out,
Or like some distant scene that slowly falls
Upon the artist’s canvas, that with doubt
He only half recalls.
A homeless dog behind the boulders lay
And watched us both with angry eyes forlorn,
Waiting a chance to come and take away
The morsel she had torn.
And you, even you, will be like this drear thing,
A vile infection man may not endure;
Star that I yearn to! Sun that lights my spring!
O passionate and pure!
Yes, such will be you, Queen of every grace!
When the last sacramental words are said;
And beneath grass and flowers that lovely face
Moulders among the dead.
Then, O Beloved, whisper to the worm
That crawls up to devour you with a kiss,
That I still guard in memory the dear form
Of love that comes to this!
If you would like to devour the whole collection yourself, you can easily find Charles Baudelaire’s collection of poems in libraries, universities, book-stores, and on-line book-stores. For an on-line resource that is educational and thorough, I urge you to check out:
http://fleursdumal.org/
Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…
The Temptation
The Demon, in my chamber high,
This morning came to visit me,
And, thinking he would find some fault,
He whispered: “I would know of thee
Among the many lovely things
That make the magic of her face,
Among the beauties, black and rose,
That make her body’s charm and grace,
Which is most fair?” Thou didst reply
To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:
“No single beauty is the best
When she is all one flower divine.
When all things charm me I ignore
Which one brings most delight;
She shines before me like the dawn,
And she consoles me like the night.
The harmony is far too great,
That governs all her body fair.
For impotence to analyse
And say which note is sweetest there.
O mystic metamorphosis!
My sense into one sense flow—
Her voice makes perfume when she speaks,
Her breath is music faint and low!”
Reversibility
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
And the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,
When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,
And makes herself the captain of our fate,
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain,
Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls
The cold length of the white infirmary walls,
With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Know you the fear of age, the torment vile
Of reading secret horror in the smile
Of eyes your eyes have loved since long ago?
Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Angel of happiness, and joy, and light,
Old David would have asked for youth afresh
From the pure touch of your enchanted flesh;
I but implore your prayers to aid my plight,
Angel of happiness, and joy, and light.
The Corpse
Remember, my Beloved, what thing we met
By the roadside on that sweet summer day;
There on a grassy couch with pebbles set,
A loathsome body lay.
The wanton limbs stiff-stretched into the air,
Steaming with exhalations vile and dank,
In ruthless cynic fashion had laid bare
The swollen side and flank.
On this decay the sun shone hot from heaven
As though with chemic heat to broil and burn,
And unto Nature all that she had given
A hundredfold return.
The sky smiled down upon the horror there
As on a flower that opens to the day;
So awful an infection smote the air,
Almost you swooned away.
The swarming flies hummed on the putrid side,
Whence poured the maggots in a darkling stream,
That ran along these tatters of life’s pride
With a liquescent gleam.
And like a wave the maggots rose and fell,
The murmuring flies swirled round in busy strife:
It seemed as though a vague breath came to swell
And multiply with life
The hideous corpse. From all his living world
A music as of wind and water ran,
Or as of grain in rhythmic motion swirled
By the swift winnower’s fan.
And then the vague forms like a dream died out,
Or like some distant scene that slowly falls
Upon the artist’s canvas, that with doubt
He only half recalls.
A homeless dog behind the boulders lay
And watched us both with angry eyes forlorn,
Waiting a chance to come and take away
The morsel she had torn.
And you, even you, will be like this drear thing,
A vile infection man may not endure;
Star that I yearn to! Sun that lights my spring!
O passionate and pure!
Yes, such will be you, Queen of every grace!
When the last sacramental words are said;
And beneath grass and flowers that lovely face
Moulders among the dead.
Then, O Beloved, whisper to the worm
That crawls up to devour you with a kiss,
That I still guard in memory the dear form
Of love that comes to this!
If you would like to devour the whole collection yourself, you can easily find Charles Baudelaire’s collection of poems in libraries, universities, book-stores, and on-line book-stores. For an on-line resource that is educational and thorough, I urge you to check out:
http://fleursdumal.org/
Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…
Monday, October 26, 2009
Poetry Translation Site
This is an incredible site with featured poems on the home page. You can also find live events, learn the process of translation, read poems from over 20 countries, and more at:
http://www.poetrytranslation.org/
Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…
http://www.poetrytranslation.org/
Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…
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