Poetry Tips: Valentines

You can’t tell me you didn’t see this idea coming! With all the department stores and candy shops filled with heart-shaped everything, it is hard to miss this romance filled holiday. However, there are also those who would rather duck and cover from the whole event. So I dare you to try both a Valentine Poem and an Anti-Valentine poem. Whichever perspective you have on the holiday also try the opposite.

Plus, it never hurts to spread a little love by writing compliment filled poems to anyone you’d like to “butter up” so you may want to try some thank-you based poems to hand out on Valentine’s day as a way to sweeten just about anyone’s day.

Good luck to all who try it, please drop in again next week…

The American Poetry Review Open Submissions

I have copied-and-pasted the guidelines below:

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
The American Poetry Review publishes original poetry, literary criticism, interviews, and essays. Please observe the following guidelines when submitting manuscripts for consideration.
o If possible, manuscripts should be typewritten or computer-printed, on white, 8 ½ ” x 11” paper. Prose should be double-spaced.
o Manuscripts should be addressed to “The Editors” and mailed to APR, 1700 Sansom Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Do not send manuscripts by fax or e-mail.
o Please do not send previously published material.
o Each submission must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope for our reply. (International submissions should be accompanied by Universal Postal Union International Response Coupons.) No reply will be made to unaccepted manuscripts that are not accompanied by a SASE. We will not respond via e-mail.
o Keep a copy of your manuscript and record the date you sent it.
o Our reporting time is approximately three months. We will inform you of our decision. Please do not inquire about the status of your submission unless more than three months have passed.
o Copyright: APR holds first serial rights for material that we publish. The copyright automatically reverts to the author upon publication. We do not require that material be copyrighted prior to submission.




For more details and to check out their web-site, go to:

https://www.aprweb.org/about


Good luck to all who submit! Please stop in again tomorrow…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=179284
“A un desconcido” by Lorna Dee Cervantes

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19904
“He would not stay for me and who could wonder” by A.E. Housman


Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Service Delay

Today’s post is delayed because I am waiting to hear from whoever answers e-mail at Robert W. Service’s webpage as to whether I can feature poems from the book Rhymes of a Red Cross Man in their entirety or not.
My deepest apologies, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

The Perpetual Bird

Thought provoking posts about poetry by Joseph Hutchinson, I urge you to learn more about poetry through him by visiting:

http://perpetualbird.blogspot.com/


Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for another featured book…

Poetry Tips: Time Travel

Whether it’s a trip down memory lane, leaping into the future with your imagination, or turning back time to reverse an event, this week I hope you’ll find inspiration in writing poems about time travel. Good, bad, hopeful, foreboding, or even neutral, there are many ways to spin a poem about time travel.

Good luck to all who try, please stop in again next week…

Lilliput Review Haiku Wednesday Open Submissions

Don Wentworth at Lilliput Review will now be posting one original haiku on his blog every Wednesday. You may submit one haiku via e-mail to Mr. Wentworth at:

wednesdayhaikuATgmailDOTcom

Mr. Wentworth promises to respond quickly with a “yea” or “nay” and the winning poet will receive two free issues of Lilliput Review!

Please check out all the finer details using the link below:
http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/2011/01/wednesday-haiku-issas-untidy-hut.html

Good luck to all who submit, please drop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.sundresspublications.com/wickedalice/butts30.html
“Poem of the Teenager” by Joshua Butts


http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16489
“blessing the boats” by Lucille Clifton


Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Women in Praise of the Sacred

Jane Hirshfield is a poet with six collections including After, Given Sugar, Given Salt, has received honors for her work including The Poetry Center Book Award and numerous fellowships. Hirshfield’s collection of women’s in Women in Praise of the Sacred, 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women is superb. Published by HaperCollins books in 1994, this collection contains poems from a wide range of women from all over the world throughout the centuries. I was hoping I would have time to request permission to post some poems in their entirety but I was eager to share the book with you and will try to do brief excerpts instead. For each woman there is a brief history of her life and some poems are explained in regards to religious symbols mentioned or which religions they pertain to. The majority of the poems are too short for me to attempt to share with you. It is an excellent read and I am certain I cannot do it justice through excerpts but I will do my best:

I will begin with Kassiane, born in 804, was a Byzantine woman whose work is included in Eastern Orthodox liturgy per Hirshfield’s description. Kassiane founded a convent and was an outspoken defender of her beliefs. Her hymn “Troparion” refers to the “Sinful Woman” from the Gospel of St. Luke:

Troparion

Lord,
This woman who encountered her shadow
Perceives the numinous in You,
leads the women who come with grief
and myrrh to Your grave.

….

You who are limitless mercy—who will trace the results
of a lifetime I’ve done wrong, evaluate
my weakness? I ask, remember me
if nothing else, as one who lived.

(tr. By Liana Sakelliou)

I have given you the first and last stanzas of the hymn, I hope I will be forgiven if I’ve revealed too much. To me, Kassiane speaks of the Lord knowing and understanding her as a woman, her grief, her weakness, and asks him to remember her as a woman who lived her life to the fullest and asks for mercy of her weaknesses.



Ly Ngoc Kieu lived from 1041-1113, she was a Zen Buddhist nun in Vietnam who took religious vows after becoming a widow from Hirshfield’s description, and is the earliest known woman writer from Vietnam:

Birth, old age,
Sickness, and death:
From the beginning,
This is the way
Things have always been.
…
But the one who knows
That there’s nothing to seek
Knows too that there’s nothing to say.
She keeps her mouth closed.

(tr. By Thich Nhat Hanh and Jane Hirshfield)

I have left out just over a half dozen lines of the poem but hope you are able to get a sense of it. I have included the very beginning and the very end. Ly Ngoc Kien describes those who seek answers and explains that the one who knows the answer says nothing because there is now way to explain with an answer. It’s a wonderful poem to contemplate, don’t you think?


I am going to leave this as two shared poems for now, the entire collection is 239 pages and well worth reading slowly and savoring.

If you would like a copy for yourself, you may be able to find one in your local library or you may purchase a copy from Amazon using the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/Women-Praise-Sacred-Centuries-Spiritual/dp/0060925760


To learn more about Jane Hirshfield, please visit:

http://www.barclayagency.com/hirshfield.html


Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Red Dragonfly

I found this blog thanks to Don Wentworth’s mention of it on his blog and enjoyed Melissa Allen’s site very much. You will learn about various forms of poetry (Haiku, Haibun, Renga, etc.) and she is very warm and inviting in her writing. Check it out at:

http://haikuproject.wordpress.com/
Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for another featured book…

Poetry Tips: Close but no Cigar

Those of us who submit our poetry will often face rejections, but then there are those rejections you should pay special attention to: The ones with personalized notes saying you were close, or that you almost made it, and/or “please try again.” I recently received such a notice and I was elated, it was my first time submitting a chapbook manuscript and I almost made it! Sure, I was a little disappointed but then I realized the odds and was happy I got as far as I did and I’ll definitely try to submit again to the same place—but I hope to add some new ones to it if possible so it isn’t the exact same manuscript. I urge you all to save those “almost made it” notes to spur you forward because you are well on your way to publication. Take them out when you feel as though you don’t have what it takes in order to remind yourself that you do.

Good luck to all of you in your poetic endeavors, please drop in again next week…

AGNI Open Submissions

Even though you can submit on-line using their website you can also submit by mail so I’ve copy-and-pasted their guidelines:
Please:
• Address your submission to Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, or Nonfiction Editor. Translations and essays are welcomed.
• Send no more than one story, one essay, or five poems at a time. We have no word limits, but generally the longer a piece is, the better it needs to be to justify taking up so much space in the magazine. We will consider novel excerpts provided that they are cohesive enough to stand alone.

• Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) if you would like us to return your submission. Envelopes that are too small or have insufficient postage for a manuscript’s return will get our response, but the manuscript will be recycled. If you do not require the return of your manuscript and would like to be notified by email, please indicate clearly an email address where we can contact you (and skip the SASE).

• Familiarize yourself with AGNI by ordering a recent print issue or by perusing the work that appears online. This site includes selected pieces from the latest print AGNIs (e.g., 65 and 66), current web-only work, and archived fiction, poetry, and essays from both AGNI and AGNI Online.

Some Notes:
• WE DO NOT READ SUBMISSIONS SENT BY EMAIL; please submit online or send your manuscript to the mailing address below.

• Simultaneous submissions are acceptable and encouraged, but please notify us immediately if the work we are considering has been accepted elsewhere.

• Manuscripts mailed between June 1st and August 31st will be RETURNED UNREAD, provided sufficient postage is included. These dates do not apply to subscribers, whose mailed submissions the editors will read year-round.

• While we endeavor to deal with each submission quickly and fairly, we cannot, due to the overwhelming number of submissions, accept responsibility for your manuscript. Do not send us your only copy.

WHERE to send:
Manuscripts should be addressed to the Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, or Nonfiction Editor at:
AGNI Magazine
Boston University
236 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215

Please also visit their website for more details:
http://www.bu.edu/agni/submit.html

Good luck to all who submit, please drop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.juked.com/2011/01/thefutilityzoo.asp
“The Futility Zoo” by Laurie Barton

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15506
“The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy

Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Lilliput Review Issue #178

This latest collection includes poems about poems, late evenings and moonlight, and Zen filled moments. As always, I enjoyed a great many poems and can only share a small portion, I hope you enjoy them:


I forget the words
yet I remember the poem,

it is what carried me away from here
in the first place.

By: Charlie Mehrhoff of Oakland, Maine

The first two lines definitely struck a chord with me, how about you? Often you can remember a poem but not all of its exact words. The second two lines give it a sense of adventure, a poem that beckoned across the miles for you to explore outside your daily comfort zone. Thank you, Mr. Mehrhoff, for a short poem that hits the proverbial nail on the head.



the face
I prepared
collapsed
the firmness slipped
and Buddha crept in

By: Sanford Goldstein from Shibata-Shi, Japan

I picture a face hardened by life, then softened by the teachings of Buddha. I imagine enlightenment shining from the poet’s eyes.



old tombstone—

“life is long/eternity short”
reading it twice

By: John Elsberg of Arlington, Virginia


Yes, I too, read this twice. Then I read it again. Such a vivid picture and insight in so few words, don’t you agree? You cannot help but wonder how the phrase “life is long/eternity short” came into being from the loved ones honoring their departed. Food for thought, don’t you agree?


I hope you enjoyed a short sample of this issue, each issue is $1.00 for those of you who would like a copy for yourself.
Don Wentworth’s blog, titled Issa’s Untidy Hut, allows visitors to listen to rock music, learn about poetry, and gives us the opportunity to subscribe to his journal or purchase the latest chapbook. It’s a wonderful site and the comments section is always enjoyable to read. Please visit using the link below:

http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Monostitch Poet Blog

Grant Hackett sent me a link to his new blog, he writes wonderful one-line poems and they often appear in Lilliput Review so you may have seen his poems there and on Poet Hound before. Please check out his blog at:

http://monostichpoet.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please drop in tomorrow for another featured journal…