Poetry Tips: Chapbooks

The summer season is often a great time to submit a short collection of poems for chapbook contests and so I urge those of you who are interested to start gathering your poems together and forming a collection or two.

Poetry chapbook guidelines vary but a good range of poems to have on hand that are similar enough to make a sensible collection would be 15-37 poems.

As for outfitting a manuscript, you will want a title page, of course. Then an author’s contact information page followed by an acknowledgements page for any poems previously published elsewhere. Prepare a brief biography for those who request one, then begin setting up a table of contents and inserting one poem per page afterwards. This will give you a basic manuscript to work from until you can read the more specific guidelines of a particular press or journal.

Once June approaches you can check into this blog or do on-line searches for poetry chapbook open submissions and you’ll be well prepared to refine/adjust your manuscript for the press who you choose to send to.

Good luck to all who prepare poetry chapbooks, please drop in again next week…

Lilliput Review Open Submissions

Don Wentworth reads poems year round at Lilliput Review, your poems need to be ten lines or less, check out details at:
http://sites.google.com/site/lilliputreview/home


Good luck to all who submit, please stop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://magmapoetry.com/magma-49-reading/
“Errant” by W.N. Herbert, an audio poem


http://www.notellmotel.org/poem_single.php?id=860_0_1_0
“Ongoingnessness” by Eric Abbott


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

Arthur Sze's The Ginko Light

Arthur Sze was born in New York City and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from University of California at Berkeley. He has published nine books of poetry, he has conducted residencies at Bard College, Naropa University, and others. His poems have been translated into several languages including Albanian, Spanish, and Turkish. He was also the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he resides now with his family.

The Ginko Light is a collection inspired by a ginko tree that survived the bombing of Hiroshima, the poems within expose tragedy, fate, and survival. Arthur Sze links the beautiful moments of life to the everyday trials and tribulations that provide the richness, depth, and meaning to experiences. Below I will share with you one of the many poems I enjoyed:

Retrieval

A train passes through the Sonoran Desert
when a sudden sandstorm at night sweeps
through the windows: everyone gags
and curses—sand, eddying under the dim
ceiling lights, lodges on eyelashes, clothes,
hair. Memory is encounter: each incident,

a bee thrumming in a hive. You catch
the aroma of incense in a courtyard
but fret you have sleepwalked for hours.
Observing grasshopper legs in a nook,
you brood then exult that a bat roosts
under the eave, yet fail to notice

quince fattening on branches, ache
that your insights may be white smoke
to flame. Though you note toothpicks
at a cash register, an elk head with antlers
mounted to the back of a passing trailer,
you are given a penlight but, within

minutes, misplace it. Without premonition,
striding up a cobblestone street,
through a Patzcuaro doorway, you spot
a raised coffin with dissolving tapers
by each corner, and harbor a string
then tang, wax then honey on the tongue.

The first stanza captured my attention because I remembered the dust storms in El Paso when I lived there. The line “Memory is encounter” struck another chord as each memory that returns is a fresh encounter to the event. Arthur Sze’s descriptive language is rich and flavorful in this poem, especially at the end when he connects the reader to the simultaneous experiences of seeing the coffin and then tasting the tang and sweetness of death through the candles burning at each corner. It’s a beautiful, rich poem full of layers in which the reader can connect to through their own experiences or imagine the experience of the poet. Well done.




If you enjoyed this feature you may look for The Ginko Light by Arthur Sze in your local library, read other sample poems on-line and/or purchase a copy for yourself for $15.00 (not including shipping and handling) at:
https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg={6984537E-E403-4AB2-81E8-C4D0FC49EE4B}


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

Jeannie Lynne Paske's Obsolete World

These are not poems but the images and creatures Jeannie Lynn Paske creates are beautiful and imaginative and will inspire you, check it out at:


http://obsolete-world.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please click in tomorrow for another featured poet…

Poetry Tips: The Definition of Prose

After reading the guidelines to White Knuckle Press I wondered how to explain to readers the difference between a poem and a prose poem. I often think of prose as poetry presented in paragraph form but that is not a real definition.

Below are definitions I have discovered that explain the definition of Prose:


From the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Prose:
prose poem, a short composition employing the rhythmic cadences and other devices of free verse (such as poetic imagery and figures) but printed wholly or partly in the format of prose, i.e. with a right‐hand margin instead of regular line breaks. This genre emerged in France during the 19th century, notably in Charles Baudelaire's Spleen de Paris (1869) and Arthur Rimbaud's Les Illuminations (1886); a significant English sequence of prose poems is Geoffrey Hill's Mercian Hymns (1971). A prose poem is a self contained work usually similar to a lyric, whereas poetic prose may occur intermittently within a longer prose work.
(I think this is the best definition I found)


My Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Prose:

The ordinary language people use in speaking or writing

(I think this is the worst definition I’ve found)



So there you have it, two definitions, one more helpful than the other.


Good luck to all of you who write prose, please drop by again next week…

White Knuckle Press Open Submissions

If you write prose poems, then this is the place for you! Submit a manuscript of 10-12 previously unpublished prose poems before May 30th to as a word (.doc) or .rtf file using the on-line submission manager on the website. Your manuscript should include a title page, table of contents, a bio, an artist’s statement, and one prose poem per page. You should look at the website and find the previous published prose manuscripts (all available on-line) before submitting to make sure your poems fit the guidelines.

For more details and to use the on-line submission manager go to:

https://sites.google.com/site/whiteknucklepresscom/

Good luck to all who submit, please stop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3misNs3VCcs
“He-Man You Smarmy Bastard” by Daniel Crocker from Trailer Park Quarterly
*Plenty of foul language but very funny, you’ve been forewarned



http://www.poolpoetry.com/poeteight.html
“Waves” by Ellen Kaufman

Thanks for clicking in, please check in tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Henry Denander's The Loulaki Bar

Henry Denander’s collection of poems about Hydra, Greece is titled The Loulaki Bar and they do a fine job of making me want to vacation there. Published by Miskwabik Press Calumet Michigan USA, this book is also filled with beautiful illustrations by Mr. Denander himself showcasing the people, animals, and buildings of this little island. Below I am happy to share a small sample to entice you to visit this little island as well:

Cipporo

I wanted to pay Barba Yannis for his work
taking out the old lemon tree in our garden
and planting a new mandarin tree.
He took some money to pay for Nikos’ digging
and for the tree but he didn’t want anything for himself.

Yannis is 80 years old and one of the island’s
few experts on trees, he helps us every year.

But I will buy you a beer next time at
Taverna Kristina, I said.
He shook his head. No beer.
Only Cipporo, he said.

When he passed the taverna later that week
we offered him a glass of that clear white spirit.
It was stronger than Ouzo and too foul for me to drink.

Yannis told us how it made his leg better,
how it helped get rid of his kidney stones.
In the winter he had it with honey and never caught a cold.
Barba Yannis seems like a young boy, his eyes are
full of energy and mischief and he moves around like
he was 50 years younger.
He climbs our trees like a squirrel
and he has no trouble jumping up
on the roof from the ladder.

I may have to give the Cipporo
another try.

This poem is a great little story about a local man and I love that it’s a spry older gentleman who can take on stouter activities and drink than the poet is able to take on himself. Yannis reminds me of the people who turn 100 and are asked how they lived so long and the answer always seems to surprising “bacon,” or “raw eggs,” or “100 sit-ups every morning.” For Yannis, it is Cipporo.



The flood

We had a late lunch at Lulus’. They have
a really good new cook now and all
the local people have returned to the taverna.

But now, this rainy Thursday in early
November, we are the only guests and
the owner interrupts his game of Tavli
to serve us lunch.

Suddenly there is lightning and loud
thunder and the drizzling turns
to very heavy rain.

We know where there is a lot of rain,
the narrow streets leading down to the
harbor can turn into small channels,
flooded with water.

Five minutes later the water comes
gushing down the stone paved street
and the owner rushes out
to save his tables and chairs.

The water takes one of the tables and it swivels
down the street in the high stream of water;
fifty meters down we see an arm
coming out of the doorway of Spiros’ tavern
and he grabs the table before it makes it
down to the harbor and the sea.

Ten minutes later a small metal café table
takes off in the strong stream and the same arm
grabs it further down the street.

It looks like Spiros has done this before,
but of course,
he is used to waiting on tables.

This is another vivid story by Mr. Denander of local life. It’s funny and charming, just as I imagine the town of Hydra to be. I am ready to applaud Spiros for saving the day more than once for the tavern owner and I thoroughly enjoy such poems as these.



Basic Philosophy

People funding their children’s marriage, college,
university – living almost poorly themselves,
working five more years after retirement to bring
their children through college. Not allowing themselves
to do the things they always wanted to do…

There is something wrong here.

And their children will do the same,
live poorly, work all their life (or longer),
give money to their kids. Never retiring.

Our electrician here in Greece, Mr. Lameras,
says he has to work so hard because
his two daughters got married last year and
now one of them is at the university and
the other just had a baby.

Isn’t this a bit the same system as at McDonald’s,
when people are reserving seats before
standing in line for the food
and all the people waiting to sit down and eat
can’t find a free table because all is reserved.

I may be wrong but isn’t there
a conclusion to make out of this?

Maybe I will never eat at McDonald’s again.


This poem hits home for me because I already have made mental notes similar to the poets about older people working longer to help their adult children who in turn help their own children in an endless cycle of trying to help others without helping themselves first and all end up living poorly. What’s interesting is the comparison to standing in line at McDonald’s. Mr. Denander takes two groups of behaviors and finds them strikingly similar which I hadn’t thought of before. It’s an interesting poem and an even more interesting commentary on current social norms, don’t you think?



If you enjoyed these poems as I did, you may order a copy of The Loulaki Bar by Henry Denander for yourself for $18.00 (postage included no matter where you are in the world) at:
http://henrydenander.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=364&Itemid=1

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

Karen The Small Press Librarian

How can you not be intrigued by the title alone? Don Wentworth linked the interview which I have linked here, but do take time to peruse the other posts. It’s a wonderful blog by Karen Lillis:

http://karenslibraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/interview-with-pop-up-bookseller.html

Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for another featured poet…

Poet Hound has been interviewed at My Literary Quest

This is no April Fool’s joke, there are not Poetry Tips today. Instead, Jodi Milner of My Literary Quest has interviewed me for her site and I am happy experience the other side of an interview. Please check it out for yourself after 9AM at:

http://myliteraryquest.wordpress.com/

Thanks for dropping in, please drop in again next week…

Nerve Cowboy Open Submissions

While you do have to send a snail-mail submission with a return envelope, these editors welcome poetry all year-round. You may send up to five pages worth of poetry via snail mail (be sure to include your contact information in the top left corner of each page) to:

Joseph Shields and Jerry Hagins, Editors
Nerve Cowboy
PO Box 4973
Austin, Texas 78765

For further details check out their website submission guidelines at:
http://www.jwhagins.com/submission.html
Good luck to all who submit, please stop in again tomorrow…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/rhpissue40/bill-christophersen
“West Side Story” by Bill Christopherson

http://foreverwillendonthursday.wordpress.com/poems-ii/#our mother
“our mother” by Nic Sebastian


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

Sky Burial by Dana Levin

When I first read this book, Sky Burial, by Dana Levin, I put it down in frustration. I wasn’t ready to read deeply into the concept of death, burial, rituals… My life was filled with the mundane every day trials and tribulations of quickly fixing dinner before one of us ran off to our hobby group or game practice. Then came the day I found out a former co-worker was in the hospital. The next day I was told life support had been removed, the following morning I learned my former co-worker had passed away.

If and when you are faced with mortality you often try to find a way to put the concept of death into imagery or words and this brought me back to Dana Levin’s book, Sky Burial, with renewed interest and a need to find comfort or reason through words.

Dana Levin places the concept of mortality and death at the feet of religious rituals and humanity’s desire to commemorate or make sense of mortality.

While I am allowed to feature only one poem I find that I am equally torn between two: One is a prose poem about a “crazy woman” encountered in a restaurant in which the patrons and the poet do their best to appear to ignore her antics and yet their heads all tilt in her direction and the other poem is about the struggle of a woman who ultimately collapses and dies. The one about the crazy woman tugs at me personally given my background in advocating for people with mental health issues and how our society has a very long way to go in the treatment of those with mental health illness. However, given the title of the book and the recent death of a former co-worker I will, of course, feature the poem about the struggle with death:



Bardo

You don’t have to break it. Just give it a little
tap.


tap tap. See,

there’s the crack. And you pry it a little
with the flat end of that spoon,

you’ll be able to slip yourself through.


--


To the woods where you’re walking. Crushed ice above you
like a layer of sky—

Some sun under it making it gleam.

Some snow under it bloodless and bright

in the fissured heart, the winter morgue of its imagined
land.

Where you can find her—

Sprawled, facedown, in the snow—

Bracing herself up, a puff of ice at her chin, then seizing
and dying all over again—


Automaton. You prop her up.

And it’s like shaking a doll, How dare it, How dare it—

What



--



good is she for, there in her dying machine?

You push her shoulders back against the trunk of the tree,
her chest’s so cold it cracks—

so you can slip yourself through.
To the woods she’s been walking,

wondering where the living has gone.


This poem struck me because I realized that once life support is taken away it then becomes a struggle to breathe on one’s own. For my co-worker, that struggle quickly came and was gone. That sort of struggle is detailed here along with how fragile life is. The beginning of the poem details the tapping and cracking of an egg and then the words “slip through” detail not only how easy it is to slip into a fragile egg but how a soul is just as fragile and slip from its human vessel and into something else—the unknown. There are so many layers that make up the poem, the main character watching the woman dying, the bloodless snow a clue that the blood has drained from the woman’s face as she struggles again for breath, the cracking of the egg and then the cracking of the woman’s chest. There are so many layers in this relatively short poem which shows the depth and careful construction wrought by Ms. Levin. I feel this poem encapsulates Ms. Levin’s talents throughout the whole collection and also speaks to me personally which is what most poets aim for—connection.


Ms. Levin lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and has graduated from both Pitzer College and NYU’s Graduate Creative Writing Program. She has received honors and awards from Rona Jaffe’s Writer’s Award, a Writer Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress and has received the Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. Her work in this collection has previously appeared in such publications as The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Memorious, and many others.

If you enjoyed this review of Sky Burial by Dana Levin and the small sample from this book, you may purchase a copy for yourself for $15.00 (not including Shipping and Handling) at Copper Canyon Press by using the link below:
https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg={BA2C9C20-D694-40FC-9A47-86BD96872BCC}


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

Forever Will End on Thursday Web-Site

Nic Sebastian’s poems and notes on the trials and tribulations of publishing poems are gathered smartly at her web-site, be sure to check it out at:

http://foreverwillendonthursday.wordpress.com/

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