Poetry Tips: The Spring Fever Blues

It’s getting warmer and more beautiful by the day, and if you are like me, you’re feeling trapped at your desk wishing you could be outside doing anything else instead. Whether you are a student or an employee stuck inside, a truck driver stuck delivering packages, or any job where you find yourself gazing longingly at the outside world’s beautiful sunny weather I urge you to write a Trapped By The Spring Fever Blues type of poem. You can use a catchy refrain through a repeating line or stanza, you can lament the stuffy wardrobe you’re forced to wear when you’d rather be in your shorts and t-shirt outside, anything you wish for while “trapped” in your position.

May the muse be with you, thanks for dropping in…

Ballard Street Open Submissions

http://www.ballardstreetpoetryjournal.com/Submission_Guidelines.html

I copied and pasted all the details below, but check out their site before submitting your work!
To submit: send 3-6 original, unpublished poems at a time. Send us your best work. No greeting card verse. Be professional: include your name, address, phone number and email address in your cover letter. No simultaneous submissions please. Include a brief bio with your submission. There is no line limit, but shorter poems are preferred. Anything received outside of the reading periods will be returned unopen. Please do not send your work express mail or priority mail in order to meet the deadline- the post office automatically returns your submissions if it is not picked up on time. We check our mailbox every two weeks.
SASE must be enclosed for all postal submissions if you would like your work returned to you.
E-mail Submissions: after much indecision, we will continue accepting e-mail submissions for as long as we can handle the flow of incoming e-subs. E-mail submissions should also include a cover letter and brief bio. Send your poems in the body of the email; no attachments please. Bold face all titles. Include a back slash or forward slash to indicate line breaks.
Response time: approximately three months. The editorial staff meets after the deadline. We read our submissions blind and the editor mails/e-mails responses within 2 weeks after the deadline.

Editorial Address:
Ballard Street Poetry Journal
P.O. Box 3560
Worcester, MA 01613

Email Submissions:
editor@ballardstreetpoetryjournal.com

Good luck on all of your submissions, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/maria_hummel/letter_to_cain.shtml
Maria Hummel’s “Letter to Cain”

http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=14002
Jane Shore’s “Shopping Urban”

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

Les Murray

I picked up Les Murray’s book of poems titled The Biplane Houses from Farrar Straus Giroux. Les Murray is from Bunyah, New South Wales Australia and was born there October 17th, 1938. He writes novels in addition to collections of poetry and I thoroughly enjoyed reading his collection of poems. You can find out more about him using the link below which also includes links to some of his poems.

Several of his poems that I enjoyed were also quite short and it would be difficult to discuss them without including the entire poem. So I have selected two poems which are longer in his book so that it gives me more “room” for discussion, so to speak.

In his poem “The Kitchen Grammars” he likens the world’s languages to cooking a recipe. It’s a delightful way to create a poem and I was very happy to encounter it. There are clever lines such as “It’s the opening of a Celtic sentence/is a verb. And it was more fire and pot/for us very often than ingredients./” Then it goes on to say “…in Chinese/the verb surrounds itself nucleus-fashion/with its subjects and qualifiers./Down every slope of the wok they go/to the spitting middle/to be sauced.” I would love to include the poem in its entirety but of course I don’t usually give myself much time to request permission from the author. I hope you get to run across it yourself in the book-store or on the internet.

The next poem is “The Domain of the Octopus” which is several pages long and kept my attention the whole way. The octopus described in the poem sounds akin to a tall tale as it has a very peculiar description and long reach in lines such as “The Octopus can build dams/of tide to suspend the Axe creeks/” and “The Octopus can’t love/but can be loved…” This poem brings to life the sea and its participants, from the animals to the land and the people. I love the lines “Dolphins, like 3D surfboards/born in the ocean, curvet/around fenced oyster gardens.” It seems such an obvious comparison but one I’ve never made, Dolphins shaped like surfboards. Or how about “and the oysters lid themselves/in their gnarled cups, against pressure.” The pressure is from power boats, by the way. The oysters responding to humans who have no clue what lies below the surface seems typical of our every-day lives. I love imagining all the characters of the scene described by Mr. Murray in this poem and how everything connects.

If you ever get a chance I hope you’ll read his poems however and wherever you may encounter them. Like I said before, you can use the link provided to learn more about him and read some of his poems.


http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/226

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

Shadow Poetry Site

Now here is a useful site! Countless forms and types of poetry are described here for any poet that is looking for a new way or a reminder of how to structure a poem. This site guides you to solid resource books and has many wonderful ways to help any poet out there. I urge you to check them out at:

http://www.shadowpoetry.com/

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

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!

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by on Monday for another poetry web-site feature...

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…

Poetry Tips: Mother's Day

Surely, you knew this was coming? In other words, write a poem about your mother, or write a poem for your mother. In fact, it doesn’t have to be your mother per se, but anyone you’ve looked up to for guidance. So for Mother’s Day I ask you to write a tribute poem to the woman you admire most in your life and send/give it to her for Mother’s Day. Sounds simple enough, but if you are like me, many times those turn out to be cheesy poems. So I wish you luck and eloquence, may the muse be with you!

Thanks for dropping in, please stop by again on Monday…

Gloom Cupboard's Print Edition 3: Open Submissions

Straight from Richard’s e-mail:

Print Edition #3: It's only PoetrySubmissions are now being accepted for our third Print venture. All I ask is that you send a decent selection as this time each writer will have four pieces showcased. Mark your email 'Print Edition Submission'.Send what you deem to be appropriate

Also we have a new feaured writer section cleverly name 'Out of the Cupboard'

Out of the Cupboard: If you want to be considered for this new feature then all you need to do is send a batch of words and a bio. We will then interview you and shine the light in your eyes.

http://gloomcupboard.blogspot.com

email all subs. to aprilmaymarch777@yahoo.co.uk


Cheers
Richard


Thanks to Richard for the heads up, good luck to all of you submitting! Please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/Bernato.html
“Mission” by Richard Bernato

http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/Winter_2007/poems/D_Revell.html
“Under the Railway Bridge in Albi” by Donald Revell

Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow…

Poetry Slam

I received this book for my birthday a couple of months back and have been reading through it leisurely. Poetry Slam The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry is edited by Gary Mex Glazner and published by Manic D Press. Don’t you just love the publisher’s name?
I have never been to a poetry slam and I don’t believe there are any nearby, I’ve tried looking. However, this book is a wonderful read to learn about the art of performance through poetry and there are many poems from various slams included.
I normally review individual poets however there are too many to name in here so I will focus on what I’ve learned as a result of the book. How a poetry slam works: Basically you have the poets who are willing and ready to stand up in front of the crowd and entertain through their poetry. There are judges, and the judges are picked at random from the crowd. This happens at every show. Some slams have rewards for the best poet but it is entirely up to the venue.
General Rules for Slams: For national competitions, this book sums up the rules nicely. Poets have three minutes to perform their poem and points are deducted for going overtime. No one is allowed to use props or costumes but you can imagine that some people may wear clothing and accessories that leads others to argue as to whether they’ve broken the rule. Also, the poet must read their own poems, which seems simple enough. Unless you’ve co-authored a poem, and then it can be a bit tricky.
The book includes plenty of wonderful slam poems and one in particular caught my eye, and that is a poem titled “America (It’s Gotta Be The Cheese)” by Eitan Kadosh. I loved this poem so much I recited it animatedly and loudly several times to my husband. I’ll admit my husband could leave or take poetry but he loved this poem, too. The poet essentially boils down the essence of America into its love for processed cheese, such as your Kraft Singles, individually wrapped, and ties the cheese into all kinds of American cultural icons and moments. For example: “who shot J.F.K., J.R. Ewing, J.C. Penney—its gotta be the cheese/internment camps—it’s gotta be the cheese/the WWF—it’s gotta be the cheese/” and it continues. It doesn’t end every line with “it’s gotta be the cheese,” by the way. It does have a great flow if you read it aloud and certainly inspired me to want to give slam poetry a try.
If you get a chance to read this book you should, it can give you perspective on slams vs. poetry readings and perhaps get you involved if you aren’t already.

Thanks for reading, please stop by tomorrow for more poems found by poet hound….

Ibbetson Street Press' Blog

News, interviews, reviews, you name it, they’ve got it, all based out of Boston! Great reads, don’t miss it, check it out at:

http://dougholder.blogspot.com/

Thanks for checking in, please stop by tomorrow for a book review…