Coconut Open Submissions

You may send 3 to 8 poems to Editor Bruce Covey by e-mail to submit AT coconutpoetry DOT org and be sure to include “Poetry Submission” in the subject line and perhaps your last name as well. Paste your poems into the body of the e-mail and you have until September to submit. Please check out the site for more details and to check out the types of poems they publish:
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http://www.coconutpoetry.org/submit14.html
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Good luck to all of you who submit! Please stop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.angelicdynamo.com/poems/03/
“Lessons” by Fatima Al Matar
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http://anti-poetry.com/liszkiewiczaj1/
“Emperor Ink” by A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz
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Thanks for clicking in, please drop by for more Open Submissions…

Announcement

It is that time of year again where my dance troupe prepares for its Annual BIG SHOW at the end of July so I will be paring down posts to Tuesday through Thursday to allow myself more time for mending costumes and practicing technique. Things will go back to normal on the first full week of August.
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I didn’t have time to do a review for Tuesday--preparing for the show, cleaning the house after entertaining relatives over the 4th of July weekend, and trying to remove and move around furniture took up my available time for this week.
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Please stop in on Wednesday, wish me luck on the performance and apologies for any inconveniences….

Poetry Tips: Title Up At The Used Book Store

I recently went into a used book store and found a plethora of bizarre and fabulous titles such as “How To Become A Virgin” and a very large book titled “A Short History of Opera” and it inspired me to create poems based off these finds. I am passing the idea on to you of going to a used book-store and finding titles that inspire you to write poems or combine titles to create a poem. Have fun and feel free to share!

Thanks for stopping by, please stop by next Monday…

Literary Mary Open Submissions

You may send up to six of your best poems as an attachment via e-mail to literary.mary.submissionsATgmailDOTcom. You absolutely must check out the guidelines in detail in order for your submission to be successful. Please use the subject line of the e-mail to place your name and “Poetry” for the type of submission and include your contact information in your e-mail. Check out the rest of the details at:
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http://literarymary.com/forum/index.php?topic=10800.msg106768
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Good luck to all of you who submit and please drop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://apt.aforementionedproductions.com/twenty/acuff.htm
“A La Mode” by Gale Acuff
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http://arseniclobster.magere.com/190202.html
“On the Night of her Wake” by Christina Cook
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Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

A.D. Winans' Days In Heaven Nights In Hell

A.D. Winans’ collection Days in Heaven Nights in Hell is book nine in the Pocket Protector Series from Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press. I “dog-eared” the majority of the pages because the poems really struck a chord with me. A.D. Winans can be blunt, witty, and familiar all at once. I am more than happy to share some of them with you:
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City Poet
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Once addiction sets in
There’s no stopping it
You become a serial killer
Attacking the keyboard at will
Your mind working in shifts
Strange creatures live inside
Your head and show no mercy
Give no ground force your fingers
To do their bidding
Writing down their thoughts
In your looseleaf notebook
The city is your slaughterhouse
Like a wife it accommodates
Your moods doesn’t seem to mind
Your giving her a bad name
You walk her streets like a vampire
Lapping up your own blood
On nights when word transfusions
Are not enough.
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The disembodiment of poetry vs. the writer is entertaining. Poetry as an “It” shape-shifts throughout the poem in an alarming way which only Mr. Winans can describe and makes writing an adventure. It’s marvelous.
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Going Back In Time
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I was looking at my scrapbook the other night
while listening to an old Dylan record
and there I was in my youth traveling
from California to Arizona and places
farther west
heading in so many directions
it was like getting lost in the
trick-mirrors at the old fun house
and there were the women
then young girls
free flowing spirits who gave
their minds and bodies at the
slightest invitation
and nights too lying alone
in tangled sleep feeling
like a deer caught in barbed wire
or sitting hunched over cold and disheveled
at the local Greyhound station
fighting off the eyes of leering men
who preferred boys to women
Now seventy and counting
I realize I was there and back so fast
like a train running out of track
returning home carrying my life
in a Knapp-sack
the days the months the years
hung out to dry
like your mother’s washing
on an old clothesline.
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I enjoy recounting Mr. Winans’ adventures alongside him in this poem. A brief glimpse of travels veers into surprises such as the experience of “leering men/who preferred boys to women” and the rush of traveling down memory lane back to the present. He touches and goes in the poem the same way his memory does and executes this beautifully.
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Untitled
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At 71, death plays with me
Cases my apartment
Like a cat burglar
Sniffing at the four corners
Of my bedroom
Toys with me like a cat
Toys with a spool of thread
On good days he allows
Me a poem or two
Words of thunder
Then the melancholy sets in
Blackbirds flap their wings
Against the window panes
In the kitchen a spicy sauce
Simmers on the back-burner
An opera playing on the radio
Stills the winter chill
Leaves me feeling
Like a drifter walking through
A ghost town.
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Mr. Winans’ poem on death and aging is poignant in its mysteriousness. Death peeks in during every day moments while cooking or writing and leaves Mr. Winans with a chill on his skin which can be felt on my own while reading.
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If you enjoyed this sample of poems, you can purchase A.D. Winans’ collection, Days In Heaven Nights In Hell for $3.00 at Propaganda Press through Alternating Current. Alternating Current allows authors to set royalties and is one of the few places where small press poets can receive payment for their work. It is a wonderful way to support small press poets and I urge you to check out Alternating Current at:
http://alt-current.com/
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Thanks always for reading, please drop in tomorrow for more Poems Found By Poet Hound…

Fiddler Crab Review Blog

Yes yes yes!!! This blog reviews poetry chapbooks weekly from presses found all over and poets from all over. You absolutely must learn more by clicking the link below:
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http://fiddlercrabreview.blogspot.com/
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Thanks for checking in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…

Poetry Tips: En Vogue, Too Much, or Not Enough

It occurred to me the other day when an acquaintance bravely asked to read me a poem that was lovely and then related his difficulties in feeling he had too much rhyme and how many times he revised it that brought to mind my own qualms in editing my own poems. Your tip today is to abandon all the imagined critics in your head—the academic critic, the editor-of-a-particular-journal critic, the self-critic, and any other imaginary critic that begins to speak as you begin to revise or revisit your poems.
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Whatever poems you come up with for the rest of the week allow them to flow out of you and leave them as they are. If you feel you are going to revise it to please a particular editor or person realize that you must first please yourself. If it pleases you, leave it alone. There is nothing wrong with rhyme, cliché subject matter, cliché phrases, so long as you enjoy the poem it is yours for the keeping.
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Have a happy and safe 4th of July to all my fellow Americans!
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Thanks for dropping in, please stop by on Monday for another featured site…

Fragile Arts Quarterly Open Submissions

Fragile Arts Quarterly has not put a moratorium on submissions yet so I believe they are still open to receiving up to 10 poems which you can submit via e-mail to: moongazepubATmywayDOTcom

Check out their style and guidelines at:

http://fragile-arts-quarterly.blogspot.com/

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

Testing....

http://www.versedaily.org/2009/fracture.shtml

“Fracture” by Leslie Adams

http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooThirtyfive/rohnert.html

“IV By a hair’s breadth” by Jan Volker Rohnhert, translated from German (scroll down)

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.versedaily.org/fracture.shtml
"Fracture" by Leslie Adams


http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooThirtyfive/rohnert.html
"IV by a Hair's Breadth" by Jan Volker Rohnhert, translated from German

Thanks for clicking in...

I'm having difficulty with posting now that I've up-dated my web browser so there may be a delay in posts from now on...

B. Z. Nidith's Boston, Fall and Other Poems

B. Z. Niditch has been a feature on Poet Hound before, check out my interview with him about his collection called Portraits Here: B. Z. Niditch's Portraits
Mr. Niditch’s book, Boston, Fall and Other Poems was published by Encircle Publications, LLC in 2008 and is based out of his experiences in Harvard and places around Massachusetts. The poems are divided into two parts, Part I is titled Harvard Square, Part II is titled Diary. The poems in both sections are beautiful and expressive while encompassing small moments around campus or on the water. Below I will share some small samples:

In a poem titled “Public Gardens” I am enchanted by the sight described by Niditch: “planting your steps/by sacks of rose petals/in public gardens,/noon day seems endless/and a friend waits up.” I can’t help but wonder what the sacks of rose petals are for while he watches his friend and ends this short poem with “for a deafened half-hour/your arms are sealed/by wheel barrels/or rose tattoos.” I like the image of “rose tattoos” of petals clinging to bare arms as they are carried. It is a moment in time that leaves me wanting more.

In “Diary” the lines begin as “By the troubled river/you write Tuesday/on footsteps of a page/the charred diary/moves to the opposite shore/of flagging remorse…” I wonder if the diary is the owner’s or has been recently discovered. Again, Mr. Niditch reveals just enough and uses interesting images such as “on footsteps of a page” to entice us to read further. The one holding the diary is looking out on the water “in regret,/watching sparrows/…on an abandoned landscape/” and Niditch continues to observe in silence “you touch the water/with your tender fingertips/in clumsiness of enigmas/and feel hatless/and anonymous/to your own signature.” This is how he concludes the poem, he ends it in a way I think we can all relate to when we are feeling sad or lost. “anonymous/to your own signature” are powerful words as they sink in. This is another poem that says just enough and leaves me wanting more of the story.

“The Insomniac” is a clever description of a sleepless night which made me smile. The entire first stanza is superb but I will give just the tail end of it: “flashlights play with you/trembling, “time out”/and the alarm clock/refuses to speak.” Any sleepless night means frequent glances at the alarm clock and the endless consternation of time passing slower and slower. Those lines are a perfect portrayal. The second stanza is just as superb but of course I can only give you a small piece: “tossing from sea beds/rolled in blankets/of deafened nights/bent over sleepy wilderness.” You can easily liken the rolling, restless slumberer to rolling in underwater “sea beds” or being lost in the imaginary “sleepy wilderness.” His words allow your imagination to run while also evoking empathy for the insomniac in the poem.

If you enjoyed this review you will be happy to know this book is still available at Encircle Publications for just under $12.00. I hope that you will enjoy these beautiful poems as much as I do and it may be in your local library, so it would be worth taking a look.

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

Gloom Cupboard's New Editor

Richard Wink at Gloom Cupboard is welcoming a new poetry editor on board, her name is Dorla Moorehouse and you can now submit your poetry to her at dorlamoorhouseATgmailDOTcom when you check out guidelines using the link below:


http://www.gloomcupboard.com/


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

Hayden's Ferry Review Open Submissions

This journal based out of Arizona State University is open to submissions year round! Please address Poetry submissions to editor Rose Swartz and Prose submissions to editors to Brian Lee or Arijit Sen. You may send up to six poems via snail mail (be sure your contact information is included on each page) with a self-enclosed stamped envelope to:

Hayden’s Ferry Reviewc/o Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative WritingArizona State UniversityPO Box 875002Tempe, AZ 85287-5002

For further details, click the link below:
http://www.asu.edu/clas/pipercwcenter/publications/haydensferryreview/submit.html

Good luck to all who submit, please stop in next week...