Poetry Tips: Cover Letters

To be honest, I’m not fond of trying to come up with cover letters when sending out poems and for those of you who are nervous, here are some things you can do. Format your cover letter the way you would for a job application. You’ll want to provide your contact information, details about what you have published or at least what poems are enclosed. Thank the editor for their time and end it just as you would a cover letter for a potential job.
For those of you out there who have done many cover letters, any suggestions in the comments section for myself and readers would be greatly appreciated!

I wish you all success as you send out poems and cover letters, please drop in again Monday…

34th Parallel Open Submissions

They are open year-round but choose carefully as you may only send one poem via e-mail as a Microsoft Word or .rtf attachment. You will also need to include a cover letter and while they accept simultaneous submissions be sure to notify them if your poem is accepted elsewhere. Send your poem and cover letter to the poetry editor at:
submissionsAT34thparallelDOTnet

Check out more details at:
http://www.34thparallel.net/submit.html

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21986
“Dawn Dreams” by Rachel Hadas

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178529
“Problems of Translation: Problems of Language” by June Jordan

Thanks for clicking in, please drop in tomorrow for more open submissions…

Spare Change Poetry by Ed Galing

Ed Galing sent me a collection of poems that he allowed Spare Change to publish in 2001. Spare Change is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and provides a means of employment for the homeless in the area. The local homeless sell copies of the Spare Change newspaper for $1.00 on the streets. The press itself is based out of Old Cambridge Baptist Church according to Wikipedia. I will include links at the end for you to learn more about this press because it certainly piqued my interest when Mr. Galing wrote me a letter about it while including this chapbook collection of poems.

The poems inside this collection by Ed Galing describe the hardships of growing up in poverty and then growing old in poverty. As always, Mr. Galing is straightforward and illuminating. Below I am happy to share these poems with you:


Look At Me

Look at me,
Remember me?
I laid down
In the middle
Of the street

Last week
And police
Trampled me
With their horses feet,

While I protested,
And protested

In a land of
Freedom of speech,

And democracy.

They finally
Dragged me and
Threw me into
The police wagon

And took me to
Jail for disorderly
Conduct protesting
Poverty and homelessness,

And it was then
That I took my
Good conduct medal
The army had
Given me,

And threw it in the trash can.

The ending of the poem produces the dramatic impact that is unfortunately necessary these days to bring home the message that we tend to ignore in the news: That free speech isn’t always “free speech” and that the good causes we stand up for are often trampled and mislabeled as “disorderly conduct” because heaven forbid anyone brings the real issues into the light of day. Ed delivers the impact of the absurd treatment of the protestor fighting for others in his home country, his home town, into sharp focus in this poem by throwing away the hard-earned Army Medal for Good Conduct.



Bitter Roots
i never sold apples
during the depression

on this new york
street that i passed by

each day, you would find
them, men with wooden
crates, upon which the

apples rested, and below
the scrawled sign,
“buy an apple and help me…
five cents…”

the men were always so
sad looking and old before
their time, defeated by an

enemy over whom they had no
control,

millions unemployed and out
of work, and i too, was
one of them,

existing on a welfare check
of twenty dollars a week,

living in a cold water flat
alone, and broke…
and often i would shiver in
the cold air, stop, and buy
a sweet apple, munching it
on the way home to nothing,

thinking, it could be me,
it could be me…

and from then on,
even until these days,

an apple has never tasted
the same again.

Times are hard now and I like sharing poems that echo hard times of the past. In this one, Ed shares his days of living on welfare and thinking of the apple sellers as he munches on their wares where it becomes a symbol for him of the hard times he has left behind. As a result, he shares that apples have never tasted the same since. I hope all of us can keep going and make it through these current hard times just as Ed Galing has.



Street Musician

My father was never
Isaac Stern

the famous violinist

but he learned to play
the violin by ear

and would go out
on the street

and play simple
melodies

and people would
open up their
windows

and toss coins
out to him wrapped
in tissue paper

my father was the
original street musician

playing for everyone.

He was the Pied Piper
of the lower east side.

and he did a creditable
job of creating music
in the midst of squalor

sometimes he even
came home with a
dollar or two

but his devotion
was worth
millions.

I find this poem a wonderful sentimental memory to ponder. The fact that people took the time and care to wrap their coins in tissue paper before tossing them to the musician captures my attention and my imagination, as though they are small gifts raining from the sky. Indeed, the musician most likely saw these wrapped coins as precious gifts and his family benefitted from them. Equally precious is Mr. Galing’s father’s devotion to learning to play well despite the small financial rewards and therefore makes the case that the devotion and care to playing well is worth millions. Mr. Galing has the ability to create vivid pictures in fairly sparse details with his lines and I admire him for it.



Blood Bank Days

i just had about enough
money to make the blood bank
in center of town
that day…
I was broke and hungry..
the center city blood bank
was commercial…
they paid you six bucks
for a pint of blood,
and sold it to others for
many times over, the bastards,
but that was it for me,
and i was too ashamed to beg…
trolley dropped me off on the corner,
and i walked in, to a room full
of down and outers like myself;
all ages, all sexes; all colors;
one thing we all had in common,
we were all there for the same reason.
nurse pricked my finger, dropped
the blood into a bottle, and it showed
i had enough iron in me to go ahead;
few minutes later i am layin
there in the cot,
nurse smiles and jams needle into
my arm, and hangs up bottle, and tells
me to keep squeezing…
i lay there, lookin at the bottle
slowly fillin up with my blood,
my hand pumpin in and out,
and i feel rotten, and dirty, and
ashamed,
but keep thinking of that six
bucks, and the donut i will soon get
with the coffee,
and enough money to ride home.

This poem struck me because I am so used to seeing the Blood Donor vans and think about how many people volunteer their blood to save others and then here is a poem about people who are barely scraping by giving their lifeblood to continue living while at the same time saving lives. It’s quite a revelation when you think about it. A new take on giving blood not only to save someone else but to save yourself from going hungry another day.



homeless poem

when a homeless man
writes a poem

you can bet
he won’t
do it with
just mere
words

he will use
the blood
that dripped
from his skull

the day the
cop hit him
over the head
with his billy

for no reason
except he was taking
up space in
the bus terminal

and refused to
leave

he will write
his poem

as he stand
on corners

begging
it won’t be a
pretty poem

I feel this is the appropriate poem to end with as the collection was sold by homeless men on the streets and these are poems written by a man who has lived through hard times and can speak for those living in hardship using his own first-hand knowledge. As Mr. Galing says, the homeless man’s poem will not be a “pretty poem.”


Imagine all of the poems we read on-line or in books, in journals, and then think of the poets who we rarely hear from: the poor, the homeless, the severely ill. These are not pretty poems and this feature is not a pretty feature. Just the same, I hope you found them worth reading and I hope you will learn more about this press who helps the homeless.

For the Wikipedia link to learn more about the history of Spare Change and how they work with the homeless please use this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spare_Change


To read an interview with a former editor of Spare Change who was no stranger to drugs and life on the streets, see Doug Holder’s interview with Spare Change’s editor Marc Goldfinger at:

http://www.examiner.com/arts-in-boston/interview-with-spare-change-news-poetry-editor-marc-goldfinger


To learn about Spare Change’s expansion from an article published in September of this year, please go to:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/x1685472044/Cambridge-based-Spare-Change-News-expands-to-Worcester


To learn more about Ed Galing, please visit his blog at:

http://edgaling.blogspot.com/


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

Propaganda Press

I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Don’t forget to include poetry for gifts for Christmas this year! Alternating Current’s catalog at Propaganda Press includes many wonderful choices and features poets that have appeared on Poet Hound such as: Ed Galing, Hosho McCreesh, Justin Barrett, Christopher Cunningham, Leah Angstman, Julian Gallo, David Pointer, and countless more.

Take a peek and order at:

http://alt-current.com/pp/pp_catalog.html

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

Poetry Tips: Holiday Poems

Plenty of holidays for various countries and religions are approaching and why not use this time to write poems to family and friends as gifts? You can also write poetic prayers for dinner gatherings with family or create a holiday poem for your holiday cards. Last year I sent out a Christmas poem printed on cardstock instead of buying cards at the store. They are inexpensive to make and the time you put into them means more than the store-bought version. If you’ve created poems for gatherings or cards I’d be interested to know in the comments section, let myself and other readers know what family and friends thought of them, too.

Best wishes to all who try it, please drop in again next week…

Bolts of Silk Open Submissions

Open year-round, you may send between three and six poems up to 40 lines to Juliet Wilson who also runs the Crafty Green Poet blog. Include your name, contact information, and country of origin as Juliet Wilson accepts poems in English, Scots dialects, German, French, Italian or Spanish. In the subject line please include the words “Bolts of Silk.”
E-mail her at Juliet.M.WilsonATgmailDOTcom

Please make sure these poems have not been previously published within the last six months unless it has been in your personal blog and include a link to your blog if you have one.

For more details go to:

http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com/p/submission-guidelines.html

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://saltgrasscontents.blogspot.com/2010/03/lisa-jarnot.html
“Music of Night for Michael Gizzi” by Lisa Jarnot


http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com/2010/11/curtain-of-wine-bottle-tops-by-mavis.html
“A Curtain of Wine Bottle Tops” by Mavis Gulliver


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

Dancing Girl Press

Kristy Bowen champions women in her selections of chapbook manuscripts and her on-line literary journal Wicked Alice is also a delight to read. Please check out the chapbooks available and the poems at Wicket Alice by using the link below:

http://www.dancinggirlpress.com/index2.html

Thanks for clicking in, please drop in again on Wednesday…

Blue Mesa Review Open Submissions...

You may send up to five poems via their on-line submissions system if you use the link below or you may mail your poems with your contact information and a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Poetry Editor
Blue Mesa Review
Department of English
MCS 03-2170
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

Please see the link below for more details:

http://www.unm.edu/~bluemesa/submissions.htm

Good luck to all who submit, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips.

Also, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you celebrating out there, may you have some downtime to be creative and please drop in again next week...

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.juked.com/2010/11/somethingthathappenedinbrooklyn.asp
“Something That Happened in Brooklyn” by Andrew James Weatherhead

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21963
“Cherry Blossom Storm” by Henri Cole

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

Kimiko Hahn's Toxic Flora

Kimiko Hahn is a poet who was born in 1955 in Mount Kisco, New York, to a Japanese American mother and a German American Father, both of whom were artists. Ms. Hahn received her undergrad English degree from the University of Iowa and her Master’s in Japanese literature in Columbia University. She has several collections of poetry including “The Unbearable Heart” which received an American Book Award. I found her book Toxic Flora in my local library and the poems are elegant, fierce, and complex while beautiful and thought provoking. She mixes real life with scientific forays into plants and insects and often connects the discoveries to revelations about her own family. Here I will share a few excerpts from a few poems below:

Yellow Jackets

protect through venom and candor

While timing their own dinners
to mother’s tray, father’s tongs,

…

they can sting any intruder repeatedly
unlike the honeybee’s suicidal sortie.

…

through simple narration:
your mouth never stops moving.

Or, you eat off other plates as if they’re your own.

…

A startling attribute I wish I could emulate
if only my sting possessed such integrity.

I could not include the poem in its entirety since I do not have permission from the poet or publisher to do so however I hope I’ve included enough to do the poem justice. Ms. Hahn incorporates the stinging activities of the yellow jacket with the stinging words in italics of people which makes a great pairing in the poem to get its point across. The poet wishes she had the ability to sting with words the way a yellow jacket is able to sting repeatedly its enemy. Don’t we all wish we had that ability at times?



On Butterflies

Only the rare butterfly eats
live things:

the Hyposmacoma’s caterpillar
weaves silk around a mollusk

fastening the shell to a leaf
then sticks its head inside,

eating the snal alive.

…

to a wolf that dives for clams.

I see it as a little girl
who tears apart a little friend

…

Or a mother who rips open her own infant

to release the demon inside.
This hunger is less rare

than a butterfly with sharp teeth.
My mother is from Maui.

I really hope both publisher and poet forgive me for including nearly the entire poem but it is hard to portray the meaning without including most of the lines. In any case, what I love is that the poet first finds a rare phenomenon among a particular species and then pairs it with the destructive behaviors (not always so rare) among humans who tear each other apart either physically, mentally, or emotionally. The ending line “My mother is from Maui” is the most startling of the entire poem. Is Ms. Hahn’s mother cruel? Or is she simply from the same location as this particular species of butterfly? Either way I enjoy being left to ponder the idea as it lends itself towards re-reading the poem and taking in more details. Children who hurt their friends, mothers who try to release the demons in an infant and what kind of demons would an infant possess? Finally, what about her mother? The ultimate curiosity with which we’re left on our own to ponder.



Space
For W

I don’t understand space—the emptiness

…

Take the protostar: I can’t grasp
how clouds of dust and gas can collapse

then suck up more stuff and expand

…

where did Mother disappear
after the car crash? Where

is my daughters’ grandmother
since they’ve learned there is no heaven—

except for rose, hedge, and pine?

…

a thing breaks down
yet shows no sign of ceasing?

And what now is the nature of her form?


Existential, yes, but poetry is about life, death, the living in between. Ms. Hahn questions what happens to the soul after death, the energy that space takes up despite constant collapse and destruction, death and rebirth. Who among us doesn’t wonder the same thing when a loved one passes away? Ms. Hahn’s version is elegant, spare, and beautiful which is what we need to read sometimes in order to find solace.




I hope that you enjoyed the excerpts of these poems, I can only hope I did them justice. There are countless poems I would like to share and many are too short for me to pull excerpts from so I urge you to find a copy for yourself.

To learn more about Kimiko Hahn, see the link below:

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1536

To obtain a copy of Toxic Flora for yourself you may find one in your own local library or at:

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Toxic-Flora/


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

Press Press Press

This blog has been a longtime feature on the sidebar and considering that the gift-giving holidays are rapidly approaching I feel that this would be a wonderful site to look over the latest poetry chapbooks available for the lover-of-poetry in your lives. You can also jot down titles and the website for your own Christmas list, check it out at:

http://presspresspress.blogspot.com/

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

Internet troubles

Hello Everyone,
My computer last night mysteriously began having trouble with its IP address so while we have internet, my computer cannot log on. If you any of you know how to fix that as I am not very good with computers, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise there may be a delay in posts while I call up the experts.

In the meantime, have a wonderful weekend!

Lilliput Review Open Submissions

Send up to 3 poems, each must be ten lines or less including the title, to Don Wentworth via snail mail with a self-addressed, stamped envelope enclosed to:
Lilliput Review
Don Wentworth, Editor
282 Main Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15201


For further details, check out the website:

http://sites.google.com/site/lilliputreview/home

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