Poetry Tips: Silence is Golden

This week I want you to think about silence and how rare it is to find these days. There really is no complete absence of sound unless you are in a vacuum but there are quiet moments, do you treasure them or fear them? Write about what silence means to you in a situation or in a particular place.

Good luck to all who try it, please drop by again Monday…

Nerve Cowboy Chapbook Contest Open Submissions

Deadline is January 31st, 2011 so please hurry! You will need to submit 24-40 pages of poetry along with a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope with enough postage for your submission to return and there is a $10.00 Entry Fee in which you may address your check to “Nerve Cowboy.”

1st Prize: $200.00 and 50 copies of published chapbook

2nd Prize: $100 and 30 copies of published chapbook.

All entrants will receive a copy of the winning chapbook and a discounted price on the second prize chapbook.

Send you manuscript, SASE, and entre fee to:

Nerve Cowboy Chapbook Contest
PO Box 4973
Austin, TX 78765

You can also check out their website at:

http://www.jwhagins.com/nervecowboy.html


Good luck to all of you who enter, please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.juked.com/2010/12/mm.asp
“mm.” by Barton Smock

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22047
“My Heart” by Kim Addonizio

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

Nerve Cowboy Issue 30, Fall 2010

I cannot possibly share all of the poems I would like to—it would be almost the entire journal. Nerve Cowboy is known for nitty gritty, no-holds-barred straightforward poetry from real people experiencing the pains and joys of real life. I thoroughly enjoyed the issue cover to cover. Below I am happy to share several with you:

My Brother’s Life

It was the morning after
the night I had thrown
a shot glass at a woman.
The morning after the night
I had threatened to stab.
The morning after the night
of kicked in, broken doors
that I visited my brother’s
wife, the last remnants of
a Crown Royal bottle in my hand.
There was a therapist there
playing with my Autistic nephew
quietly in the other room
as I stood in the corner of the kitchen
watching my brother’s wife wash dishes,
drapes pushed aside the little window
above the sink, the sun coming through
with a bellyful of bird chirps and golden light
to illuminate her Mexican, African, Indian face.
Beautiful. I stood in awe and
for once my lips were parted, my nose not efficient
enough to let out the small gasps
that rose directly from my heart valves.
It wasn’t just love. It was envy mixed with love
and happiness for my brother, as my nephew’s laughter
Blinked in from the other room
and I brought the bitter smooth whiskey
to my parted lips. This stupid beauty
I’ll never be intelligent enough to understand,
for after all the violent, sad, lone nights
trying to obtain something great
I envy you this, brother, today.

By: Mathias Nelson of La Crosse, WI

This poem is bold, imagine being in the poet’s shoes and confessing your admiration and love and envy for your brother’s wife? He juxtaposes his wildness against the wife’s calm, the calm sounds of daylight against his inner conflicts. I like the line “bellyful of bird chirps” because you can get a sense of the surroundings as he stares at this picturesque moment of sunlight streaming in the kitchen window as the wife washes her dishes on an ordinary day. The poet admits his faults in the poem, a very brave thing most people cannot do, and lets the world read his anguish. Of course we can assume some poetic license, but it is still a striking and bold concept, a man admitting love and envy for a brother’s wife, and the brother’s life.



Dictionary Divinity

In the middle of an argument,
a boy I once dated
told me I was being brash.
You don’t mean brash, I said.
Brash is over-the-top
curvy hips
Bette Midler
truck driver language
spewing out through red lips.
It’s the cleavage shot that seduces
from tight black sweaters
sometimes accidental,
but not always.
It’s a cubic zirconium diamond
that’s a little too big to be real.
It’s shots of whiskey
sex on the first date
tattoos and fishnet stockings.
I wasn’t being brash
I am brash
I was being harsh,
and I couldn’t want a boy
who didn’t know the difference.

By: Stephanie Brea of Jeanette, PA

This poet kicks the boy in the teeth with her argument, which makes me grin. Putting him in his place she explains the difference and leaves him in the dust by refusing him. Most women savor the moment when they can finally tell off a man who is bothering them so I enjoy posting this one.



The Hotel Lifshin Isn’t Taking Any More Guests

it needs time to recover.
the hotel can’t keep up
with demands: 17 kinds
of olive oil, seventeen
brands of de-caf coffee.
The hotel doesn’t quite
remember a season like
this. The newspaper
in the lobby shredded,
torn before 8 AM. And
the books a couch
has been propped up on for
reasons the hotel doesn’t
know, mined, unless
you like to read books
where each page is
mostly a hole.

By: Lyn Lifshin of Viena, VA

This poem spurs my imagination, there is just enough to picture but not enough to satisfy which can make a poem even better. To a point, it sounds like this is a poet’s house and that the guests of her home have not been very kind in regards to the hospitality provided. At the same time, it really could be a hotel but wouldn’t a hotel repair a couch that was propped up by books? The questions the poem brings up are intriguing—who shreds a newspaper before 8 AM? Why would someone take books from a couch that are ruined from propping up a couch for a long, long time? If Lyn Lifshin happens to stumble upon this feature I hope some of the questions could be answered in the comments section if only to say it was an idea that popped up and not an actual event. No matter what, I enjoyed the poem because of all the mysteries that crop up and trying to picture who these guests are.



I hope you enjoyed this small sample, there were many more I wanted to share but feel you should obtain a copy for yourself!
To learn more about Nerve Cowboy and how to subscribe, please go to:

http://www.jwhagins.com/nervecowboy.html


Thank you for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Oh Hells Nah Blog

A very funny woman writes about poetry, politics, and food from Chicago on this blog. You will have to scroll down a bit to get to the poetry but please read everything in between, if you have a sense of humor, you will be laughing:

http://oh-hells-nah.blogspot.com/

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

Poetry Tips: New Year's Resolutions

Yes, I bring this up every year but it is important to have resolutions for your own writing and even reading. This year I hope to do better than last year in sending out poems for publication more regularly, at least once a month. I also plan on continuing my quest for reading poets I haven’t read before.
How about you, Dear Reader? What resolutions would you like to make? To write more often? Read new-to-you poets? Publish more poems? Organize your poems and submissions? There are plenty of resolutions one can make. If you would be willing, I’d love to see your resolutions in the comments section.

Good luck to all of you in your creative endeavors this year, please stop in again on Monday…

Catapult To Mars Open Submissions

Gordon Mason is the creator and editor of this wonderful blog and I have copy-and-pasted his guidelines below:

Please send me poems, in the body of your email, to alhaurino-tangerino@hotmail.com, with Catapult to Mars in the subject box. Please include the address of your website or blog if you have one, so I can link to it. Poems can be in English, Scots and/or Spanish.

Good luck to all of you who submit, please stop by tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/30miniissue2010/barry-w-north
“You Can’t Have It Both Ways” by Barry W. North

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22041
“The Anxiety of Coincidence” by Mark Bibbins

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

Lilliput Review Issue #177

I will be renewing my subscription to Lilliput Review because I’m always fully satisfied by what I find in each issue. This particular issue is filled with Autumn, Winter, and philosophical gems that sent lovely shivers down my spine. I am happy to share a few treasures with you:


garden twine his beadless rosary

By: John Martone of Charleston, IL

One-line poems can be difficult to “pull off” but this one struck my heart because I collect rosaries. I imagine an older gentleman carefully tending his garden with twine, saying prayers to the soil for a fruitful harvest. Your imagination can take you wherever you like with this short but beautiful poem, thank you Mr. Martone, for this little gem.



Good bye my love
For a night at Fuzan spring
I was your wife.
Now until the end of the world
I demand that you forget me.

By: Yosano Akiko, translated by Dennis Maloney

Isn’t this a beautiful and heart-wrenching poem? A night of passion, love, tenderness, and then a lifetime spent trying to forget. Isn’t this what poets dream of experiencing and writing about?



Torn

I am torn.
I am torn between preferring
quarter-moons to be drawn
with the scooped-out
part facing left
versus the scooped-out part
facing right.

By: Wayne Hogan of Cookeville, TN

Wayne Hogan’s drawings are often in Lilliput Review and Nerve Cowboy, two journals I enjoy subscribing to. I imagine Mr. Hogan setting down to a blank page and puzzling over his moons, drawing several before settling on the perfect one. I also picture young children puzzling over the same and Mr. Hogan forming their puzzled concentrations into this poem.


If you enjoyed these poems, please consider purchasing a copy for yourself, each issue is only $1.00 and small enough to tuck into your pants pocket. If you’d like to subscribe, you can use the Paypal link at Lilliput Review’s blog:

http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/


Subscriptions can be had for $1.00 an issue, or 6 issues for $5.00, or 15 issues for $10.00, very reasonable wouldn’t you say?

Editor Don Wentworth has been editing and publishing Lilliput Review for over 20 years and I highly recommend his journal to all of you.


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

X Poetics Blog

Learn about poets and their works through insightful and in depth features on lectures and literary events around San Francisco at:

http://xpoetics.blogspot.com/

Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for a featured journal…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180486
“You” by Frank Stanford

https://sites.google.com/site/30miniissue2010/howie-good
“Last Stand” by Howie Good


Thanks for clicking in, I will be away for the holidays so please drop in again January 3rd and I wish you all Happy Holidays and Happy New Year’s…

Roach-O-Rama Open Submissions

Richard Wink, the former editor of Gloom Cupboard, is spreading the word about his new print magazine that he is working on with fellow poet Ben Smith in Australia titled Roach-O-Rama. Since I will be out of town by Christmas Eve, I’m placing their submission guidelines today instead.


I’ve copy-and-pasted the guidelines below:

Send poems the old fashioned way. Jot them down on payslips, pizza boxes or preferably on an A4 sheet of paper, stick them in an envelope and mail them to whichever one of these addresses is cheaper for you to post to. Roach-O-Rama UK, 41 Drayton Wood Road, Hellesdon, Norwich, NR6 6BY, England or Roach-O-Rama Oz, PO Box 806 Tullamarine, Victoria, AUSTRALIA 3049
We are accepting submissions for the first edition until June 1st 2011.

To learn more, visit their site at:

http://www.horrorsleazetrash.com/roach-o-rama-2/

Good luck to all who submit, please drop in Wednesday for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Poetry Tips: Secrets

The news these days seems to be focused on Wiki Leaks, the organization that releases documents that are shielded from public view for various reasons from governmental agencies. These days it seems harder and harder to keep a secret thanks to breaches through the internet. This week I am inspired to pretend I am releasing secrets via poems and perhaps you would like to join in? Imagine spilling secrets about yourself, friends, family, just make sure no one actually get a hold of them if they are very sensitive in detail. Does writing the poem feel like a relief of unburdening yourself of these secrets?

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

Alaska Quarterly Review

You may send up to 20 pages of contemporary poetry “in traditional and experimental styles.”

The rest I have copy and pasted from their site:
Please include the following contact information in your cover letter and/or on your manuscript: mailing address, phone number, and email address if available. All manuscripts must be typed and accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE). Unless a SASE is enclosed with your submission, you will not hear from us unless we are interested in publishing your manuscript. We try to reply within 6 to 16 weeks.
All general correspondence should be addressed to The Editors. Please address submissions to the section editor (e.g. Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, Non-Fiction Editor, or Drama Editor) at the following address:

Alaska Quarterly Review
University of Alaska Anchorage
3211 Providence Drive (ESH 208)
Anchorage, AK 99508
Important notes:
(1) Unsolicited manuscripts are read between August 15 and May 15.
(2) Although we respond to e-mail queries, we cannot review electronic submissions.
(3) We review simultaneous submissions and request that they be identified as such in the cover letter.


For further details please go to:
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/aqr/guidelines.cfm

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.juked.com/2010/12/streetpocketpark.asp
“Street Pocket Park” by Nolan Chessman

http://www.sundresspublications.com/wickedalice/steinberg30.html
“Bachelorette” by Nicole Steinberg

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