Dos Gatos Press Open Submissions

Once you go to the submissions page you will submit your poems on-line without any identifying marks such as name, address, etc. on the individual poems submitted. Depending on the style of poem you are submitting such as haiku, senryu, haiga, or free verse, you will want to read the guidelines for each type. There are several options for choosing which publication at Dos Gatos Press to submit to so please read the guidelines for each one, the submissions are open into January/February.
Please make sure you use Times New Roman font with size 12 when entering your poems. Get all the true details using the link below:
http://dosgatospress.org/how-to-submit

Good luck to all who submit, please drop by again next week…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/57rhpissue/jeff-dutko
“Poetry” by Jeff Dutko

https://sites.google.com/site/57rhpissue/obrien4
“Shores of Japan: Snag #10” by M.N. O’Brien

https://sites.google.com/site/57rhpissue/daniel3
“Prelude” by Daniel Hales

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Forgotten Bookmarks

This is exactly what it sounds like and very interesting, too. A dealer in used and rare books posts finds between the pages and also hosts give-aways of his wonderful finds, it’s too good to pass up! Check it out at:
http://www.forgottenbookmarks.com/

Thanks for dropping in, please click in on Wednesday for Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://issuu.com/yespoetry/docs/september
“Your Last Rooster” by Tina Barry

https://sites.google.com/site/righthandpointingjeanietomasko/dear-lord-the-wren
“Dear Lord, the wren” by Jeanie Tomasko

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Poor Rude Lines

John Field invited me to check out his blog, Poor Rude Lines, and I urge you to check it out, too. Poetry reviews with links and pictures abound, you can read up on some great poetry collections and writers at:
http://johnfield.org/

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Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/56rhpissue/howie-good
“Magnetic Disturbance” by Howie Good

https://sites.google.com/site/56rhpissue/bev-harp
“Entomology” by Bev Harp

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Planchette by Juliet Cook

Published by Blood Pudding Press in 2008, Planchette is a haunting collection of ten poems about young girls amidst their dolls and their life at home. Planchette refers to a “heart shaped board from which messages are written under supposed spirit guidance” according to dictionary.com. The book itself is bound in beautiful textured paper with textured edges and is bound by knitting yarn. Each poem is a spine-tingling pleasure to read and I am happy to share a couple of sample poems below:

Planchette
Something is wrong with me

I can’t make things happen

I’m trapped inside a little glass bunny.
I quiver inexplicably,
but never move smoothly across.
All I do is quiver and then I

swerve madly.

My progress is not reasonable.
My progress is not measurable.
My progress is not memorable

until I am so wildly
erratic that I blur
towards the erotic
(kinky).

I’m trapped inside a glass eye.
Red-rimmed. Red-painted.

(You want to lick me.
You want to put me all the way inside
your mouth. Clean me up. Stop me rolling.)

I zoom across a black board with white letters
like one possessed. I fervently spell out
the same word again and again and then I
get stuck

on your tongue
inside my own head
somewhere small and dark

and so crowded…

This poem makes me envision one of the haunted girls disappearing into a little glass bunny as she is attempting to use the planchette/Ouija board and becomes part of the board itself picking out letters. I wonder who is in the room when the lines “You want to lick me./You want to put me all the way inside/your mouth” comes up, I envision a gentleman caller visiting and having no idea how to get her out of the glass bunny. The girl’s world is curious and surreal in this poem and captures my imagination.



Parlor Tricks

Our eyes were fake blueberries.
We made synthetically sweet fruit
perfume fill the parlor, almost an ooze,
almost oily waves.

Our fancy dessert plates burst
with lurid peonies, so swollen,
bruise-colored, almost lewd,
but already wilting at the edges.

Now they’re flaccid, faded, flat.
Out of tune piano keys’
wan background music. Warped wallpaper.
Failing glue. Scraps of yellowed newspaper

Lodged in our throats. We can’t read
the fine print, but feel the gray lilt of it
blurring out tongues into listless
little clappers of broken bells.

Oh this ringing in our ears we can’t expel.
We shuffle shiny flashcards.
We coiffed each other’s hair.
We played musical chairs

until we were all stuck to musty loveseats.
Instead of another chair disappearing, a girl did.
Something swallowed her, right after she swallowed the key.
The china cabinet trembled, cracked the handles off

our floral teacups, vomited bent spoons.

I imagine a group of girls sitting in the parlor playing with the object around them: fake blueberries in a bowl, faded yellow newspaper, flashcards their mother hoped would educate their young minds. Then one of the little girls picks up a key and swallows it and disappears herself, the forces acting on her shake the cabinet and the spoons explode out of the teacups. It’s a frightening thought if you really think about it, playing with siblings or childhood friends and such an inexplicable event occurs. We are left without an ending, we have no idea what happened to the girl who swallowed the key, or what happens to the girls who are there to face her absence and explain it to others. This poem makes my spine tingle.


If you enjoyed this sample, you may purchase a copy of Planchette by Juliet Cook for $7.00 through Blood Pudding Press’ Etsy Shop at:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/111834513/halloween-treat-planchette-by-juliet

Thank you always for reading, please drop in again soon…

Arsenic Lobster Open Submissions

The poetry editor is Lissa Kiernan and there are other editors if you look at the “About Us” tab in order to help you address your e-mail appropriately for your submission(s). You may send 3-5 poems in the body of your e-mail as well as your contact information and “a lively bio.” Please check out the details of what the editors are looking for in the kinds of writing they publish. In the subject line of your e-mail include your first initial, last name, date, and what you are submitting. Example: P Cary 10-18-12 Poetry
Please limit your submissions to one per issue, deadline for all issues is April 30th. Please send your e-mail to: lobsterATmagereDOTcom

To learn all the details on how to submit, go to:
http://arseniclobster.magere.com/1submission.html

Good luck to all who submit, please drop in again next week…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/100s/issue139tantrum.html
“Tantrum” by Kevin Ridgeway

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/291301.html
“Search Party” by Connie Post

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The Moon & Other Inventions by Kristina Marie Darling

Kristina Marie Darling’s work has appeared on Poet Hound before with her collection titled The Body is a Little Gilded Cage: A Story in Letters and Fragments and I am pleased to share with you her latest collection published in 2012 by BlazeVOX books titled The Moon & Other Inventions: Poems After Joseph Cornell. The collection is as dreamy as the last one featured on Poet Hound. This series of poems, divided up into chapters, are a series of footnotes for her various chapters on A History of Inventions, Ornithology, Cartography, and more. The pages are mostly blank space as though the text of the chapters are missing while the footnotes were inextricably left behind. I looked up Joseph Cornell and he was an artist most known for his collages and I imagine these collages are the inspiration behind the footnotes Ms. Darling has created after him. Ms. Darling’s footnote poems are beautiful and release the imagination into the reader’s minds. As you read the footnotes of each chapter you begin to find words that tie in to each other from chapter to chapter creating a pleasant connection that allows you to feel as though you are reading a beautifully imaginative textbook in which the content is somehow all related. Below I am happy to share some with you:


From A History of Inventions:

5. A late eighteenth-century stage play, in which a woman crawls into the hollow shaft of a telescope. The stage directions call for “faint music.” Also the sound of “silk rustling” and “a tiny door coming unhinged.”
6. Nights like this she flipped a little golden switch. That was when the rooms would open up before her.
7. Her ruined correspondence indicates exactly where she would have gathered these dead lilies and perfume bottles.

These footnote poems make me think of Alice in Wonderland with the idea of a woman being small enough to crawl into a telescope and the sound of “a tiny door coming unhinged.” There is magic in these lines, the golden switch that make rooms open up, the ruined correspondence that allude to dead lilies and perfume bottles of which we have no idea what their meaning is or where they come from but strike us in our imagination nonetheless. Since this comes from a chapter about inventions you wonder if the main character in these footnotes created the golden switch and the rooms, the more mystery the more imagination and it is lovely.


From: Horology

4. Oscillate.
1. To swing back and forth with a steady rhythm.
2. To waver, as between conflicting opinions.
3. To vary between extremes, especially within a fixed period of time.

5. During these years, she felt as though she would be faced with a decision. The clock within the cathedral recorded the movements of minor stars. But from its interior a series of unfamiliar notes emerged, that ominous ringing.

6. A late sixteenth-century church record, in which the simple machine turned against the monks. The illustration depicts their attempt to gather water and extinguish the great fire.

This poem creates the image, to me, of a large grandfather clock that is tied more to the celestial than the earthy terrain which it inhabits, its chimes relate to the stars and mark time at a pace that does not coincide with the inhabitants of that church, such as the monks. Whether this is the case I have no earthly idea but the footnotes capture images for the reader to determine the words’ meaning and I love the open-ended invitation to imagine alongside the poet what might be going on.


From Ornithology

4. Overwrought.
1. Extremely distressed or agitated
2. Overly complex or ornate.
3. Wearied or exhausted by overwork.

5. The documentary depicts their efforts to develop a machine. This invention was inspired by her experience embalming butterflies. Their mother found the device shattered among various feathers and antennae fragments.

I selfishly picked this one from the words “overwrought” and “overwork” as lately I have been feeling both. To juxtapose the words that relate to overwork with the delicate work that would require unimaginable patience with “embalming butterflies” took me by surprise and I re-read this page several times in delight. It sounds like the creator of the invention was too much for its creator and that is why the creator’s mother finds this delicate machine in pieces along with the butterflies and birds in pieces. Delicate, dangerous, and again, lovely.


If you enjoyed this sample, and I can tell you I cannot do this book justice, it is simply wonderful, you may order a copy of The Moon & Other Inventions: Poems After Joseph Cornell for $12.00 from Amazon.com at:
http://www.amazon.com/Other-Inventions-Kristina-Marie-Darling/dp/1609641043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347471466&sr=8-1&keywords=9781609641047


To learn more about Kristina Marie Darling and her work, visit her website at:
http://kristinamariedarling.com/about/

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow…

Button Magazine

They’ve been around for a decade and I didn’t even know it! Sample poems and you can have a lifetime subscription for a mere $25.00! Check it out at:
http://www.moonsigns.net/Button-frame.htm

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Horse Less Press Open Submissions

The deadline is the 15th, so be sure to submit quickly! There is an on-line entry form you can go to and send 5-10 pages of poetry or hybrid-genre writing as a single attachment for Issue #13. Make sure you include your name, address, contact information and check out their website which is also linked on the submissions page. You may use the link below:

http://horselesspress.submittable.com/submit


Good luck to all who submit! Please drop by again next week…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/290201.html
“Desert Cactus” by Laura Theobold

http://www.poolpoetry.com/poetsix.html
“From A Field Guide” To Verbs by Molly McQuade

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Carnival by Jason Bredle

Jason Bredle has published three books and three chapbooks, his poems have also appeared in journals such as Denver Quarterly and in anthologies. Mr. Bredle lives in Chicago and works in the patient-reported outcomes translation field. His fourth book, Carnival, has been published by The University of Akron Press in 2012 and encompasses a tilting and revolving world of animals, humans, and unusual encounters such as finding tiny people and towns in his bathtub. It is an entertaining read and I am happy to share below:

Suburban Love Song
Suddenly you realize you’re in the middle of it and it’s heartbreaking. You get a telephone call from yourself in the future telling you to run. All I want to know is if you’re mad at me. If I could, I’d tattoo your name on my skeleton. I love to look outside. I love to be outside. I love when you touch the back of my head. I love when you hold me in your arms. I hope summer never ends. It’s twilight. I hear children playing. I hear sprinklers, a lawn mower. Airplanes descend over the backyard onto the nearby runway. This is where we live. Hell at its most tranquil. To flee is life. To linger is death. The only thing wrong with this picture is everything. It’s the eve of a hostage situation. Will you do one thing for me tonight? Will you put on your favorite dress and sit with me?

This poem is one of the more “concrete” ones in the selection and I like it selfishly because I’ve been in search of a house to move into and I wonder with each house how I will really feel about it in the future. In this prose piece there is a telephone call from the future saying to run and if only that could happen for all of us. I love that the neighborhood is painted in the typical suburban light and then you find out airplanes land nearby and it is described as “Hell at its most tranquil” which sounds lovely and heartbreaking to me all at the same time. It’s a wonderful poem about life and living in a neighborhood and taking in the sounds and wondering about the present and the future.


Tiny Hurricane Season
My bathtub’s fishing industry has created a tiny community. They call themselves Tinyville. I’m a little disappointed, but I guess it’s the best they could do. At least they’re not like those dumb fucks in Tubtown. I know it sounds mean, but Tubtowners are a new breed of idiot. Yet they’re strong and athletic, which is why the Tubtown Tiny Champs continue to dominate the tiny baseball circuit. They destroyed the Kansas City Tiny Monarchs 13-3 last night. Did you see the game? I like to watch Tubtowners celebrate their success of their team and revel in their stupidity. They’re nothing like the citizens of Tinyville. Tinies are hard working, proud, and they’ve created a striking image of me that they worship, though I have no control over their lives. And that’s the thing. That’s why I’m so nervous about the upcoming tiny hurricane season.

This poem reminds me of the wild imagination I had as a child, that a whole world would exist in a bathtub and that its occupants might worship the giant that enters their world from time to time. It could also easily be a reference to God standing off to the side and watching the world at large unfold and not being able to do anything about the world’s surroundings, environment, and its creatures. Either way it is an entertaining poem that gets my imagination reeling again.


Carnival
You forget so much, and it makes me sad. I like holding your hand on the Ferris wheel because it makes you happy. There’s one little dude in the Gravitron. A girl with a bloody nose is escorted from the Himalaya. Do you like corndogs? I’m committed to living and dying in the fast lane. I want to lose my wallet on the Hellbender while the operator enjoys a fried chicken dinner with a side of baked beans and coleslaw. I want to win an enormous stuffed pig and save the lives of hundreds of goldfish. Everywhere there are lights and music and children with blue lips. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to bury yourself in candy? I’m a little paranoid. If only I knew that in a few months we’ll never speak again. Now it’s the time to celebrate—wear white all week, wear red all weekend. After I die, I want my friends to take my corpse to all my favorite places. I want them to begin at the carnival.

This poem strikes me because I love carnivals and all the colors, lights, people. The view from the Ferris wheel is typical of what I’ve often seen, and the fact that the poet has someone he cares about by his side only to lose them later begs the question of what happened? As a reader, I search for some clue but there is none, just the idea of living in the moment, watching the children with blue lips and wondering about burying yourself in candy. The end makes me think of the movie Weekend at Bernie’s, since the writer wants his corpse, not ashes, brought to his favorite places. Plenty of visual moments in this piece which make my imagination soar again.


If you enjoyed this sample you may order a copy of Carnival by Jason Bredle in paperback for $14.95 at:
http://www.uakron.edu/uapress/browse-books/book-details/index.dot?id=2336857

Thanks always for reading, please click in again tomorrow…

Strange Girl Press

While the Open Submissions are closed, their guidelines make me excited to read what they choose to publish in the way of stories, poetry and art so please check them out and stay tuned for their publications because I know I’m looking forward to seeing what they produce:
http://www.strangegirlpress.com/

They also have beautiful work at their blog which is being converted over to the website above, so check it out at:
http://strangegirlp.blogspot.com/

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