Poetry Tips: Scrap Paper Poems

There are plenty of web-sites that seem to post scraps of paper they find from their ventures out into the world on-line, notes scrawled to roommates, lovers, etc. If you stumble upon any of these they could be excellent fodder for a poem. This week, see what you find on the streets, in the parking lots, on the floor in your offices and see what kind of poems they may inspire.

Good luck to all who try it, please stop in next week for Monday’s featured site…

Four Way Books Open Submissions

If you have yet to publish a full-length book of poems and are wanting to try it this year, you have until March 31st to polish and bring together a book-length manuscript of poems, between 48-80 pages not including title pages to submit.

There is a $25.00 entry fee but the prize is $1000 for the winning manuscript. If you have published any chapbooks or if you’ve published in quite a few journals and/or anthologies and believe you have enough related poems to fill the manuscript guidelines then I believe you have reason enough to try your hand at submitting a full-length manuscript.

You can submit on-line (preferred by Four Way Books) or via snail mail but you must go to their web-site and follow the instructions listed there which includes filling out or down-loading and filling out their form to mail with your manuscript at:

http://www.fourwaybooks.com/guidelines.php

Please also see their note that if you are in any way related to or working with Alan Shapiro that you may not be eligible to submit your manuscript this time around.

Good luck to all of you who submit!

Thanks for checking in, please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16138
“The World” by George Herbert

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/210302.html
“Gary, Indiana” by Matt Gillespie

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

The Sagging: Spirits and Skin by Jason Fisk

Jason Fisk hails from Chicago and his latest collection of poems is published by Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press. The Sagging: Spirits and Skin is filled with the encounters of city and rural life, family revelations and the everyday conversations that send you reeling:


The Farm

A preteen summer
spent on my uncle’s farm
Hay bail hallways created to guide
the pigs from one barn to the other
I waited, leaning over the hay bails
watching intently
The pigs finally came
pissed as hell
my uncle chased after them
with the handle of a hoe
beating them if they stopped.
The irate pigs demolished
the hay bail hallway.
Pushing through it
jumping over it
Here – he handed me
the hoe handle
What am I supposed to do with this?
Hit ‘em in the fuck’n face like this
He hit one squarely in the snout, and it released
a sound between a scream and a squeal
We gotta get ‘em into the barn.

I took the hoe handle and watched
as the pig’s snout bled.
Don’t worry ‘bout it
they don’t have feelings

I was a grown man
the summer night he called
and asked me to hurry over
when he answered the door
a waft of whisky
flooded my nostrils
I saw a blood soaked rag
in the bottom of the deep sink
in the mudroom
his speech slurred
his voice was in pain
as his tongue rolled around
in his numb mouth
She just got on my nerves
said the wrong thing…
He guided me to the bathroom
where she was crumpled
on the floor
with bloody bath towels
What the fuck did you do?
She and I were arguing…
I ran to the phone
and dialed 911
he tried to push me away
I hit him squarely in the nose
with the palm of my hand
he fell/nose bleeding
to the floor
I looked at his pig face
and wondered
if he felt that

This poem is heavy in its weight and ends with a retort that travels across time. Mr. Fisk keeps us riveted in our seats and gives us what we crave—justice—at the end and for all the best reasons.



The Rosebud

I hadn’t seen you
since the day you told
me you were pregnant,
in that café. It was
a September day,
filled with a cold fall rain.
I remember thinking
that I could smell the rain
on people as they passed our table.
There was an unopened
rosebud in a simple
glass vase on our table.
What am I going to do?
You asked
over and over.

Today we stood in the aisle
between the cards
and the candles
at Target, small talk
our armor. I looked
at your empty belly.
You pulled your jacket closed.
“Well, it sure is good to see you,
we’ll have to get together sometime,”
you lied. I wanted to tell you
that I had learned
in a poem
that the Japanese
prefer the rose bud
to the rose blossom,
but how do you fit
that into conversation?

There are so many layers to this poem. You wonder what the relationship is between the poet and the woman—were they dating? Were they friends? With ground breaking news comes the hyper-awareness of your surroundings, the unopened rose on the table, could it have represented the unborn child? Could it have been just a simple part seared into the mind so that the poet latches onto a new meaning for an unopened rose in a Japanese poem? There are so many questions and layers and such a brief and loaded encounter in which all of us, including the poet, are left without answers. We never find out what happened to the child and we never find out the relationship between the two but this poem moves the reader in the way it moves the poet.



Summer – 1985

Duct taping the garden hose
to the exhaust of his car
reminded him
of the days of Erector Sets,
Lincoln Logs and cardboard boxes.
The satisfaction
of having built something,

As he unwound
the new green hose,
the smell reminded him
of summer days,
and that terrible rubbery taste
that lingers after sipping.

He pulled it around
and set the metal hose end
in the driver’s seat window
He sealed the gap
with more gray tape.

He started the car.
The old engine roared to life
and the exhaust sputtered.
He got in his metal coffin
and pulled the door shut.
He watched the exhaust
spill in and fall downward.

He coughed and quickly exited
the passenger side
and scrambled
out of the garage.

From the garage window
he watched the car fill
with exhaust.

That’s exactly how I feel
he thought and leaned his head
against the window frame.

He watched the car fill
as the sun set. It reminded him
of watching fireworks
when he was a kid,
but he didn’t know why.

This is another heavy-weight poem and while it can seem depressing at first with the visual descriptions so vivid I can almost hear the duct tape in this piece it ultimately ends hopeful—the man does not complete the act we are led to visualize in horror. Instead, he watches its progression as an outsider, as if picturing himself going through suicide without completing it and relieving himself of the pain in this way. It’s an unusual and oddly inspiring poem, the note on the fireworks is a surprise which adds another exotic layer to the visual already in our minds. I find this poem as one of the most exceptional ones in Mr. Fisk’s collection.



If these sample poems moved you from Jason Fisk you can visit his web-site:
www.jasonfisk.com

and then you can purchase this collection from Alternating Current for $5.00 (plus $2 US shipping or $3 out-of-US shipping) by clicking the link below:

http://alt-current.blogspot.com/

Or you can send check or money order to: Alternating Current, PO Box 398058, Cambridge MA 02139
*Remember, Alternating Current is one of the small presses where poets can be paid for their work so please support small presses such as this one, there are plenty of wonderful writers for you to peruse at Alternating Current and I am sure you will find someone whose work you enjoy.

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

92nd Street Y

Whether you live in the area or not, it’s an excellent site to explore for poetry and all the other nooks and crannies…

http://www.92y.org/shop/category.asp?category=Tisch+Center+for+the+Arts888Unterberg+Poetry+Center888

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

Poetry Tips: Ghostwriting Poems for Valentine's Day

I saw this in a Writer’s Digest magazine and it suggested that if you are a poet and want to make a little money that you could send a mass e-mail to potential interested friends and family offering to help them ghostwrite a Valentine’s Day poem for a small fee. Ghostwriting means that you would help them come up with the poem but the person asking for the service would be listed as the author. I thought this was a great idea and hope we all might make a little extra money for Valentine’s Day with this tip.

May your creative juices flow with this one, thanks for reading, please drop in on Monday…

Fragile Arts Quarterly Open Submissions

I copy-and-pasted the guidelines because it was easier that way:

“(well, we want to expose your work anyway)

Fragile Arts Quarterly accepts submissions throughout the year for publication in the next available issue.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

All submissions should be sent via email to: moongazepub@myway.com

POETRY - Up to 10 poems may be submitted for consideration.

PROSE - Fiction or non-fiction up to 5 pages in length.”

Check out more details at:
http://fragile-arts-quarterly.blogspot.com/

Good luck to all who submit! Please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=173526
“Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/210201.html
“Summer of Hammers and Whiskey” by Sara Tracey


Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Meg Kearney's Home By Now

Meg Kearney not only publishes poetry collections such as An Unkindness of Ravens, but she has also published a novel for teens, and a picture book titled Trouper the Three-Legged Dog, that is due out soon from Scholastic. She’s been featured in Garrison Keillor’s “A Writer’s Almanac” and been in quite a few well-know poetry publications. Meg Kearney’s collection of poems, Home By Now, is published by Four Way Books and is a straightforward and uncompromising look at the realities of life. The poems are hardheaded and clever; I found Meg Kearney’s writing to be a real page-turner. In fact, just about every poem is marked as a poem I’d like to share but I can only reveal a few to you:


Socks

My father’s body has ceased to shock me.
His skin runs over his bones like a slow
river, rippling where belly meets hip. We’ve
learned how to hold him: one arm each around
his back, one hand under each thigh; Mom
and I stand on opposite sides of his
bed and, on the count of three, lift him
onto the bedpan. We close our eyes—
Dad, then me. Oh, he pants, it’s so damn cold
as I tell myself I am not the first
daughter to do this. Afterward, Mom pulls
his gown down over the stones of his hips
while I train my eyes on the Gold Toe socks
I’ll later steal, when Mom gives away his suits.

I like this poem’s hard-hitting view of life in a family dealing with fragility and illness. The ending lines reveal that her father doesn’t make it since his clothes are eventually given away but it is the touching move of the daughter to take the socks from which she trained her eyes to look for during the more vulnerable moments that strikes me in the heart.



House For Sale
After the divorce: for P.W.

I buried Saint Joseph headfirst
in the yard. Anointed with perfume,
wrapped in an old handkerchief,

he must have heard my supplications
as I dug the hole, lowered him down,
packed the dirt, begged forgiveness.

Victim of faith or superstition,
Saint Joseph bears the dignity
of mud, the vulgarity of worms,

but this house will not sell. The realtor
flashes his wily grin at the next
newlywed couple; suggests, arching

one eyebrow, the potential
of the spare bedroom. I hide
in my car praying to Saint Joseph

to let some other woman stuff peppers
at the kitchen counter; let that
woman cry out, for whatever reason,

in the bedroom. I even wish her joy
here: garden flowers on the sill,
birthday cake cooling on a rack,

a man in the backyard, building
a swing set. Just make her want this
house, please. Let me dig up

my plastic saint, snap the mud
from his little blanket, and ditch this ring
where dogs are sure to piss.

This poem shows off the anger and bitterness of failed dreams of a woman who must sell her house full of memories, eager to shed the burden and start over. I like that she employs her religious and, perhaps superstitious, beliefs in installing the plastic saint as a hopeful good luck charm in the selling. I think it’s an interesting spin that she even wishes the next couple good luck and happiness, adding depth of character to the woman at the heart of the poem.



Dr. Frankenstein Learns The Mother He Never Met Is Dead

I hunted down love with a bone saw,
a threaded needle between
my teeth. Scavenger of blood
and resemblance, I slaughtered
my siblings for body parts,
vowing, We’ll never be orphans
again.
Then I retreated
to a mother’s dirty work:
sawing, stitching, scanning the sky
for lightning. My creation
was born to disappoint: she is so
unlovable. Now she’s on the lam
again—shrieking, slobbering,
smashing everything.

I love the unusual perspective of this poem, the take on Dr. Frankenstein’s madness and dysfunction within his own family relations, the violence of slaughtering his “siblings for body parts” yet carefully reassembling as though with care when exposed by the line “a mother’s dirty work.” The ending in which his creation is unlovable and acting out is a superb representation of all the actions that came before it, the dysfunction and violence in building such a creature only to have it act in the way it was created to begin with. As for the title, it’s as though the whole point of his creation is as a reaction to his discovery of his mother’s death, what an interesting insight and take on Dr. Frankenstein’s life’s work.


Meg Kearney’s poems are hard-hitting yet tender, and if you enjoyed the poems you’ve seen here, you can purchase this collection for $15.95 (not including shipping & handling) directly from Four Way Books using this link below:

http://www.fourwaybooks.com/books/kearney/index.php?PHPSESSID=22ce3e90760712ad52ac9f3668f71783


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

The Wooden Spoon

Literary tools, articles, etc. run by Dan Pritch who is also a member of the Boston Poetry Union, check it out at:

http://danpritch.blogspot.com/


Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for our featured poet, Meg Kearney…

Poetry Tips: Requesting a Review

For those of us not lucky enough to have a publicist touting our creative accomplishments there is always the fall back of promoting ourselves. However, as you can imagine, there is a right way and wrong way to do it. As a poet, or a writer, if you are hoping to ask for someone to review your work and post it in a printed publication or on-line then there are certain rules you should follow:

1.) Be familiar with the publication or web-site you are approaching, i.e., do your research. Make sure that the editor or reviewer you are approaching has regular features/reviews of your genre and that their reviews match what you are looking for. I have had poets approach me asking for much more than what I typically provide on my blog and have had to explain that I produce relatively short, concise features rather than in-depth reviews that might be published in a magazine such as Poetry from the Poetry Foundation. Tailor your request and expectations to the publication or web-site you are approaching.

2.) Be humble and polite. When requesting to be reviewed simply include a brief introduction such as your name, the title of your chapbook or book, what your collection of work is about and that you would like to be featured in the publication or web-site. It also doesn’t hurt to explain why you’ve picked this reviewer’s publication or web-site—do you admire the writers they’ve featured in the past? Do you enjoy reading their reviews and hope to be included among them? Compliments and research go a long way to scoring a review. Please wait for a response from the reviewer before placing restraints, recommendations, or links to other reviews you’ve enjoyed hoping that the reviewer will emulate those reviews when they begin to read your work. The more restraints and requests you make the less eager the reviewer will be to accept your request.

3.) If you do not hear anything in return, wait a couple of weeks to follow-up on your request. Include a reminder that you had sent an e-mail or letter a couple of weeks ago and have not heard a response, would the reviewer mind taking a look?

4.) Also, if you are politely declined do not assume that it is because you are not good enough. It may simply be that the reviewer is currently overwhelmed and you can try approaching the reviewer again in another several months to a year.

5.) Once you have been reviewed, please send a thank you note of some sort—e-mail or hand-written. The reviewer took time out of their busy schedule to read your work and review it so be sure to thank them, especially before requesting another review for another collection of work. Also, do not expect the reviewer to automatically say yes to reviewing another collection unless they have specifically indicated they are willing to do so. If you would like another review and have not had an invitation to send more of your writing then you may need to wait three or more months before asking again. Remember, reviewers have quite a few chapbooks/books to review and may want some time before featuring the same poet or writer again to catch up on other requests or to keep their publication/web-site “fresh.”


I hope this advice is helpful, we are all in this together and I wish you all courage and success in asking for reviews and getting your words published and featured.

Please drop by again on Monday for another featured site…

Nerve Cowboy Chapbook Contest

Get your pens and computers in gear, the deadline is January 31st, 2010! You will need a $10 entry fee (address your check to Nerve Cowboy) and submit 24-40 pages of poetry along with a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (make sure you have enough postage to ensure return of your manuscript) and don’t forget to include your contact information.
1st prize winners will receive $200 and 50 copies of their published chapbook
2nd prize winners will receive $100 and 30 copies of their published chapbook

Please send your entry fee and manuscript to:

Nerve Cowboy
PO Box 4973
Austin, TX 78765

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.angelicdynamo.com/issues/06/flood.php
“Taken At The Flood” by Richard Epstein


http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15292
“Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath

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

Nerve Cowboy Fall 2009 Issue 28

Nerve Cowboy publishes poems that are gritty, witty, and sometimes downright disturbing. If you recall, I interviewed the editors at Nerve Cowboy a while back and if you’d like to read the interview, please use the link below:

http://poethound.blogspot.com/search?q=nerve+cowboy

The most recent issue is full of interesting and enlightening poems with which I am delighted to share several with you:


Beauty Mark

Wedged underneath his widow’s-peak,
It’s a brown boulder poised to fall and crush his nose.
It’s a slow-motion bullet to his brain –
An unexploded cancer-bomb – a ship-gutting rock
That juts from a pale, wrinkled sea.

Like Navajos who let Grandmother Spider share their homes,
Does he respect the mole’s right to be
Loathsome? Does he think it lends character
To his hangdog mug? Is he imprisoned by the male mentality
That calls cosmetic concerns pussifeid?

Is the thing a wit? A sorcerer? A seer?
Has he insured it? Set up its college fund?
What gall to gripe, I can’t get laid,
With that turn-off knob shadowing his bed.
“I don’t trust it,” a woman told me. “It looks too well-fed.”

It’s a great conversation piece – when he can’t hear.
(Who’d dare ask, “How’s it hangin’?” when he’s near?)
Sometimes I fear it’s speaking straight to me:
You bedded Pam, and never called.
You let Mom die miserably in a nursing home.

I stay as far away as I can get,
As if it might leap onto my chin and burn,
Or hiss, “I see you when you think you’re most alone” –
As if its small cask holds the secret of grief
To which my heart, that hopeless drunk, always returns.

By: Charles Harper Webb of Glendale, CA

Isn’t this a funny and gruesome poem? Mr. Webb brings the gruesomeness to life with lines such as “a ship-gutting rock/that juts from a pale, wrinkled sea,” “shadowing his bed,” and “I stay as far away as I can get,/As if it might leap onto my chin an burn,” which causes me to protect my own chin from this large and scary mole on another man’s head. What an entertaining poem about a subject that is loathsome for most of us to endure for ourselves and witness in others.



Mark Weber-Type Poem

So my latest rejection comes from Iowa,
about a week before Christmas:
Thank you for allowing us
to consider your work…”
I picture the writer
at a desk overlooking a corn field.
There’s a droopy plant
on the windowsill
and a volume of Yeats or Keats
nearby.
It has been a tough day,
and here I come,
galloping into that landscape
with my palm trees and deserts,
coyotes and surfers.

By: Dorothea Grossman of Albuquerque, NM

I like this poem because I write and submit poems, too, just like many of you who read this blog. The ending lines are my favorite, “here I come,/galloping into that landscape” as though the writer had the audacity to interrupt the scene of the editor’s desk by brining “palm trees and deserts,/coyotes and surfers” in direct juxtaposition of Iowa cornfields. These lines also hint that the juxtaposition may be what leads to the rejection notice. Either way, as writers we comfort ourselves with any means available in the face of rejection and this poem is demonstrative of this.



6:24 AM

One day I got up
I put on a fresh pot of coffee
And as it began to brew
At 6:24am
I picked up the old New York Times
That I had collected throughout the week to read
And threw them out
I took out a fresh clean sheet of white paper
And wrote a letter
To my old friend
I addressed it to her parent’s house
In Connecticut
She’s married now
Somewhere in Massachusetts
When the coffee was done
I opened up my fridge
I put the milk on the counter
And I threw out all the old Chinese take-out boxes
I threw out the glass container of left over asparagus
Then I poured my coffee and went outside
I lit a fresh cigarette
The ash stood out
As it fell on yellow and red leaves
On my small stone patio

By: Writer Unknown

What a shame that there’s no writer to name! The editors include a note in their introduction that if this writer reads their journal to please give their name and I am asking the same if the writer happens to read this blog. This poem is a lovely snapshot of daily morning ritual and reminiscing. While it is simple it is also endearing as the poet foregoes reading the collected newspapers to write a letter to an old friend instead. I long to hear more of the story—does the married friend write back? Perhaps there will be a sequel to the poem and perhaps it will be accompanied by the writer’s name.


If you enjoyed this sample of poems, you can find more information about Nerve Cowboy with details how to subscribe ($22 for two years, four issues) and submission guidelines, by checking out their site:

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

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

Sturgeon's Law Site

Steve Schroeder is a poet who provides news on poetry, poets, and general news and goings-on in his life. I found it kept my attention and kept me scrolling downward for more, so please check his site out at:

http://www.steveschroeder.info/news.html

Thanks for dropping in, please stop in tomorrow for a featured poetry journal…