Poetry Tips: Grouping

Most of us would like to publish a collection of poems someday but have you taken the time to go through your poems and organize them into potential groupings? There could also be some overlap while you organize so you may want to use the same poem twice to see which grouping is stronger for a collection for future publication. For example, you may have poems about love in one group, and another group may focus on a particular period of time which includes some of the love poems you’ve written. Make the time to gather your poems into groups and see which one is strongest to you and make that your first collection to form into a manuscript. Whether it is a chapbook or a full-length book, this will help you narrow down your strongest work.

Good luck to all who try it, please drop in next Monday for another featured site…

Rattle Open Submissions

Quoted directly from the source:

“Poems
We like poems of any length. Try to send several poems as opposed to a single piece, but no more than five or six at a time. We're looking for poems that move us, pieces that might make us laugh or cry, or teach us something new. Though most of the poems that we publish tend to be free verse, that doesn't mean we don't like traditional forms. We read a lot of poems, and only those that are unique, insightful, and musical stand out. Since our issues include about 80-100 pages of poetry, one of the main things we're looking for is diversity; we have enough room to be eclectic, and we plan on using it. So while most magazines suggest reading their back issues to get a sense of what they like to publish, we'd suggest reading to get a sense of what we're having trouble finding--if you notice a style or subject matter that we don't seem to be publishing, send us that!
Required Information
If possible place this information on each piece submitted:
Name, Mailing Address, Phone Number, Email address
In addition send a short bio of the author. Your bio should tell us who you are and why you love poetry. Our bios section is something that makes issues of RATTLE unique, and many say it's as fun to read as the poetry itself. Bios should be in the first person, and follow the format of this sample:
Erik Campbell: "One afternoon in the summer of 1994 I was driving to work and I heard Garrison Keillor read Stephen Dunn's poem "Tenderness" on The Writer's Almanac. After he finished the poem I pulled my car over and sat for some time. I had to. That is why I write poems. I want to make somebody else late for work." (email address goes here at the end if you'd like it included)
Bios in this form are only needed upon acceptance--it doesn't have to be included with each submission, though we would enjoy it.

Send to:
RATTLE
12411 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604

Or via e-mail:
Paste the required information and your submission into the body of a single email message, or a single text file attachment. If you send more than one email or more than one file, we will only read the first one.
For attachments, acceptible file extensions are: .DOC, .DOCX, .RTF, .TXT. and .PDF. No other file types will be opened.
Please format the subject line of the email with your name and the word "submission" to help us track it, like this:
"John Smith - Submission"
Please note that we always respond to submissions with a confirmation note, though it might take as much as a week for me to get to it. If you haven't received a confirmation after a week, email us again to make sure we got it. We receive hundreds of emails a day, and sometimes submissions get lost in the deluge. That's why it's also important that you properly format the subject line.
Send to:

Good luck to all of you who submit!

Please drop in tomorrow for more Poetry Tips…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://www.juked.com/2010/03/bonnieprincebilly.asp
Taylor McMahon’s “Letter to the Bonnie Prince Billy”

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238800
Dorothea Grossman’s “I Allow Myself”

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

Hosho McCreesh’s Double Feature, Limited Edition collection

Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press has pulled out all the stops for the latest collection of poems by Hosho McCreesh available as a special and limited edition containing an artistic magnet (which is already on my refrigerator), a broadside signed by Mr. McCreesh that unfolds to reveal the poem “That We Each Fill the World With A Brutal Ugliness, One Passed Off as Life...,” and two chapbooks titled 4th Street Vagaries and An Adamant, Unmitigated Hope Even Amidst The Doom… 4th Street Vagaries centers on Albuquerque, New Mexico and focuses on the grittier sides of life. An Adamant, Unmitigated Hope Even Amidst The Doom is more philosophical yet bears solid roots. Below I’ll share a couple of poems from each chapbook:

The poems from 4th Street Vagaries are paired with photos of power lines and the lines themselves are snapshots of life in Albuquerque. This collection could really be one long poem, which it might just be. Below are two poems or excerpts:

an old woman
in a beat-up minivan
does the sign of the cross
as she passes a church


I have seen people do this and thought it an interesting snapshot-poem to feature amongst the other scenes in this collection of those who are homeless or down-trodden, as though this woman may just be praying at the same time for those living the hard life described in Hosho McCreesh’s previous and following poems.


barbed wire
atop a 10ft fence
surrounding
an empty dirt lot
full of signs
for rent
for rent
for rent.


Wind kicks up
Dust & trash;

then


rain


scatters
the sparrows &
the homeless.


These two poems follow each other and are separated in the chapbook with bold and un-bolded lettering. I think both provide the desolate and desperate scenes of a city and its hardships. The repetition of the sign “for rent” signals the hard times and then the rain scatters what little life and movement may be filling in the pictured surroundings which produces even more feelings of desolation and desperation as a scene empties out. The few words and short lines also lend to the scene as though we narrow our eyes even further upon it, which I think is a great technique.



In the chapbook, An Adamant, Unmitigated Hope Even Amidst the Doom…
As I said earlier, these poems can appear philosophical yet are rooted in the every day experience of human kind:


Call It A Battle Cry, Call It Gutteral, Call It A Harbinger, A Prophecy, A Vision, Call It Begging, Pleading, Call It Last Ditch, Call It The Knelling Of The Rusted Bell of Damnation, Call It Whatever The Hell You Need To Call It To Get Them To Listen…

I grow tired, hoarse –
all this screaming
& still nothing

They march onward,
insisting on misery,
denigrated by choice,
a careful architecture
to all their frustrated sadness.

This sadness hangs around low & bright,
like skittish, dirty, beaten children,
fills these centuries with horror,
fills lives we turn away from out of some
dismal, wanting, & unsatisfied respect.

Sitting atop lavish pyres waiting,
curled up & shivering like shavings
planed from hard black wood,
a hot wind enough to scatter them.

Yes, thus far, the bulk of it
has been wasted, little more than
an earth-sized pile of meat,
so useless to have never even
flavored our greens.

To tear open the mouths,
to pour molten metal
down their throats,
would return a cast
without edge, without definition,
return a crumples, unusable foil.

I have less & less time
for gaping yaps, for hollow maws.
There’s hardly room enough
for the bones of the forgotten &
for the mank of the unavenged,
so I say out with you
if you sense
nothing miraculous
in your very marrow,
nothing volcanic
in your deepest center.

I say, we have centuries & eons & ages of
ruse & trickery to unknot,
centuries & eons & ages
where it has all been
swindled from us,
& what I want
is this:

for all of us
to do more with it,
for all of us to do more
with whatever
we’ve got left.

Yes,
for all of us
to die

trying.


This is probably the longest title I’ve ever seen on a poem, yet it is there to emphasize the following poem’s point. McCreesh has detailed the human existence of misery by unwitting choice, the “open maws” of people who talk instead of act, and calls on humanity to do more with its history and their collective voices to stand for something more than our individual selves and desires. That’s what I come away with when reading this poem. The idea of pouring metal down the throat and coming up with crumpled foil puts me in mind of the notion that words only get you so far, which I think is an extraordinary way to portray an idea if that is what Mr. McCreesh is saying here. The lines may at first be unusual but the message comes clear at the end to act and to die trying in our actions.




& The Laughter,
The Fire, The Cackle,
& The Goddamned Life Itself

It’s an odd kind of torture,
going out among all the faces
I will never know.

I don’t even know
why I do it –

just that it has
something to do with
truly caring about them

while also being
deeply disappointed
in them.

There is a struggle
in searching out
some way to help
while still trying
not to judge.

Each man’s hell
is his own to
make.

So I go out
among all the faces,
& I see all the pains,
the insecurities,
the glaring failures,
the abandoned dreams,
all the compromises,
all the squalor & squander,
all the empty, distracted dying
& I begin to
regret caring,
regret trying,
& the laughter,
the fire, the cackle,
& the goddamned life itself
dampens, settles, fades,
sinks back to
shadowy
corners
within…

until, eventually
there seems

nothing

left to


say.

Hosho McCreesh is either talking about himself and his observations or he could also be speaking from God’s point of view because there is an omnipresent view here. The idea of it being from God’s perspective comes to my mind especially when the stanzas are indented and the lines discuss caring for humanity yet being so disappointed in humanity in general. As we join in the view and see the dissipation of lives in their failed dreams, their regrets, in the following lines of lives that could have been better lived, the poem winds down narrower until “there seems/nothing/left to/say.” We are left with the feelings of humanity’s failed attempts and become omnipresent and aware ourselves in this poem.


If you enjoyed this sample of the two chapbooks, you’ll be surprised to hear how affordable the entire collection of this Limited Edition is (which includes a magnet, broadside, and the two chapbooks 4th Street Vagaries and An Adamant, Unmitigated Hope Even Amidst the Doom… carefully wrapped) from Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press Catalog for only $10.00 (not including shipping and handling) at:

http://alt-current.com/pp/pp_item.html#hosho_mccreesh_deluxe_package

Please also visit Alternating Current to find out more about their poets and their press at:

http://alt-current.com


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

Writer's Digest Blog

This blog has great information and this particular link features an interview with poet Pris Campbell, so please check it out at:

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2010/03/26/InterviewWithPoetPrisCampbell.aspx

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

Poetry Tips: 15 Minutes

Lately I’ve been reading articles that talk about spending fifteen minutes a day on something, whether it’s writing a book, organizing a closet, etc. So why not set a timer for fifteen minutes a day for your own creative will? You don’t have to limit yourself to poetry, the idea is to cater to your creative desires in general, maybe it’s taking pictures or drawing, an art project or even sitting down to write that letter you’ve been meaning to write. If you do this for 21 days it is said you’ll form a habit and then creativity will flow easily in all aspects of your life—even with writing poems. I challenge you all to try fifteen minutes a day for the next 21 days to do something, anything creative.

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

Beloit Poetry Journal Open Submissions

Please note that it is a good idea to view some past issues before submitting your poems. Beloit Poetry Journal is accepting up to five pages of poetry (either as long poems or up to five poems) with a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope enclosed. They do not accept simultaneous submissions but they do read year round. You may send your poems to:

Beloit Poetry Journal
P.O. Box 151
Farmington,
ME 04938

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

Poems Found By Poet Hound

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238806
“Untitled” by Dorothea Grossman

http://arseniclobster.magere.com/210101.html
“In the calm days of poverty: we chill on the front porch” by Kenyatta Rogers

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

some misplaced joan of arc by leah angstman

some misplaced joan of arc by leah angstman is published by Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press. This collection features some tongue-in-cheek moments, the frustrations of travel to visit family, and unexpected thrills such as filling in the crossword puzzle of someone else’s New York Times’ newspaper then leaving it behind perfectly intact. Below I am happy to share a few poems:


the day edward norton came into my bar

i wished I were naked
not because
i want to be bare
in front of ed Norton
but because
i happened to be wearing
under terrible coincidence
my incredible hulk shirt
like a geeky comic book fancore nerd

over my shoulder
tvs blaring previews
for the very movie
whose wares i am sporting

approaching the table
placing coasters just perfectly
he knows i know
offers eyes
and says

nice shirt

in my head
i ask him for his autograph
out loud
i ask him what he’d like
to drink


This poem made me laugh aloud, how about you? Whether this actually happened or not it is something I can picture perfectly and how very human nature to want the autograph of the person whose movie you liked but be unable to ask for it when presented the opportunity. All the emotions you can imagine Ms. Angstman experiencing are easily read between the lines here, the humiliation and the hesitation.



no place like home for the holiday

after eighteen hours in the airport
on a snowstorm and a
canceled flight
we arrived
to your stomach flu
to your burnt green bean casserole
to your stockings full of
coal for the twenty-eighth year
like it’s still funny

your unplowed driveway
and unshoveled walk
and broken space heater
that sometimes works on low
sometimes but not always
and not this time

we drank your weird fruit punch concoction
and your way too spiked egg nog
while listening to grandpa’s dentures click
as he shuffles through the house
on slippers and last legs
your instant coffee
that never dissolves in
the luke cold water
from your broken pot
that sometimes works on certain settings
sometimes but not always
and not this time

after working six days a week
for a full year for my only
one-week vacation
we arrived to
your attack cat killing
both allergies and ankles
your same old christmas cds
on repeat
complete with skips
in the same places
from the broken player
that sometimes works if you flick the button hard
sometimes but not always
and not this time

aunt gwen’s same beehive
aunt elsa’s same stringy hair
your same bouffant
and a new wailing sick baby
whose only gift
was the flu bug
fucking babies never give
good gifts

after planning all year
to enjoy home for christmas
we arrived
to your beat up rusted out
midwestern salt-eaten
bottom-falling-out hippie
van stranding us by the
side of the highway in
ghetto flint
your broken van that
sometimes works if you pound your
head on the steering wheel just-so
sometimes but not always
and not this time

For all of you who may have happily escaped the stressful holiday memories I’m sure this poem brought them rushing back into your mind. This poem made me laugh, too, as it is easy to relate to in my own visits with friends and family over the years. I especially love the ending lines “sometimes but not always/and not this time” since this theme really brings home the frustrations of the season and the idea of working so hard for a “vacation” that is obviously anything but. One disaster after another spelled out in the most interesting and perverse ways: brilliant, Ms. Angstman, just brilliant.



bangs are that on which the world hangs

strutting
along mass ave
central square
hopping with a
hip step
strolling with a
cool swinged
swagger
checking myself out
in curio windows
reflections of
junk shops and
hobo hangouts

thinking yeah baby
that’s right
i’m bringin back
the bangs

and i blow up a
little puff of breath
to feather them
as they fall into place
in love with each other
when

my hip hips
and sordid ankle
strike the hole where
a brick had been borrowed
for the foundation of a
hobo’s house

and down i go
pride and face first
my bangs landing
across a puddle of rainwater

wet as anita Ekberg
and still dancing
in their own fountain

Yes, I’m taking up the poems I find humorous in this collection. Who can’t relate to feeling on top of the world and then being fed a dose of humility? I love the imagery of the puff of air blowing the bangs up and then they fall into place “in love with each other” which shows how fluid and smooth the motion is. Then, despite the human, the bangs are “dancing/in their own fountain” at the end, still “hip” in the face of humiliation. I really do enjoy such a funny twist in a poem.



If you enjoyed this sample collection of poems, you may purchase a copy of some misplaced joan of arc on-line at Propaganda Press’ Catalog for $5.00 + $2 US Shipping or $3 Out-of-US Shipping at:

http://alt-current.com/pp/pp_item.html#some_misplaced_joan_of_arc

You may also mail your request for this chapbook along with payment (via check or money order) to:

Alternating Current
PO Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139

Please also visit the web-site to learn more about this small press and the poets they publish at:

http://alt-current.com/


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

Writer's Digest

While this site encompasses all genres of writing you can find relevant articles related to writing poetry, finding markets to publish, and brainstorming ideas. Check it out at:

http://www.writersdigest.com/GeneralMenu/

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

Poetry Tips: Picking Flowers

We’ve finally had a break from colder-than-usual weather and now the birds are chirping and all of the plants look ready to produce blooms. This week I want you to envision Spring and everything in bloom. Write poems about childhood days of picking flowers for your mother, planting gardens, etc. Anything that brings about fond memories of Spring!

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

Autumn Sky Open Submissions

You may send up to four free-verse poems, simultaneous submissions are accepted so long as you provide notification. Please paste the poems into the body of the e-mail and please include a brief bio as well. You may e-mail your poems to: autumnskypoetryeditorATgmailDOTcom and be sure to place the word “Submission” in the subject line.

For more details go to:
http://www.autumnskypoetry.com/archive/Submission_Guidelines.html

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

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://juked.com/2010/02/whitechickens.asp
“White Chickens” by Caroline Manring

http://www.alicebluereview.org/main.html
Julia Cohen’s “I’m Asking For A Little Murmur” and “Panic At My Wilderness”


Also, some news for those who didn’t know (like myself): The poet, Ai, passed away on March 17th and Jerry Williams was kind enough to send me a link to his tribute to her:
http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/03/in-memoriam-to-ai-1947-2010-by-jerry-wiliams-.html


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

Divertimiento by Julian Gallo

Julian Gallo’s collection of poems in Divertimiento detail interpersonal relationships and the less savory moments of encountering old flames, friends, and even strangers.

Cracks In The Paint

Will you be there for me
when the sun disappears behind
tenement water towers;
when the moon sneaks out quietly
from behind factory windows;
when the street lamps ignite over slick,
glistening streets;

Will you be there for me
when pimps release the whores for
nocturnal bliss;
when the nuts and wackos comb
cardboard tenements for smack
and a kiss from dirty chapped lips;
when the dogs pick through the trash,
eyes looking straight
into the urban abyss?

Will you be there for me
when the sun reappears to shine upon
the carnage you leave in your wake?

For I am still waiting,
huddled in the doorway
counting the cracks in the paint

one less button on my coat
one less beat of my heart.

Most poems asking the universal question of emotion “Will you be there for me?” often use much more sentimental imagery often paired with hope. Here, Mr. Gallo takes a twist in using imagery from the grittier sides of life, “nuts and wackos,” and “pimps” who release “whores” while the person in question is described as leaving carnage in their wake. It makes me wonder about the character of the person he is hoping will be there when it is his turn and the imagery leads me to believe that the person will not be there when the time comes.



Auteur

Narcissism in overdrive—
amazing the lengths some people
will go to make absolutely certain that
things, people & events
will completely revolve around
themselves.
You are merely a prop
in a film
they are making that
no one is
watching…

I share this poem because we can all relate to such people. Plainly spoken, Mr. Gallo points out that whoever you are, no one is watching you as closely or cares as much as you do about your life. Frankly, it’s a poem I’d like to leave lying around for certain other people to find, how about you?



A Sort of Mirage

Shadows in ink.
On such evenings I’m
too tired to applaud the maestro
but a fresh mate’ soothes nevertheless.
War has not been declared
and there is not one fraction
of my life left behind.
There are lots of commas
and etceteras lying about the hallway
waiting to be used, waiting to be set
free
to dance across the page.
They seem to comfort each other
after these outbursts;
a sort of mirage
these words I cannot grasp


I like the idea of “lots of commas/and etceteras lying about the hallway” as though all that is unsaid is hanging in the air waiting to land as words on the page. I like the imagery in this poem and the message that all that could be said has not yet been officially declared. I think that is what most writing is: That which is officially declared.



If you enjoyed this sample of poems, you may purchase Divertimiento for $3 (plus $2 US shipping or $3 out-of-US shipping) from Alternating Current (alt-current.com). You can also mail payment to:

Alternating Current
PO Box 398058
Cambridge, MA 02139

Remember that Alternating Current is one of the few presses where poets can be paid for their work so please support the small press!

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

Kaleidowhirl site

This is an on-line literary journal with links to poems, all of them wonderful! Please check it out at:

http://home.windstream.net/ellablue/

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