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The only thing certain to drive somebody insane (or to at least let them think they are crazy) is to make them forget they are doing something different than what somebody else has done a hundred times before. Continue reading “sad boy / detective”
American Life in Poetry: Column 561
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Here’s a New Year’s poem by Judy Ray, who lives and writes in Tucson. I like the way that common phrase, “the turning of a year,” has suggested to her the turns in a race track. Her most recent book is To Fly Without Wings (Helicon Nine Editions, 2009).
Turning of the Year
We never know if the turn
is into the home stretch.
We call it that—a stretch
of place and time—
with vision of straining,
racing. We acknowledge
each turn with cheers
though we don’t know
how many laps remain.
But we can hope the course
leads on far and clear
while the horses have strength
and balance on their lean legs,
fine-tuned muscles, desire
for the length of the run.
Some may find the year smooth,
others stumble at obstacles
along the way. We never know
if the finish line will be reached
after faltering, slowing,
or in mid-stride, leaping forward.
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Judy Ray, “Turning of the Year,” from The Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Writers, (Whirlybird Press, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of Judy Ray and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
Winner of Minerva Rising’s second annual Poetry Chapbook Contest with the theme “Dare to be the Woman I Am,” Maria Garcia Teutsch’s The Revolution Will Have Its Sky is now available for purchase.
Judge Heather McHugh says of her selection:
This poetry isn’t out to convert, but to advert. It doesn’t pledge allegiance or invest in transcendent causes, but rather observes signs of war, wars of sex, hexes of communication. [ . . . ] The Revolution Will Have Its Sky reminds us enlistees (whether in grays or blues, whether in wishes or words, whether in war or love) how down-and-dirty signing up can be.
Both Teutsch’s The Revolution Will Have Its Sky and runner-up Who Was I to Say I Was Alive by Kelly Nelson are both available from the Minerva Rising website.
In Greek mythology, Persephone is the daughter of Zeus and the harvest goddess Demeter. As a young girl, while alone picking flowers in a field, Persephone is abducted by Hades, ruler of the underworld and brother of Zeus. As this version of the story goes, Hades makes Persephone queen of the underworld where she spends half the year; the other half, she returns to be with her mother above ground. Among her many symbols, Persephone is considered the protector of young girls.
Persephone’s Daughters is a quarterly print and digital publication of poetry, prose, and art that embraces and creates a space for this next generation of powerful protectors of women. Founder and Editor in Chief Meggie Royer says, “Our mission for creating this magazine is to empower female survivors of abuse who often do not get to see themselves, or other women who have endured similar experiences, represented in literary magazines. Having already been stripped of their voices through assault and abuse, we cannot and will not allow these women’s voices to be stripped away a second time within the literary community.”
As such, Royer says readers coming to the publication can expect to find “poetry, prose, and art about survival, about the aftermath of all kinds of abuse and degradation, including (especially) the healing. Each issue of Persephone’s Daughters is centered around survivors of abuse and the various ways they cope through their art.”
The first issue packs in over 80 contributors’ works, including art by Haele Wolfe, Kathie Rogers, and Emily Iannarilli, prose by Mitzi Luna, Olivia Sanders, Milly Hill, and Shirin Choudhary, and poetry by Hannah Hamilton, Schuyler Peck, and Jane Werntz. Interviews with Amanda Oaks, Yasmin Belkhyr, and Clementine von Radics are also featured.
Persephone’s Daughters has an incredible staff, including dozens of readers and art evaluators, tech and social media assistants, managing editors and submissions managers. Among them are Senior Editor of Prose Jessica Therese, Senior Editor of Poetry Ashe Vernon, and Senior Manager of Art Lora Mathis.
Writers and artists can expect that their works will be given much attention. According to Royer, all written submissions are read through and voted on by the publication’s large body of readers. Artworks are evaluated and voted on by the art evaluators. Writing submissions that pass the reading stage are next given suggested edits and revisions by the poetry and prose editors, who work closely with their authors “to ensure that the final product is something that makes everyone happy.”
Moving forward, Royer hopes that Persephone’s Daughters will expand its reach, “continuing to collect remarkable works of art from people all around the world with stories of their survival.”
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their Very Short Fiction Award. This competition is held twice a year and is open to all writers for stories with a word count under 3000. The next Very Short Fiction competition will take place in March. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: Anthony DeCasper [pictured], of Chico, CA, wins $1500 for “Redshift.” His story will be published in Issue 99 of Glimmer Train Stories. This is his first story accepted for publication!
Second place: Stefanie Freele, of Geyserville, FL, wins $500 for “Everything But What We Need.” Her story will also appear in an upcoming issue, increasing her prize to $700.
Third place: Parker Young, of Chicago, IL, wins $300 for “Lighter Fluid.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline coming up! Fiction Open: January 2
Glimmer Train hosts this competition twice a year, and first place is $2500 plus publication in the journal. This category has been won by both beginning and veteran writers – all are welcome! There are no theme restrictions. Word count generally ranges from 2000 – 6000, though up to 20,000 is fine. Click here for complete guidelines.
American Life in Poetry: Column 560
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
The only times I feel truly homicidal are when I see somebody abusing a pet, and I was glad to find this poem so I could get that off my chest. But don’t ever even think about taking a kick at my old dog, Howard. Wesley McNair lives in Maine and is that state’s poet laureate. This is from his book Lovers of the Lost, from David R. Godine. His most recent book is The Lost Child: Ozark Poems, (Godine, 2014).
The Puppy
From down the road, starting up
and stopping once more, the sound
of a puppy on a chain who has not yet
discovered he will spend his life there.
Foolish dog, to forget where he is
and wander until he feels the collar
close fast around his throat, then cry
all over again about the little space
in which he finds himself. Soon,
when there is no grass left in it
and he understands it is all he has,
he will snarl and bark whenever
he senses a threat to it.
Who would believe this small
sorrow could lead to such fury
no one would ever come near him?
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Wesley McNair, “The Puppy,” from Lovers of the Lost: New & Selected Poems, (David R. Godine, 2010). Poem reprinted by permission of Wesley McNair and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
S.P. McIntyre offers writers 24 Rules for Writing which are snippets he’s gathered from others, including a couple of his own original thoughts as well as a rule about writing rules. Published in the Glimmer Train Bulletin (#107), which is available free online and features craft essays from thier contest winning writers.
The Florida Review 2014 Editors’ Awards winners and finalists appear in the newest double issue of TFR (39.1 & 2) Winners receive $1,000 in addition to publication.
Fiction
Winner: Scott Winokur, “Bristol, Boy”
Finalist: Mary Hutchings, “When Walls Weep”
Finalist: Lones Seiber for “Death in the Aegean”
Essay
Winner: Allie Rowbottom, “Resonance,” “Burnt,” and “Albino Dolphins”
Finalist: Thomas Gibbs, “Beseme Mucho”
Finalist: Stacey Parker Le Melle, “Tonight We Are the Americans”
Poetry
Winner: Mary Obropta, “Resonance,” “Burnt,” and “Albino Dolphins”
Finalist: Benjamin Busch, “Sound Wave”
Finalist: Emma Hine, “Big Game”
Finalist: Michael Collins, “Nightmare of Intercourse with Lightning”
Finalist: Angela Belcaster, “Calving in the Ice Storm” and “Lying Low so the Gods Won’t Notice”
What if every poem had its own fragrance, beyond the literal smell of the materiality of the page? What if one could smell a poet’s imaginative, conceptual, intellectual world, the text unfurling into an aroma?
Poetry subscribers can look forward to a fresh scent in their mailboxes this month as The Poetry Foundation has worked with Brooklyn-based perfumery D.S. & Durga to create a custom scent for Jeffrey Skinner’s poem “The Bookshelf of the God of Infinite Space.” Like old-school scratch and sniff, the scent has been added to an insert with the printed poem.
The insert celebrates the poetry and scent exhibition Volatile! hosted at The Poetry Foundation Gallery in Chicago through February 19, 2016. “In Volatile!,” the Foundation explains, “curator and design historian Debra Riley Parr presents a number of objects and experiences that invite speculative connections between poetry and scent. Scent artist David Moltz tells the story of a young boy who is transformed into a mythical beast through a series of 12 scents captured beneath 12 glass cloches. Works by artists Amy Radcliffe, Eduardo Kac, and Brian Goeltzenleuchter, poet Anna van Suchtelen, typography artist Ben Van Dyke and ceramicist Seth Bogart are also featured.”
2015 Rattle Poetry Prize Winner and Finalists appear in the newest issue or Rattle (#50). Rattle received a record 4,022 entries and roughly 15,000 poems from which the following were chosen.
1st Prize – $10,000 and publication
“Equilibrium” by Tiana Clark [photo by Andrea Yelk]
Finalists – $200 and publication
“Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled With Shrieks” by Christopher Citro
“Work in Progress” by Rhina P. Espaillat
“The Glance” by Jennifer Givhan
“Morning at the Welfare Office” by Valentina Gnup
“Old Age Requires the Greatest Courage” by Red Hawk
“More Than This” by David Kirby
“Yesterday” by Travis Mossotti
“Sugar Babe” by Cherise A. Pollard
“Deus ex Machina” by Melissa King Rogers
“Elegy” by Patricia Smith
Each of these finalists are also eligible for the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by entrant and subscriber vote (the voting period is December 1, 2015 – February 15, 2016).
Another nine poems were selected for standard publication, and offered a space in the open section of a future issue: George Bilgere, Christopher Citro, Taylor Collier, Jennifer Givhan, Chris Green, M, S.H. Lohmann, Christine Poreba, and Laura Read.
The 2014 Noemi Press Book Award for Poetry winner is Objects of Attention by Aichlee Bushnell and was published in Fall 2015.
“In 1787, Sally Hemings joined her brother James as a paid servant to Thomas Jefferson in Paris, France. In 1789, she returned to Monticello pregnant, a slave again, at her own will. Objects of Attention explores the intimate boundaries between slave and slaveowner, celebrating the rich interior life and intellect of the enslaved woman while examining the contradictory laws and classic philosophies that supported her captivity.”
Bushnell’s first book, Objects of Attention is out now and available on the Noemi Press website with more information
[Quote from SPD website.]
Storm Cellar is a slim little lit mag, just the right size to slip into my already-near-bursting tote bag. It’s the perfect magazine to keep on hand when readers have a few moments to spare before bed or while drinking their morning coffee. Continue reading “Storm Cellar – Summer/Fall 2015”
Upstreet 11 contains seven fiction pieces, six creative nonfiction pieces, forty-five poems, and an interview. That’s over 200 pages of engaging entertainment from a broad variety of accomplished authors. Continue reading “upstreet – 2015”
The Fall 2015 Bellevue Literary Review from NYU’s Langone Medical Center operates under the subtitle “Embattled: Ramifications of War.” Self-described as a “journal of humanity and human experience” this issue focuses specifically on narratives surrounding not only war, but war’s varying and often heartbreaking effects on the human experience. The short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction explore delicate topics such as PTSD, death on the frontlines, and post-deployment readjustments with an unflinching matter-of-factness paired with beautiful language. Continue reading “Bellevue Literary Review – Fall 2015”
Harvard Review began life in 1986 as a four-page quarterly called Erato. Today it’s a 200+ page, perfect-bound semi-annual. Many Pulitzer Prize writers have been featured over the years, and this issue contains two Pulitzer nominees: Martín Espada, a 2006 finalist, who writes a tribute to his father in “The Shamrock,” and Cornelius Eady, a 1992 nominee. His poem “The Death of Robert Johnson” has these skilled, telling lines: “That that gal I kissed, / And her husband seeing that, / Was the fine print, / The way things get / Paid off.” Continue reading “Harvard Review – 2015”
Created by three women in Vancouver—Melanie Anastasiou, Jennifer Landels and Susan Pieters—the hybrid PULP Literature “publish[es] writing that breaks out of the bookshelf boundaries, defies genre, surprises, and delights,” according to their website. “Think of it as a wine-tasting . . . or a pub crawl . . . where you’ll experience new flavours and rediscover old favourites.” Continue reading “PULP Literature – Autumn 2015”
The Bitter Oleander’s autumn issue is a motherlode of bold interpretations softened with poems like the delightfully introspective, “I Don’t Want to Write” by Simon Anton Nino Diego Raena. “Leave me alone, please. / All I want is to enjoy the solitude of being / a nonentity in this lightless balcony.” Continue reading “The Bitter Oleander – Autumn 2015”
Story publishes pieces following a particular theme, and the Monsters issue is as haunting as the title suggests. Stephen T. Asma writes in his essay, “Monsters and the Moral Imagination,” “Good monster stories can transmit moral truths to us by showing us examples of dignity and depravity without preaching or proselytizing.” The pieces chosen for this issue do exactly that, ranging from things that go bump in the night to memories that haunt individuals each day. Continue reading “Story – 2015”
Paralleling the instructions in the publication’s opening “Salutations from the Staff”—where the reader is told to gather a variety of ingredients to let simmer—the editors of Meat for Tea have compiled a diverse selection of genres and writing styles in the “Fond” issue. The unifying thread among the pieces is experimentation, either in structure or content. This issue is a collection of permissions, inviting readers to explore the new directions of contemporary creative writing. Continue reading “Meat for Tea – 2015”
The Fall 2015 issue of Glimmer Train Stories is a delightful showcase of short fiction from both new and established writers, packing twelve short stories, an interview, and a short essay in its 200+ pages. Whether there is an explicit theme is unknown, but the majority of the pieces have a couple of common threads, primarily youth and family. Continue reading “Glimmer Train Stories – Fall 2015”
Sprout Magazine is an online literary journal publishing social commentary, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, art, and media works by contributors 13-22 years old. While the temptation with such a name as “Sprout” is to clichéd metaphors about tender young growth, such commentary would not be reflective of this publication’s focus on real world social issues that demonstrate an awareness of the world from a variety of youth perspectives – bold, raw, and unafraid.
But indeed, the editors themselves choose the word “sprout” as a direct reference to the people they are trying to inspire: young creative minds who have taken root, but have not yet blossomed. As it says in their mission statement: “We are simply a plot of land for seeds to grow.” Also, the editors add “we like the color green.” Clearly, some humor is welcome as well.
The editors also belong to this community of young creative minds, each with their own already impressive backgrounds of achievement, perspective, and expertise. Founder and Editor-in-Chief Victoria Hou [pictured] is also the Editor-in-Chief of her high school’s print magazine and last year won Silver Key for Scholastic’s Art & Writing Competition, West Region. Co-managing Editor Sophie Govert is a recent graduate of the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio. Her work has been published in her high school’s literary magazine, she is secretary of her school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance and a vocal part of the LGBTQ+ community. Co-managing Editor Joonho Jo is an alumnus of the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio. Outside of Sprout, he is a staff writer for the oldest preparatory school newspaper in the United States, The Exonian, and writing editor for Pendulum. He won a first place in the Letters About Literature contest in NH, sponsored by The Library of Congress.
It was their combined vision which inspired this literary start-up “to have a space where young minds can share their thoughts and opinions about society through creative expression. As Sprout’s mission is to broadcast social commentary, it was fitting to use an online literary platform – a site anyone can access – to showcase the raw art from our contributors.” As such, readers can expect to find “all kinds of meaningful and creative works, each addressing a social or political topic.”
Some recent published works include “On Christianity” (Avery B); “How to Avoid Getting Bullied in Middle School” (Joonho Jo); “The Political Science of Politics and Science” (Nina Tate); “Why You Shouldn’t Make Friends with Monsters” (Fenn De Bont); “Piedmont Needs Feminism”; poetry by Victoria Hou, Allie McGinnis, Mar C., Sophie Govert, Dylan Escobar, Michelle Wang, Kelsey K., Clara Eugene; and art by Catherine Zhao.
Sprout accepts “pretty much any form of creative media” year round, currently publishing a new piece once every two weeks. “Once a submission is received,” Sprout explained to NewPages, “all editors on the editorial board assess the work, seeing if it contains a message that is socially or politically driven. When deemed appropriate and relevant to our mission, the piece is reviewed under a critical lens for grammatical errors, inconsistencies in content, and strength of message.” Authors are then sent a url to their published work, which remains on the site.
Sprout editors hope to increase both their editorial staff and their submissions as they move forward. And, the editors note, they are also looking to compile pieces into an electronic issue for their readership.
Anna George Meek’s The Genome Rhapsodies was chosen by Angie Estes last year as the winner of The Ashland Poetry Series’ 2014 Snyder Memorial Prize. The award is given annually, with a prize of $1000, publication, and a featured reading at Ashland University (and submissions are currently open until April).
Angie Estes says of her selection: “These poems re-member us in language and reveal how the past becomes us, in every sense of the word; they are gorgeous, unforgettable works of art.”
To read these works of art, check out The Ashland Poetry Series’ website for three ways to pick up a copy.
Founded in 1977, the American Book Review is a nonprofit, internationally distributed publication that appears six times a year. ABR specializes in reviews of frequently neglected published works of fiction, poetry, and literary and cultural criticism from small, regional, university, ethnic, avant-garde, and women’s presses. ABR as a literary journal aims to project the sense of engagement that writers themselves feel about what is being published. It is edited and produced by writers for writers and the general public.
Recent issues have focused on American World Literature, Human Rights, Prison Writing, Comics, Critical Lives, The Color of Children’s Literature, Multilingual Literature, The Sixties at Fifty, Machine Writing, Letters, Sex Writing, Literary Activism, Metamodernism, Lost & Found, Post-Apocalyptic Literature, and Arab-American Literature.
American Book Review is produced by University of Houston-Victoria under the editorship of Dr. Jeffrey R. Di Leo, Editor and Publisher of ABR, and UHV Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences.
[Text from the ABR website.]
The 2015 Gulf Coast Prize Winners have been selected, with the winning works published in the Fall 2015 issue of Gulf Coast.
Poetry winner selected by Carl Phillips
Emily Skaja, “My History As”
Nonfiction winner selected by Maggie Nelson
Aurvi Sharma, “Apricots”
Fiction winner selected by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Sultana Banulescu, “The Last Dragoman”
Winners in each genre receive $1,500 and publication and honorable mentions receive $250. All entrants receive a free one-year subscription to Gulf Coast, beginning with the issue in which the winners are published. See the full list of winners and honorable mentions here.
Drunken Boat is inviting applications for all of their staff positions for 2016. Drunken Boat is re-launching in 2016 under new editorship: Erica Mena, poet, translator, and book artist [and cat lover], formerly the Managing Editor, will be taking the helm as Editor and Executive Director. As part of this transition, Drunken Boat is strengthening its commitment to being a leading space for writers and artists around the world to publish provocative, experimental, and otherwise difficult work, alongside the exceptional work we have been publishing continuously online for 15 years.
Drunken Boat is issuing an open call for interested writers and artists to join its (currently all-volunteer) staff. Open positions are:
• Poetry Editor, Poetry Assistant Editor, and Poetry Reader
• Non-Fiction Editor, Non-Fiction Assistant Editor, and Non-Fiction Reader
• Fiction Editor, Fiction Assistant Editor, and Fiction Reader
• Art Editor
• Reviews Editor and Reviews Assistant Editor
• Translation Editor, Translation Assistant Editor, and Translation Reader
• Publicity Editor and Publicity Assistant Editor
• Blog Editor and Blog Assistant Editor
For more specific details, view this Googledoc Applications should be received by December 20, 2015 for consideration.
Eastern Iowa Review is a new annual print publication, providing select essays online for readers to sample. Founding Editor Chila Woychik [pictured] embarked on this venture with six years’ editorial management experience from Port Yonder Press as well as expertise publishing other literary magazines over the past several years. Assistant Editor Beverly Nault and other staff with Eastern Iowa Review bring both academic and professional experience, creating an eclectic team that provides plenty of input from which Eastern Iowa Review will take its direction.
With all her experience, Woychik not only knew what she was getting into with a literary magazine start-up, but sought it at this point in her career. “Book publishing is a lot of work,” she told NewPages. “I loved what I did at Port Yonder for those six years, loved every minute of it, but it became too much. Once I discovered the literary journal market and began to see my own writing being acquired, I felt it was time to move from small press book publishing to journal publishing. It’s been a great change for me; I’m enjoying it immensely.”
The first issue of Eastern Iowa Review actually had a predecessor, Woychik explained, “We actually did a pre-issue we called the Bonté Review (French for ‘goodness’) but found the name didn’t quite portray the sense of place I felt it needed. I’ve lived in the eastern part of Iowa for twelve years now and am enamored with this state, its people, and its topography, especially the rolling hills, trees, and wildlife in this area. I found it to be a fitting name, and though similar to another well-known publication in the state, I feel our focus is different and therefore have no need to compete with or be compared to another. Besides, Iowa is such a fantastic literary venue in itself that it deserves more than one or two journals.”
The (true) inaugural issue of Eastern Iowa Review includes creative nonfiction, literary fiction, and art, while the second issue, Woychik hopes, will be narrowed down “to the thing I love reading and writing the most: Annie Dillardesque lyric essays and Gertrude Steinesque / Anne Carsonesque experimental essays.” The Review isn’t ruling out the hybrid essay at this time, “though terms overlap so much that we’re actually receiving a good number of generic creative nonfiction essays, a few of which we’ve accepted because they were good, though not necessarily containing the lyricism we’re seeking,” said Woychik. “What we’re after is the song, the lyricism, and the uniqueness, the experimental. There are plenty of outlets for general creative nonfiction but I want to wean us off that, if we can find enough of what we’re seeking.”
For their first issue, Eastern Iowa Review was fortunate enough to snag Fulbright Scholar, Pew Fellow, Kingsley Tufts and Pushcart winner Afaa Michael Weaver to contribute an autobiographical piece on craft, and Stephanie Dickinson contributed three short literary fiction works. “As far as I’m concerned,” Woychik said, “Stephanie is one of America’s most brilliant writers; everything she pens is linguistically beautiful, achingly so, even given the tough topics she often broaches.” Although the publication is new new, Woychik hopes that within the next few years they can attract both top-notch and beginning writers. “I would love to see Eastern Iowa Review be the breakout journal for a few soon-to-be nationally well-known authors,” keeping with their overall desire to “attract great writing, lyrical writing, experimental writing, from whomever, and see entire families enjoy it from front to back.”
Writers who submit works can expect that they will be treated to a thorough review process. Submissions are sent through Submittable, then Woychik assigns each piece to one reader/editor or possible more, even up to all four readers/editors. They record their recommendations, Woychik reads those, reads the work itself, and makes the final decision.
It’s a process that will provide readers with “the strongest, highest level, prose” the editors can find in the lyric and experimental realms. Woychik added, “I also have a special interest in seeing young people, beginning in middle grade or so, discover a love of the literary world, something beyond ‘simple’ reading. I’m not sure why we often wait until a person gets into university to introduce them to the world of literary writing. I would like to see young folks catch the rhythm of fine literary writing, the lyricism inherent in good writing, long before they reach college. So we have a ‘wide audience’ requirement, that is, we would like the material, literary and high level as it is, to also be fitting for most all ages.” Beginning with the second issue, Eastern Iowa Review will be able to offer accepted contributors a complimentary copy of the issue plus a small stipend, and also enter their work into the Eastern Iowa Review Essay Award pool, an annual award for the most outstanding lyric and/or experimental essay accepted.
Literary Bohemian online literary magazine offers readers “travel-inspired writing,” which is a broad invitation to writers. Below is a sampling of three poems from the most recent issue, well worth the travel of clicking your mouse to go read the rest of each along with other poetry and prose.
Thessaloniki, Four a.m.
by Anastasia Vassos
Here they dance with arms raised above their heads
while their legs sink deep in the dusty earth, describing
the arc of some forgotten journey. The middle
of the body suspended like a question.
. . .
Night Becomes Day Over the West
by Megan Foley
These ridiculous, Christ-eyed hares,
projected once or twice through headlights,
wet the highways outside Helena, Montana.
. . .
Fear in Kenya
by Kristina Pfleegor
(after Dorianne Laux)
We were afraid that the ferry across the Mombasa Channel—rusty, overfilled—
would sink on our daily commute to school. We were afraid of growing up,
losing letters in the mail, broken tree branches, thorns in our feet, chiggers,
bees, sea urchins, jellyfish, sharks, riptides, spiders, spitting cobras,
tsetse flies, baboon bites, lice, electric fences, hippos, elephants sitting on our cars,
cockroaches flying into our eyes, geckos jumping off the walls.
The American Library Association is hosting the 90-minute online workshop What You Need to Know About Starting a Digitization Project on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at 2:30pm Eastern/1:30pm Central/12:30pm Mountain/11:30am Pacific. Susanne Caro, former State Documents Librarian for New Mexico State Library, is the workshop instructor and will cover: Basic information and research needs; Collection selection; Where to find financial and human resources; Awareness of digital preservation needs; and The basics of copyright as it relates to digitization. This workshop could be of interest for literary magazines with print archives they’d like to consider digitizing to preserve and make avaiable to a new generation of readers.
PRISM international – Canada’s oldest literary magazine with its first issue published in 1959 – has taken a huge step in preserving its history. The Prism staff initiated and funded the digitization of its entire archive of magazines. The University of British Columbia’s Digitization Centre completed the task over a four-month period, making 194 issues available online; new issues will be added when published. “The digitization of PRISM international’s archives is an important step in preserving and promoting influential literature, both Canadian and international,” says current Poetry Editor, Dominique Bernier-Cormier, “connecting different communities, and generations, of writers and readers.”
Promotions Editor Claire Matthews entices readers to dig into the past issues, “You can check our early works by writers such as recently [Governor General Literary Award] nominated Robyn Sarah whose work first appeared in PRISM 13:1 [Summer 1973] or Seamus Heaney, who published two poems in issue 12:1 [Summer 1972]. In 1996, PRISM also managed to publish a translation by Seamus Heaney of the Irish poem ‘The Yellow Bittern,’ originally written by the 17th-18th century poet Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna. In a brief interview, Sarah O’Leary, author of When You Were Small (Simply Read Books, 2008), divulges how she was able to get her hands on work while she editor of PRISM international.”
Now in its 15th year, the Carve Magazine Raymond Carver Contest is one of the most well-known short story contests of our time. From over 1200 entries this year, 2015 Guest Judge: Andre Dubus III made the following selections:
First
“Arrangements” by Charlie Watts in Providence, RI
Second
“Kudzu” by Andrea Bobotis in Denver, CO
Third
“Jack Nicely” by Amanda Pauley in Elliston, VA
Editor’s Choice selected by Editor in Chief Matthew Limpede
“The Giant” by Joe Shlichta in Olympia, WA
Editor’s Choice selected by Associte Editor Suzanne Barnecut
“All That We Burned, All That We Loved” by Laura Haugen in U.S.A.
The winning works are available to read in the Fall 2015 issue of Carve Magazine as well as in full on the Carve website.
The Craft Emergency Relief Fund is a national nonprofit organization that awards small grants and loans to professional craftspeople experiencing career-threatening illness, accident, fire, theft, or natural disaster. Financial assistance ranges from $500 to $8,000. Other services include referrals to craft suppliers who have agreed to offer discounts on materials and equipment to craftspeople eligible for CERF funds and booth fee waivers from specific craft show producers. CERF loan recipients are expected to repay the loan in full within five years, enabling CERF to have funds readily available for future craftspeople in need. Applicants must be a professional artist working in a craft discipline (e.g., a potter, metalsmith, glass artist, woodworker, fiber artist, or furniture maker) who has had a recent career-threatening emergency and is a legal resident of the U.S. For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the CERF website.
Set aside your preconceived ideas of a circus. Sure, clowns, animals, and oddballs populate In the Circus of You, an illustrated novel in poems, but the words and drawings are a revelation. Poet Nicelle Davis and artist Cheryl Gross, each seeming to have a circus within themselves, team up to create a fantastic mini-world combining reality with illusion, and not always in a fun way. Continue reading “In the Circus of You”
Don’t be confused by the title of Christopher Deweese’s The Father of the Arrow is the Thought—taken from a line by Paul Klee, it suggests poems that might be characterized by a singular trajectory, a martial swiftness that lands us with a wobbling after-strike in our target. And a cursory glance at the poems pretty much supports this—all of them take the form of relatively skinny columns that shoot with a severe straightness down the page. Indeed, we are going somewhere, and pretty fast. But a look at the rest of that Paul Klee quote gives us something which complicates this sense of motion: “How do I expand my reach? Over this river? This lake? That mountain?” Continue reading “The Father of the Arrow is the Thought”
In Heather Christle’s fourth and newest collection of poems, Heliopause, speakers acknowledge boundaries, and then promptly confront them. The title itself pertains to “the boundary between our sun’s sphere of influence and interstellar space” (via book jacket). These poems acknowledge some of history’s haunting topics—the aftermath of 9/11, the events upon the slave ship Zong, the 2012 Aurora Shooting—and yet the collection as a whole manages to balance out the darkness with a voice that is full of wit and refreshing candor. This collection showcases the versatility of Christle’s creative talent, and maintains a sense of balance and composure amidst “the terrified world.” Continue reading “Heliopause”
The poems in Smote speak of loss and the wanting of more life, even if it is like this, a poignant neutrality that can leave us in shreds. The backdrop is Jackson, Mississippi. Deftly dealt with are the issues of class, interracial relationships, poverty, alcoholism, broken families, the lifeline of friendships, a black mother who loves and feeds a poor white boy not only dinner, but shows him how to live, “Ms. Anna, who loved me for no reason that I understood [ . . . ].” Under the chance and horror of daily life, we are shown a light that never goes out. Continue reading “Smote”
If you Google search Montana Ray, there is a good chance you will find a (guns and butter) shower curtain. This lends to the understanding of concrete poems and their relationship to the modern dialogue in poetry. Concrete poems, or shape poems/visual poems can be considered the bastard child of literature. An exercise in class that only the nerdy kids take seriously. A fun exercise that is just that: an exercise. However, in subverting this notion, Montana Ray finds the means to exalt the depraved and to tyrannize the tyrannical. Continue reading “(guns & butter)”
Pressgang’s Flashed: Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose, edited by Josh Neufeld and Sari Wilson, is one of the most fun reading experiences I’ve had all year. Those who read Flashed after its February 2016 release will likely be saying the same thing as they look back at their year’s reading history next December. Continue reading “Flashed”
From Editor Stephanie G’Schwind’s Editors’ Page for the Fall/Winter 2015 issue of Colorado Review:
Twelve years ago, with the support of Emily Hammond and Steven Schwartz, now Colorado Review’s fiction editor, we founded the Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction as a way to honor the memory of Liza Nelligan, a dear friend and Colorado State University English Department alumna. Nelligan passed away in 2003, and the Prize seeks to celebrate her life, work, and love of creative writing by awarding an honorarium and publication each year to the author of an outstanding short story. This year’s winner, featured in this issue, is Luke Dani Blue’s “Bad Things That Happen to Girls,” selected by Lauren Groff, who says of this story,
The magic in this story is subtle and slow-building and so unprepossessing that, while reading it, I understood I was holding my breath only when the story started to swim before me. Poor Birdie, poor Tricia! This story’s wisdom resides in the complicated web of emotion between mother and daughter, the gnarl of tenderness and fury and frustration and embarrassment, of primal loss and of overwhelming love. It’s a story that aches with truth and desperation, and I marvel at the way Blue ratchets up the motion, breath by breath, to the story’s logical but stunning end.
Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their September Family Matters competition. This competition is held once a year and is open to all writers for stories about family of all configurations. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.
First place: S. P. MacIntyre [pictured], of South Florida, wins $1500 for “Pinch.” His story will be published in Issue 98 of Glimmer Train Stories.
Second place: Christopher Bundy, of Atlanta, GA, wins $500 for “80,000,000.” His story will also be published in an upcoming issue of Glimmer Train, increasing his prize to $700.
Third place: D. C. Lambert, of Haddenfield, NJ, wins $300 for “That Your Reality Is the Only Reality.”
A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.
Deadline soon approaching! Short Story Award for New Writers: November 30
This competition is held quarterly and is open to all writers whose fiction has not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5000. No theme restrictions. Most submissions to this category run 1500-5000 words, but can go up to 12,000. First place prize is $1500. Second/third: $500/$300. Click here for complete guidelines.
The Fall/Winter 2015 issue of University of Alambama’s Black Warrior Review features the latest in their chapbook series: Loudermilk by Colin Winnette, author of Haints Stay (Two Dollar Radio, 2015), Coyote (Les Figues Press, 2015), Fondly (Atticus Books, 2013), Animal Collection (Spork Press, 2012) and Revelation (Mutable Sound, 2011).
American Life in Poetry: Column 556
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Marge Saiser is a Nebraskan who has written a number of deeply moving poems about love. Here’s one for our holiday season:
Thanksgiving for Two
The adults we call our children will not be arriving
with their children in tow for Thanksgiving.
We must make our feast ourselves,
slice our half-ham, indulge, fill our plates,
potatoes and green beans
carried to our table near the window.
We are the feast, plenty of years,
arguments. I’m thinking the whole bundle of it
rolls out like a white tablecloth. We wanted
to be good company for one another.
Little did we know that first picnic
how this would go. Your hair was thick,
mine long and easy; we climbed a bluff
to look over a storybook plain. We chose
our spot as high as we could, to see
the river and the checkerboard fields.
What we didn’t see was this day, in
our pajamas if we want to,
wrinkled hands strong, wine
in juice glasses, toasting
whatever’s next,
the decades of side-by-side,
our great good luck.
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by Marjorie Saiser, “Thanksgiving for Two,” (2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Marjorie Saiser. Introduction copyright © 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
Southeast Missouri State University Press’s annual Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel awards a $2,000 prize to winners, publication, and an invitation to read at the University.
James Tate Hill’s winning Academy Gothic was published this past October. The novel follows Tate Cowlishaw after finding the dead body of Scoot Simkins, dean of Parshall College.
From the publisher’s website:
Suspects aren’t hard to come by at the college annually ranked ‘Worst Value’ by U.S. News & World Report. While the faculty brace for a visit from the accreditation board, Cowlishaw’s investigation leads him to another colleague on eternal sabbatical. Before long, his efforts to save his job become efforts to stay alive. A farcical tale of incompetence and corruption, Academy Gothic scathingly redefines higher education as it chronicles the last days of a dying college.
Head over to the Southeast Missouri State University Press website to watch the Academy Gothic book trailer, read more about Hill’s first novel, and order a copy.
Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Rain Taxi champions literary culture through the publication of reviews, interviews, and essays, publishing a chapbook series, and by hosting live literary events in the twin cities. Rain Taxi exists for readers and writers, literary publishers of all shapes and sizes, booksellers, educators, and kindred spirits who want books to flourish.
The print publication is distributed in over 250 locations nationwide (mostly independent bookstores) and is also available by subscription. An accompanying online edition, with completely different material, is posted each quarter as well. Together, the two publications offer readers a broad look at the noteworthy writing and art being published today.
Rain Taxi is run by a dedicated staff including Editor Eric Lorberer, published poet, essayist, critic and speaker/advocate for independent publishing and literary culture; Art Director and Business Manager Kelly Everding, UMass M.F.A. and author of the poetry chapbook Strappado for the Devil (Etherdome Press, 2004); and Editorial Assistant Alex Brubaker, B.A. Millersville University whose interests include 20th Century Eastern European Literature, David Foster Wallace, and the American Transcendentalists.
[Text from the Rain Taxi website.]
“Just what makes an essay literary ?” begins David H. Lynn’s Editor’s Notes in the Nov/Dec 2015 issue of Kenyon Review. “I’ve been challenged on that recently, not least because I’d like to extend the capaciousness of creative categories. These notes provide an early opportunity.”
Included in his discussion were these comments:
Read the full edtiorial here.
The newest issue of The Sewanee Review (Fall 2015) focuses on war literature with Architecture of Death: War and the Literature of War. The feature includes fiction and poetry as well as essays by Richard Tillinghast on Nathan Bedford Forrest and Robert Lacy on the home front during WWII along with essays by George Bornstein, Gerald L. Smith, Christopher Thornton, and Robert G. Walker. Jeffrey Meyers’ essay “Hemingway and Goya” can be read on The Sewanee Review website along with Ann Lohner’s fiction “The Iron Trap.”
Broadsided Press has selected poems to accompany artwork for six collaborations in response to the war in Syria. Available for free download to share: work by Moustafa Jacoub and Kirun Kapur, Ira Joel Haber and Nick Almeida, Karen Cappotto and Lena Khalif Tuffaha, Janice Redman and Katherine DiBella Seluja, Sarah Van Sanden and Tiffany Higgins, Undine Brod and YOU – one poster with an image and no text, allowing you to add your own poem. A GREAT classroom assignment for teachers across disciplines as well as personal writing exercise – one that provides an outlet as well as outreach. The Broadsided website also includes a Q&A with each artist/writer about their works.
According to the editors of FIELD Magazine, the publication’s “association with Russell Edson goes all the way back to FIELD #7 (Fall 1972), which featured five of his prose poems, among them ‘An Old Man’s Son’:
There was an old man who had a kite for a son, which he would let up into the air attached to a string, when he had need to be alone.
…And would watch this high bloom of himself, as something distant that will be close again…
“Those weren’t the only prose poems in that issue; we also had one by W. S. Merwin, two by Jean Valentine, and four by Erica Pedretti . . . But everyone knew that if you wanted to talk about the prose poem in contemporary poetry, you began and ended with the strange, commanding genius of Edson.”
Featured in FIELD #93 (Fall 2015), Russell Edson: A FIELD Symposium includes John Gallaher (“So Are We to Laugh or What”), Dennis Schmitz (“Edson’s Animals”), Lee Upton (“Counting Russell Edson”), Charles Simic (“Easy as Pie”), B. K. Fischer (“Some Strange Conjunction”), and Jon Loomis (“Consider the Ostrich”).
Margaret Gibson, author of the memoir The Prodigal Daughter and seven books of poetry, most recently Broken Cup (LSU Press, 2014), is featured in the Fall 2015 issue of The Georgia Review. Editor Stephen Corey writes a special thanks to Margaret Gibson in his introduction “for her cooperation with our proposal to present her sequence of poems as a singled-out chapbook feature.” Set off with a title cover, artwork, and a font style different than the magazine’s, Richer Than Prayer or Vow is fourteen unnumbered pages of eleven poems for readers to really sink into and enjoy.
The newest issue of World Literature Today features poetry written about art. As Assistant Director and Editor in Chief of the publication describes it, “In this issue’s cover feature devoted to poetry inspired by post-1950 visual art, thirteen international poets fashion word-pictures that attempt not only to verbalize a visual analogue but to liberate moments of stasis from the prison-house of space. With each poem, you’ll find reproductions of the art that inspired it, allowing readers to witness the acts of transposition first-hand.
“As their point of departure, the twenty poems included in the section describe mostly paintings—oil, acrylic, gouache, or watercolor on canvas, board, masonite, wood, paper, cardboard, etc.—but also faded black-and-white photos from a family album and etched gourds. Several of the painters who inspired the poets have work in major art museums—Salvador Dalí, Elizabeth Murray, Remedios Varo, among others—yet some of the artists are relatively unknown. The majority of the poems featured are translations from other languages—Arabic, French, and Spanish—and all are published here for the first time in English.”
Issue #192 of The Malahat Review features the winner of the 2015 Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, Mark Rogers, “Heaven and Back Again, or The Goddit.” Of Rogers’ winning story, contest judge Elyse Friedman called it “a strange, modern-day fairy tale about children who escape the control of their parents—and the earthly realm—only to return as shells, their essence gone.” In addition to publication, Rogers receives $1,000 and is featured in an interview with Jack Crouch on The Malahat Review website.
