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At the NewPages Blog readers and writers can catch up with their favorite literary and alternative magazines, independent and university presses, creative writing programs, and writing and literary events. Find new books, new issue announcements, contest winners, and so much more!

Résumé

In the dedication Chris Green states that there is “no straightforward compensation.” The rest of the poems follow Joseph Brodsky’s quote during his employment trial, “Everything was interesting to me. I changed jobs because I wanted to learn more about life, about people.” There is a Midwestern, blue collar motif to the language that runs through the poems. There is plenty of indirect and direct evidence of the observations of a poet from Chicago. Many times I thought of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich’s exposé on living a low-wage lifestyle. Continue reading “Résumé”

The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom

This is not a pipe. The word is not the thing. The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom shares this sentiment. Noah Eli Gordon presents a modern treason of symbol. His words take flight in the very airplanes he describes. The trajectory is set by meta ontology. As the poems move forward and take shape, there is the sense that a message was thought of before the descriptions, that the writing has an agenda. However, there is a playful sense of tumbling through, that the words are allowing each other to create the next one. The message of origins of language and the etymology of our very ideas are shrouded in mystery. Continue reading “The Word Kingdom in the Word Kingdom”

Glimmer Train December Fiction Open Winners :: 2015

Glimmer Train has just chosen the winning stories for their December Fiction Open competition. This competition is held twice a year. Stories generally range from 2000-6000 words, though up to 20,000 is fine. The next Fiction Open will take place in June. Glimmer Train’s monthly submission calendar may be viewed here.

Zeynep-Ozakat-credit-David-SamuelFirst place: Zeynep Ozakat of Istanbul, Turkey, wins $2500 for “Moving from Istanbul.” Her story will be published in Issue 96 of Glimmer Train Stories. This will be her first published story. [Photo credit: David Samuel]

Second place: David Szucs of New York, NY, wins $1000 for “Rhubarb and Pussy Willow.”

Third place: Jonathan Frith of Cold Spring, NY, wins $600 for “Meese’s Father.”

A PDF of the Top 25 winners can be found here.

Deadline TODAY for the Short Story Award for New Writers: February 28. 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.

Fulton Prize for Fiction Winners

adirondack-reviewThe Winter 21014 issue of Adirondack Review features the winner and runner-up of their annual Fulton Prize for Short Fiction. Winner “Study of an Orange” by Theresa Duve Morales receives $400 and publication and “Embryology” by Barrett Bowlin wins $30 and publication. The issue also features some marvelous artwork by Alfredo Palmero, Oscar Varona, Federico Federici, Stephen Nelson, and Sandrine Pagnoux. All worth the click.

Some Literary News Links :: February 2015

Ten Reasons to Write Short Stories Even Though the Pay is Peanuts – although one of the reasons is short stories can make money, there are several other more altruistic reasons as well.

Chrislove examines LGBT character visiblity in comic books and graphic novels – and offers loads of resources.

Just for fun: 6 Classic Novels That Could Use a Sequel – ETonline provides their opinion on what the sequel would include.

“Twitter’s not literature, but it can be a novel teaching tool” poses Harriet Line in the Times Higher Education.

From one literary lover to another, homeless man given a Kindle by a kind-hearted stranger.

The Bronte sisters’ family dining table has been saved from auction with the help of the Bronte Society and its supporters.

Jacqueline Sahagian offers 10 Better Books by the Authors you Read in School – good for starting a healthy literary argument!

Gender gaps in journalism classes and newsroom concern students.

Let’s get together, yeh-yeh-yeh: We need more STEM majors with liberal arts training.

Poetry Northwest Honors Carolyn Kizer

carolyn-kizerPoetry Northwest Winter & Spring 2015 issue is the first since founding editor Carolyn Kizer passed away October 9, 2014. The issue honors Kizer’s vision and legacy, as Editor Keven Craft writes in his introduction, in that “the majority of the poets in this issue are women. The majority of men herein write about (or through) a particular she. Or contend with otherness in other forms.” The publication is entirely devoted to poetry, “including a substantial section of poetry in translation, reflecting an important part of Kizer’s early attempts to internationalize Poetry Northwest.”

Writer Beware Recent Posts

Some of the recent posts on Writer Beware: The Blog:

Two Red-Flag Sentences in Publishing Contracts
Lost in Translation (About the reputation of Author Translation service – worth reading the exchange!)
Who’s Running Your Writers’ Group? Why You Should Be Careful
Editing Clauses in Publishing Contracts: How to Protect Yourself

writer-bewareWriter Beware: The Blog is sponsored by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, with additional support from several other organizations. With author Victoria Strauss at the helm, their effort is “Shining a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news and commentary, and a focus on the weird and wacky things that happen at the fringes of the publishing world.”

Poetry :: Kimberly Reyes

Excerpt from “Undertones” by Kimberly Reyes published in The Acentos Review February 2015:

. . .

kimberly-reyesThe machete sugarcane bled

Red on the island

dark and Jíbaro, Salinas poor,

Red was the language we spoke,

fertile in storied humility.

The good Red on the Mainland,

the mixed and other and ancient and othered,

rich ‘got some Indian in me’ reigning Red

whose scorn I

I didn’t know then.

my mutilated being

my maternal brown stain

The:

“why is your last name Reyes?”

“is your husband Spanish?”

This.

. . .

Read the full poem here.

Iron Horse Takes on 50 Shades

This issue (17.1) iron-horse-reviewof Iron Horse Review had me at the cover image, which drew me in to learn this is the “Bedroom Issue.” Certainly not limited to that literal room, Assistant Editor Katie Cortese writes, “We considered this issue a risk.” Oh goodie! She goes on, “Not because sex is a taboo topic—as an important part of adult existence, it’s as worthy of ink and metaphor as any other aspect of living—but because writing about it is so hard to do well.”

Cortese offers her view on the ends of the spectrum, from bad to good sex writing, and on purposely having released this issue for the movie release of Fifty Shades of Grey: “. . . we conceived this issue in part to combat some of the problems we see with a work like Fifty Shades of Grey. We don’t believe that series constitutes art.”

She goes on, engaging the perspective of Elizabeth Benedict in her work The Joy of Writing Sex to support what is “good” sex scene writing. “When we applied her standards to the wonderful, brave, inventive work that flooded our submission portal, we were forced to make some truly difficult decisions.”

Read Cortese’s full commentary here.

Novel Studies Blog Seeks Contributors

studies-novelStudies in the Novel, a scholarly journal in its 47th year, invites submissions of guest blog posts and teaching resources to be considered as content on their newly-launched website. For the blog forum, the editors welcome incisive, humorous, and intellectually speculative posts from the journal’s readers, contributors, and the novel-loving community at large on issues of relevance to scholarship on the novel, new and noteworthy novels, or other novel topics. The selection and publication of blog posts will be at the discretion of the editor and the Studies in the Novel editorial advisory board. This intellectual forum extends the journal’s mission by publicizing new directions in the scholarship and teaching of novels and by promoting intellectual exchange. Visit their website for more information.

Dis- Phoebe’s Poetry Special Feature

lakesIssue 44.1 of George Mason University’s MFA-student-run Phoebe includes a special feature Poetry Editor Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes first starting mulling over as “disparity.”

She writes, “So many of the struggles in my life and the lives of people I see in the world seem to revolve around some sort of disparity: of place, of mind, of circumstance. After speaking with Qinglan Wang, my assistant editor, I realized I was less interested in the ‘parity’ and more interested in the ‘dis-‘ – in poems that explored disability, in poems that confronted things that dissatisfied or disappointed, and in poems that grappled with disaster.”

Authors contributing to this special dis- poetry feature include Catherine Pierce, Stacey Kidd, Richard Greenfield, Dorothea Lasky, Matt Bell, Martha Collins, and Adam Clay.

American Tanka: An Inch of Freedom

american-tankaThe newest issues (January 2015) of Ameican Tanka is themed “an inch of freedom.” A sampling of first lines: “from my garden / bindweed creeps” (Robert Amis); “the storm / predicted and mapped” (Jari Thymian); “temple-bell / stirs devout thougts” (Vishnu P. Kapoor); “Uncle A with the rolling / musical chuckle -” (Roger Jones).

American Tanka is an online publication that “seeks to present a small selection of some of the most well-crafted English-language tanka being written today, in a visually calm space that allows the reader’s eye to focus on the single poem and linger in the moment it evokes.” Having begun as a print journal in 1996, Founder and Editor Laura Maffei produced the publication until 2008. After a two-year hiatus, Maffei brought the journal back online in the original one-poem-per-page format. American Tanka is published once or twice per year.

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

grain

What’s not to adore about this image on the cover of Grain? The theme for the issue (42.2) became “Artist as Watcher / Writer as Witness” and was influenced by the featured artist Wilf Perreault. “Two Waiting Ladies” (1982) graces the cover.

angle2This cover image of the online poetry journal Angle mesmerized me. Though it’s from the Autumn/Winter 2014, Amy Wiseman’s photo, “Sunset Through Hag Stone on Cromer Beach,” warmed me through and has me looking forward to summer.

adroitThe online Adroit Journal regularly features cool cover art. The last several issues have a “floaty” theme about them. “Whirl” is an award-winning piece by Jedidiah Gist, a freshman at Clemson University.

American Life in Poetry :: Kathleen Aguero

American Life in Poetry: Column 517
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

The Dalai Llama has said that dying is just getting a new set of clothes. Here’s an interesting take on what it may be like for the newly departed, casting off their burdens and moving with enthusiasm into the next world. Kathleen Aguero lives in Massachusetts.

Send Off

The dead are having a party without us.
They’ve left our worries behind.
What a bore we’ve become
with our resentment and sorrow,
like former lovers united
for once by our common complaints.
Meanwhile the dead, shedding pilled sweaters,
annoying habits, have become
glamorous Western celebrities
gone off to learn meditation.

We trudge home through snow
to a burst pipe,
broken furnace, looking
up at the sky where we imagine
they journey to wish them bon voyage,
waving till the jet on which they travel
first class is out of sight—
only the code of its vapor trail left behind.

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 ©2013 by Kathleen Aguero from her most recent book of poems, After That, (Tiger Bark Press, 2013). Poem reprinted by permission of Kathleen Aguero 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

SubTerrain Eating Meat & Lush Triumphant

subterrainIssue #69 of SubTerrain: Strong Words for a Polite Nation is the result of a call for submissions on the theme of Meat – animal flesh that is eaten for food. Editor Brian Kaufman opens with his editorial “Conflicted, in Carnivore Land,” in which he writes that wading “into the thorny debate on meat consumption” was not intended. Still, he understands there may be just such perceptions with consequences: “While this issue is not intended to be a celebration of meat consumption so much as an exploration into our relationship with meat, we leave ourselves open to the flood of responses from the vegetarians and vegans – please send your letters in!”

This issue also includes winning entries from the 2014 Lush Triumphant Literary Awards:

Fiction
Winner: Vickie Weaver (Hagerstown, IN) for “Suggestion”

Poetry
Winner: Matt Whiteman (Vancouver, BC) for “Do Good, You Go”

Creative Non-fiction
Winner: George Ilsley (Vancouver, BC) for “Storytelling”

Event Non-Fiction 2015 Contest Winners

Event: Poetry and Prose, the Douglas College Review, issue 43.3 features the winners of the 2014 Non-Fiction Contest judged by Deborah Campbell [pictured], author of A Disappearnce in Damascus (August 2015, Knopf Canada).

deborah-campbell“Vocational Rehabilitation” by Hilary Dean
Scarborough, ON

“Whatever It Is” by Zachary Hug
West Hollywood, CA, USA

“Twenty Miles Above the Limit” by Alessandra Naccarato
Toronto, ON

The other short-listed entries can be found here.

Segurson on Travel and the Arts

I enjoy reading editor introductions to publications as much as the content itself sometimes. Readers and writers alike can be duly informed of the ‘sensibilities’ of a publication based on what they’ll find in those brief opening notes. In her opening letter to the Fall 2014 Catamaran Literary Reader, Founding Editor Catherine Segurson gives much to inform as well as contemplate:

catamaran“The freedome to move, to travel and explore, is core to our being. Pulling up roots and heading off to parts unknown frees us from our patterned lives and promotes growth. The journey can be both liberating and terrifying, filled with wonder and potential dangers, every step a lesson about the world and about ourselves – how we deal with the unexpected, how we cope with not knowing what the next turn in the road will bring.”
. . .
“We don’t have to travel halfway around the world or to distant planets to experience the wonder of what it means to be alive. As long as we are fully aware, even a walk around the block can inspire us; closely studying the structure of a primrose can add to our view of the world. These are lessons we learn from art and litearature as well. Writers, artists, and scientists are in the business of examining life and revealing what they’ve discovered – this, in turn, benefits us as readers and gallery visitors.”

Following these sentiments is much to support Segurson’s perspective, in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art (including photography, sculpture, paintings, mixed media, and more – all in full color!). Samples of the artwork and written works published in this issue can be read on the publication’s website.

[Cover art: Candy Tree by Michael Cutlip, 2011, mixed media on panel, 40 x 48 in]

Malahat Review Contest Winners

malahat-reviewThe Malahat Review #189 includes winners of the 2014 Far Horizons Award for Poetry and the 2014 Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize.

Far Horizons Award for Poetry winner Laura Ritland’s poem “Vincent, in the Dream of Zundert” can be read on the publication’s website, along with an interview with her regarding the award.

“Venn Diagrams” the Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize winning piece by Rebecca Foust is only available in print, but the website includes an interview with Foust as well.

Books :: Delta Dogs

delta-dogsThis new book, Delta Dogs from University Press of Mississippi, celebrates the canines who roam this most storied corner of Mississippi. Some of Clay’s photographs feature lone dogs dwarfed by kudzu-choked trees and hidden among the brambles next to plowed fields. In others, dogs travel in amiable packs, trotting toward a shared but mysterious adventure. Her Delta dogs are by turns soulful, eager, wary, resigned, menacing, and contented.

Writers Brad Watson and Beth Ann Fennelly ponder Clay’s dogs and their connections to the Delta, speculating about their role in the drama of everyday life and about their relationships to the humans who share this landscape with them. In a photographer’s afterword, Clay writes about discovering the beauty of her native land from within. She finds that the ubiquitous presence of the Delta dog gives scale, life, and sometimes even whimsy and intent to her Mississippi landscape.

Delta Dogs
By Maude Schuyler Clay
Introduction by Brad Watson
Essay by Beth Ann Fennelly
96 pp. / 10.5 X 9 inches / 70 duotone photographs

[Text from the publisher’s website.]

Whitefish Review: Encouraging Young Writers

whitefish-reviewWhitefish Review‘s most recent issue, themed “The Geography of Hope,” includes a feature entitled “Freeflow: Getting into the minds and hearts of Whitefish High School students.” The editors worked with WHS teachers Nikki Reed and Eric Sawtelle to gather students and “gain insight on their sense of place in the mountains and the work they do with Project FREEFLOW (Flathead River Educational Effort for Focused Learning in Our Watersheds).”

Coupling literary magazines with young activists to support their work, give them an audience, and create a bond with the printed arts is a great concept other publications could emulate. In addition, while Whitefish Review charges a nominal fee for submissions, there is no charge for writers high school age and younger, encouraging their participation.

This is especially good to know, considering the publication’s latest call for submissions for a themed issue: Mythic Beasts & Monsters. If THAT doesn’t encourage young writers, I don’t know what will!

Until March 15, 2015: “Whitefish Review wants you to dig into supernatural history: Nessie, Sasquatch, and cousin Yeti—the Brontosaurus still rumbling somewhere deep in the Congo’s swamps. Fairies, Trolls, Dragons, Gods ‘n’ Demons. Our own Flathead Lake Monster. What natural models are these beasts based on? What human hopes and fears? Why do we seem to wish that those creatures are really out there? How big and strange is creation anyway — the real pageant of creatures? What about all the bizzarro beasts that are stranger than any legend? (Thank you to Douglas H. Chadwick for the writing prompt.)”

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

austin-review

In addition to featuring Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Tate, “captivating fiction and nonfiction,” the cover of The Austin Review issue 3 is equally captivating. “Iron Age” is a work by Austin local Irish artist John Mulvany.

cactus-heart

Nope. No stunning imagery here. Instead, I was completely drawn to the cleaver concept of printing one of the publication’s submissions on the front cover. I’ve seen this done on the back cover, but not the front. Cactus Heart #10 is an e-issue, with #10.5 this print version. Featured: “Confessions of a Lazy Feminist” by Amanda Fuller.

Cincinnati Review: So Much to Recommend!

The most recent issue of Cincinnati Review is unique for a number of reasons. The issue comes with a separately printed, full-color graphic novel, Moth: The Play written by Declan Greene and illustrated by Gabe Ostley. Check out this sweet YouTube video The Making of Moth for a teaser.

The publication also received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that allowed the editors to focus on longer forms. “In fiction, this includes several extended stories. In poetry, sequences and long poems lead off each section.” In total, this issue offers almost one hundred additional pages of fiction and poetry.

ellen-ruth-harrisonAnd finally, the magazine features a unique partnering of music and poetry. Award-winner composer of chamber works Ellen Ruth Harrison has created music to express three poems by Jakob Stein, originally printed in the Summer 2008 issue. The full score for “Sefiros” appears in this issue along with the reprinted poems and introduction by Poetry Editor Don Bogen. Additionally, the art-song will be performed in the Robert J. Werner Recital Hall at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music on Monday February 16, 2015 at 8 p.m. A podcast of the performance will be posted on the publication’s website following the event.

I think that’s quite enough to recommend, don’t you?

The Antioch Review – Fall 2014

The Fall 2014 issue of The Antioch Review took on the theme of what they have chosen to call “word trucks,” which are similar to “food trucks.” The Antioch Review positions themselves to be like a food truck, “serving up a variety of dishes that were intended to stimulate the intellectual palate with ‘the best words in the best order.’” In order to stimulate the palate of every reader, this issue is packed with essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews, thoughtfully crafted and organized. Continue reading “The Antioch Review – Fall 2014”

Gigantic Sequins – 2014

Literature is at its best when it resonates, when the reader is inclined to make connections to other texts, genres, and media in an effort to make sense of the work at hand. The resonant quality of the summer issue of Gigantic Sequins is high, indebted to the finely crafted works within its pages. According to Editor-in-chief Kimberly Ann Southwick, “The whole reason we do this thing is to present you some of the finest writers and artists around these days.” In this issue, they have fulfilled this promise. Continue reading “Gigantic Sequins – 2014”

Left Curve – 2015

For their final print issue, after the recent passing of their editor and publisher, Csaba Polony, Left Curve provides readers with a strong collection of essays, poetry, and a variety of other musings, including a play and an interview with artists Victor and Margarita Tupitsyn. Although the journal will continue to make use of their website, the final hard copy, like Dylan Thomas suggests in his canonized villanelle, does not go gentle into that good night. The selections are designed, written, and selected by thinkers. Continue reading “Left Curve – 2015”

Ekphrasis – Fall/Winter 2014

Returning to “Girl Eating a Bird” by Vanessa Zimmer-Powell published in this issue of Ekphrasis is becoming a habit. The language haunts as it depicts, surmises as it reveals. In just ten lines, the poem written after viewing Rene Magritte’s painting, Girl Eating a Bird, exposes more of the painting and its subject. The first line “She chewed open cardinal” evokes in iamb, trochee, and dactyl, a nearly cannibalistic gnaw at the bone. In the next line, in the single syllable “raw,” a reader might feel a twinge of sulfuric delight before reading on to the satisfying end. “She won’t stop / until it is well tasted,” and neither will readers. Continue reading “Ekphrasis – Fall/Winter 2014”

Glimmer Train Stories – Winter 2014

In my admittedly brief career as a reviewer, I’ve not encountered any literary journals that concentrate almost exclusively on the short story. I really like the idea, and obviously so do many other readers. Two differences I noticed about Glimmer Train Stories: this is the only lit mag I’ve read so far that isn’t connected to a college or university; and it’s the only one that includes a bookmarker as a bonus. Continue reading “Glimmer Train Stories – Winter 2014”

Main Street Rag – Fall 2014

The Main Street Rag has a different vibe from your distantly intellectual, even-tempered literary journal. It’s unpredictable, quirky. At the very beginning, Publisher/Editor M. Scott Douglass writes in The Front Seat column about why the issue is late and about the kerfuffle of the North Carolina governor inserting himself into the selection of state poet laureate. When he’s had his say on these topics, he directs us to The Back Seat (distinguished by cream-colored pages) toward the end of the issue, where he takes on the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina. This is a hands-on, opinionated rag. Continue reading “Main Street Rag – Fall 2014”

Enizagam – 2014

If Volume 8 of Enizagam is an accurate measure, age is no indicator of ability. The literary magazine is produced by 9th-12th grade students at the School of Literary Arts at Oakland School for the Arts in Oakland, California. The urban public arts charter school students design, edit, and publish the journal, and they do an excellent job. Enizagam is a beautifully designed read, full of the kind of poetry and fiction that not only delights, but sticks with the reader long after putting the publication down. Continue reading “Enizagam – 2014”

GreenPrints – Winter 2015

The centennial of anything is generally cause for celebration, but when one is an independent gardening magazine with homegrown roots (pun intended) and a lot of heart, reaching Issue 100 is an even more exciting accomplishment. Issue 100 of GreenPrints does not disappoint. It is a celebration of not only the gardening and gardeners GreenPrints regularly embraces, but also the magazine itself and all those whose impassioned writing is surely on par with their artfully tended begonias and apricot trees. Continue reading “GreenPrints – Winter 2015”

Eleven Eleven – 2014

Not long after opening Eleven Eleven Issue 17, the reader finds two photographs by Ken Morisawa (“Fishman speed light #4” and “Fishman #18”). The two black and white images ostensibly depict a man diving into dark water, surrounded by chaos and a disturbance of bubbles. One may read this in other ways, but it strikes me as a man diving into the wild, the unknown, a bold and determined move. He may not know what to expect, but he jumps anyway. It is exhilarating. This interpretation fittingly mirrors the experience of opening Eleven Eleven. Continue reading “Eleven Eleven – 2014”

Happy Valentine’s Day Poem

American Life in Poetry: Column 516
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Kurt Brown was a talented poet who died in 2013, and his posthumous selected and new poems opens with this touching late poem to his wife, Laure-Anne.

The Kiss

That kiss I failed to give you.
How can you forgive me?
The kiss I would have spent on you is still
There, within me. It will probably die there.
But it will be the last of me to die.

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 the Estate of Kurt Brown, “The Kiss,” from I’ve Come This Far to Say Hello: Poems Selected and New by Kurt Brown (Tiger Bark Press, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of The Estate of Kurt Brown and Tiger Bark Press. 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Freedom to Read Week Canada

freedom-to-read-weekFebruary 22-28, 2015 is Freedom to Read Week, an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Freedom to Read Week encourages Canadians to focus on issues of intellectual freedom as they affect community, your province, country, and countries around the world. Whether a librarian, bookseller, educator, student, or member of the community, there are lots of ways you can help mark this annual event.

Each year, the Freedom to Read Kit includes a “Get Involved” section that provides activities designed for classroom instruction and discussion. “Get Involved” is also intended for citizens outside the classroom who wish to plan community events, and the organization’s website includes a number of ideas and resources as well.

Freedom to Read Week is organized by the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council.

Special Issue :: New York School and Diaspora

valley-voicesThe newest issue of Valley Voices (Fall 2014, published by Mississippi Valley State University) is a special issue focused on New York School and Diaspora. Guest Editor Angela Ball writes in her introduction that she hosted a symposium on New York School Poetry and the South and extended the conversation of that gathering with this special issue, including the works of former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, Denise Duhamel, Barbara Hamby, David Kirby, and David Lehman, who had originally attended the symposium.

David Lehman agreed to join the project as Associate Editor, suggesting Angela Ball include blog entries she had written for Best American Poetry discussing the “big four poets of the New York School”: Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, and James Schuyler.

Also included in the issue are student essays and comments written as part of a seminar Ball was teaching at the time, “The Poetry of the New York School.” Ball writes that these “record what graduate students in poetry writing, fiction writing, and literature have to say about the special qualities of the New York School that make it a potent force for leavening and enlivening contemporary poetry in the South and elsewhere.”

Women and the Global Imagination

prairie-schoonerPrairie Schooner Winter 2014 includes a generous poetry portfolio edited by Alicia Suskin Ostriker: Women and the Global Imagination. In her preface, Ostriker writes:

“‘Imagination’ is a key word here. . . There is an amazing fullness of poetic imagination in these pages. The poets imagine their ancestors going back to ‘the first cave,’ as Venus Khoury-Ghata says, or to their immediate parents. They imagine freedom, and the struggle for freedom. They inventory the body and its appetites. They tell stories. They speak in the voices of invented or historical characters. . . There is no narrowly defined female aesthetic here. The poems are lyric, satiric, mythic, experimental, surreal, expansive, laconic, conversational, tender, angry, allegorical, oracular.”

Authors included in the portfolio: Judith Vollmer, Diana Garcia, Aliki Barnstone, Margo Berdeshevsky, Karen Alkalay-Gut, Dahlia Ravikovitch, Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Cynthia Hogue, Katie Bickham, Veronica Golos, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Anne Germanacos, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, Ladan Osman, Nathalie Handal, Rebecca Gayle Howell, Lorraine Healy, Ursula K. Le Guin, Naoko Fujimoto, Marilyn Krysl, Olga Sedakova, Tsitsi Jaji, Adélia Prado, Jeannie Vanasco, Judith H. Montgomery, Martha Collins, Liliana Ursu, Karthika Naïr, Batsirai E. Chigama, Suzanne Gardinier, Maria Kelson, and Eleanor Wilner.

Iowa Review Tim McGinnis Award Winner

dinika-amaralDinika M. Amaral, winner of the Iowa Review Tim McGinnis Award, has her story featured in the newest issue as well as online, along with a YouTube video of her reading and excerpt from the story. “No Good Deed Unpunished” is described by the editor as “a Hinglish tale of schoolgirl misadventures, comic and otherwise” and as providing “an ideal example of the sort of quirky creativity the McGinnis Award is meant to celebrate.”

At the end of each year, The Iowa Review editor and staff choose, from all the work published in their pages over the previous year, a piece that they think most fits the comic spirit of one-time contributor Tim McGinnis. The award comes with a $1000 prize.

What’s New KENYON Review?

kenyon-reviewIt was the change in format that first caught my eye with the new KENYON Review. Editor David H. Lynn comments on this altered physical appearance, but also a great deal more about how he and the staff and editors at Kenyon Review looked at the changing landscape of its readers to update the publication:

“I am delighted to present this first issue of a new volume year and with it the boldest revisions of design and frequency in the seventy-five-year trajectory of the Kenyon Review. Even that last ‘the’ has been challenged. More on that later. But note, please, that not only the look and feel of our magazine are dramatically new. It will now appear every two months, six times a year, rather than the quarterly iterations of many decades. All of this comes after two years of questions and debate and planning.”

Read Lynn’s full commentary here (and how he got cheeky with the “the”).

Lit Mag Covers :: Picks of the Week

west-branch

Still in the bleak of Michigan winter, I’m going for color first this week. West Branch Winter 2015 features Wetlands at Dawn by Sophia Heymans (2012, acrylic, papter mache, oil on board).

a-cappella-zoo

Inappropriate Fear, mixed paints on canvas by Julian Kimmings is the feature image on the cover of A cappella Zoo. “Fear makes the wolf look bigger,” is the accompanying text, appropriate perhaps for this publication of magic realism and slipstream stories.

American Life in Poetry :: Paul S. Piper

American Life in Poetry: Column 515
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Dogs are smart enough to get people to take care of them, a skill that a lot of people haven’t learned, but they’re still wild at the heart. Paul S. Piper lives in Washington.

Dog and Snow

dog-snowDog sees white. Arctic
light, the bright buzz in the brain

of pure crystal adrenaline. In a flash
he is out the door and across the street

looking for snowshoe hares, caribou, cats.
His wild ancestry ignited, Dog plunges

his nose into snow up to his eyes. He sees
his dreams. Master yells from the front porch

but Dog can’t hear him. Dog hears nothing
except the roar of the wind across the tundra, the ancient

existential cry of wolves, pure, devastating, hungry.
Time for crunchies. Taking many detours, Dog

returns to the porch. Let master think what he
wants. Freedom comes at a price.

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 ©2011 by Paul S. Piper from his most recent book of poems, Dogs and Other Poems, (Bird Dog Publishing, 2011). Poem reprinted by permission of Paul S. Piper 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Encouraging Young Writers

Hanging Loose magazine, first published in 1966, includes a special section for “Writers of High School Age.” High school authors published receive the same fee as others selected for publication and two copies of the issue in which their work appears. “We feel a special responsibility to those young writers who look to us not only for possible publication but sometimes also for editorial advice,” write the editors, “which we are always happy to give when asked. Our work as editors is of course time-consuming, but we feel a strong commitment to give as much time and attention as possible to the work we receive from high school age writers.” Full guidelines for submissions can be found here.

NewPages also has a Young Authors Guide, a listing of publications written for and accepting submissions by young writers as well as contests for young writers. This is an ad-free space and all listings are vetted for ethical treatment of minors submitting writing for publication and contests. If you know of a publication or contest we could list here, please contact us. Encouraging young writers is essential!

SRPR Editors’ Prize Winners

Spoon River Poetry Review Editors’ Prize 2014 contest winner, runners up and honorable mentions, selected by Joshua Corey, are all featured in the winter 2014 issue of Spoon River Poetry Review. First place winner Emma Bolden received $1000, an introduction included in the publication written by Corey, and an invitation to read at this year’s annual SRPR Lucia Getsi Reading Series, to be held in Bloomington, Illinois, in April 2015.

Winner
Emma Bolden, “It was no more predictable”

First Runner Up
Jonathan Soen, “Fragments from a Book”

Second Runner Up
Lynne Knight, “The Gospel of Infinity”

Honorable Mentions
Emma Bolden, “My little apparition, my little ghost”
Kathryn A Hindenlang, “This is the Nature”
Tori Grant Welhouse, “mor/bid”
Carine Topal, “Bone Jar: The Oven {An Elegy}”
Lynne Knight, “Sex”

The SRPR Editors’ Prize is an annual contest in which one winning poem is awarded $1,000, two runners-up are awarded $100 each, and 3-5 honorable mentions will be selected. All winning poems, honorable mentions, and several finalists are published. The annual deadline is postmark April 15.

Once, Then

Once, Then by Andrea Scarpino is a collection of elegies that are caught in the tension of two worlds, the scientific and the spiritual. In attempting to understand the aftermath of loss, Scarpino turns to form, and her lyrical, shortly-woven lines sing. The collection often features the profiles of people, those closest to Scarpino, and also mythic figures such as Persephone and Achilles. What results is a poet deeply engaged with the world. Continue reading “Once, Then”

Control Bird Alt Delete

What do a grass skirt, refrigerator, buttons, bones of a dairy cow, magnets, an old cake mix, and a spider all have in common? All, somehow impressively, appear in the first poem of Control Bird Alt Delete, a collection of poetry by Alexandria Peary. In it, Peary deconstructs our worlds and examines our environment from the perspective of deletion. If we destroy our natural resources to make products that will never deteriorate, what will exist of our world? Peary offers a world with unicorn rainbow stickers and fake lilacs. Continue reading “Control Bird Alt Delete”

Corporate Relations

Corporate Relations opens with a series of broken analogies that illustrate the ridiculousness of the idea of corporate personhood. Even from the first section, “The Beautiful Life of Persona Ficta,” Jena Osman makes this ridiculousness plain: “it is a nightmare that Congress endorsed. mega-corporation as human group, the realm of hypothesis.” Continue reading “Corporate Relations”

The Antigone Poems

Ancient wound. Politicians, monarchs, and religious fanatics still use this phrase to justify vengeance. Its literary applications are no less tragic. To give a Pulitzer and Nobel winning example, Eugene O’Neill knew how to channel that fury and apply it to his highly ordered dysfunctional universe. Continue reading “The Antigone Poems”