- I’ve successfully relocated to Nashville, and just need to find a job, and submit everything that’s been rejected since around February, and the dozen or so good poems I wrote in April. Phew. How are you-all doing?
- The first issue of Rat’s Ass Review (for which I designed the website, but have no editorial influence) went up yesterday.
- Also yesterday, the Wallace Stevens Walk was dedicated.
- I love these poems (especially the second one) by Sarah Pape.
- Isn’t Mary’s book cover gorgeous?
Author: joanne
big rubber clown gloves
- Some interesting discussion of feminist poetry here, by Mark Wallace (via) including a list of feminist poets.
- Brain research and poetry at the Ploughshares blog.
- I’m curious what people think of Scribd, which was mentioned to me by a friend last night, and is also featured in the New York Times. I’m generally against self-publishing, except in certain limited situations (niche non-fiction, or small runs of chapbooks to sell at readings), because I think it’s not a good deal for the writer, but this looks interesting for reprints of out-of-print books as ebooks.
- ETA: Harcourt Houghton Mifflin in anti-trust suit (via)
like ink bleeding through paper
Read Write Poem is doing hyperlinked poems (my favourite posted there so far is this haiku, from which the title of this entry comes), which reminded me of centos – I’ll have to write (find?) more of those. I’m posting it here to remind me, when things settle down (my husband just graduated, and we’re moving in two weeks).
NaPoWriMo postmortem and other news
I think I probably got a good 15 poems out of NPWM, once all the dust settles and I’ve edited the heck out of them. Thanks, Mary, for suggesting we do it.
In other, perhaps more exciting, news, my poem “Deaths on Other Planets” — which appeared in the April/May 2008 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction — has won their Readers’ Awards for Best Poem of 2008. (You can read it here.)
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A new (to me, anyway) wrinkle on the classic writing contest scam has appeared on the Poets & Writers Speakeasy, Absolute Write and craigslist (the craigslist ad was removed by craigslist):
It’s called ‘The Great Publication Contest’ for poems and short stories. By entering the contest you have a 1 in 8 chance of having your poem or short story published in a national publication in a book coming out in the summer of 2010 called ‘A Great Collection of Short Stories and Moving Poetry.
According to posters who visited greatpublicationcontest.siteusa.biz before it disappeared, the “contest” especially targets young people and has a $35 entry fee. In case you’re wondering, it’s not a good idea to enter this contest. For a guide to writing contests, read this, which I wrote when I worked for the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia.
the rudeness of honey
Progress: Using the fake-translation exercise I mentioned in my last progress update, I wrote a short, weird poem about rhyme. Today I wrote a short, not so weird poem about integrity. And that’s 30. Just under the wire. Phew!
Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.
eyelashes like sharpened tines
NaPoWriMo Inspiration: “Adolescence-II” by Rita Dove
as one loves certain obscure things
NaPoWriMo Inspiration: “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII” by Pablo Neruda
everything that lingers is bilingual
Progress: Wrote a kind of weird little poem riffing off the Denise Levertov poem here.
Prompt for today: Find a poem in another language, a language you can pronounce but don’t know, or don’t know well. “Translate” it very loosely, based on the sounds of the words when you don’t know their meaning. For instance, the first line of Charles Baudelaire’s “Le Soleil,” “Le long du vieux faubourg, où pendent aux masures” might become “the long and old fake bird, or pendant of measures.” Do this as fast as you can without worrying about making sense. Then select any phrases you like and write a poem with them. (This prompt is one I remember from Steve Kowit’s excellent In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop.)
Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.
feel the walls for a light switch
NaPoWriMo Inspiration: “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins
that lurches in the soul
Progress: Yesterday I wrote a pantoum that plays off Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” and today I wrote a cinquain.
Prompt for today: Read Write Poem provides words to use.
Mirrored at joannemerriam.com.