World Class Poetry Blog

Nic Sebastian at Very Like a Whale asked Jeb Livingston a series of questions on his blog. I thought Jeb’s answers were very telling and I’d like to offer a few snippets and my responses:

I sent my poems to all the wrong magazines; places that didn’t publish work in the same vein as mine — or places I wasn’t familiar, never read. That’s a recipe for failure and I cooked with that pretty much my entire 20s. Some people have to learn the hard way. I’m one of those people. Now I send poems out only to places I read and admire and sometimes to places that solicit work.

I think most of us go through this phase of sending out manuscripts to the wrong places. In truth, it’s hard to find compatible avenues for your poetry. It’s like dating. You have to go through hundreds of losers, whiners, ugly first cousins, loquacious snobs, self-centered eye-batters, silent prigs, and really awful date places in order to find one relationship that makes sense. When you do find a poetry journal that you really like, support it. Read it. Devour it for a while before you jump in and submit your work. Really make sure it is something that excites you and if it does, submit your work.

On “What would you do differently if you had to start all over again?”

I would save my money and not send to any book contests whatsoever. Bye bye $1500. What do I have to show for it? A handful of the “winning” books, most of which I don’t even care for. I could have published two books for that amount. Also, as I mentioned above, I would be more selective and knowledgeable where I send my work in general. Bye bye hundreds of hours of my life.

Geez, do I know how she feels. Not about the money. I’ve never been a big contest person. Though I’ve submitted to a few, I haven’t made a life of it. But I have wasted countless hours sending work to places I never should have been sending my work to, either for the prestige or for the self-congratulatory pat on the back, or because So-and-So did and I thought I should have that honor as well. It’s not worth it. Write what you write and find those journals that will publish it. Don’t waste time sending out work to schmucks.

That’s the beauty of ch(e)apbooks. I guess I don’t really understand the question of whether or not chapbooks are good or bad. Some books are good things, others not so much. I don’t see how length, distribution or the production process has any determining factor in that. Unless the pages are made from the skins of kittens.

When I discovered the power of chapbooks, I decided it was the way to go. One poetry reading can lead to the sale of four or five chapbooks, which pays for gas to and from and a snack, usually. Though now it probably just pays for gas. But you have to offer your chapbooks sparingly. Don’t publish a new one every week. If you publish too often then people will just think you are a money hound. Only publish a new chapbook when you know you’ve got one worth selling. Then hawk it for all it’s worth.

If you’re worried about trends, fashion or popularity, for God’s sake, don’t waste your time with poetry.

No kidding. Did she really need to say that? Yeah, if you are the trendy kind of person, try writing a memoir. Or write fiction and call it a memoir.

Poems don’t make anyone money. So when you’re creating your book, listen to your inner artist, not your inner capitalist. If your inner capitalist knew what he was talking about, he’d be telling you to write a self-help book or something for Penthouse Forum.

Hah! Funny one, that. Perhaps I should query Penthouse Forum about my poem on capitalism!

All jokes aside, she’s right. Poetry isn’t for capitalists. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take money for it.

If you mean do I do readings, speak on panels, link to my books from my websites, try to cajole people into reviewing my books, send out e- mails asking friends and family to buy them, agree to participate in interviews such as this one — then yes, most certainly. I do it because I want people to buy my books. I want people to read them.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

On another note, Tony Brown is the newest Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere. Congratulations Tony!

Here’s an interesting project, and a revolutionary way to market poetry. What do you think?

Here’s a bird poetry contest.

Speaking of birds, meet Amy Clampitt.

Poet Laureate Charles Simic’s swan song.

Gary Snyder wins $100,000 poetry prize.

More on birds:

How about loons?

This week I’ve published a review of Variations on a Natural Theme: A Loon Year by Hugh Hennedy. Here’s a poem from the selection (you can read another one in the review):

On the Surface Loon
In no apparent hurry
To dive out of it
He rides and bobs in sun

Standing now he bathes
Wings spread wide for balance
His white breast in air

I just returned from a National Poetry Month celebration of which I was the host. The York, Pa. Poet Laureate, Carol Clark Williams, was the guest of honor.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I decided to make the event at St. Michael’s Reformed Episcopal Church on April 13 - today - be a tribute to religious poetry. That’s why I asked Ms. Williams to be the featured reader. I knew she was a Christian and a darn good poet. I was not disappointed, and neither were the others in attendance. Carol read some poems I’d not heard before, including the one reprinted below:

The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks
I have rocked you in my body,
small ship inside flawed bottle,
eager to set sail on stranger seas.

In a dream I carried you
past fallen fence rails
into a quiet orchard
where branches offered both
white blossoms and ripe fruit.

For you I have created mythology:
gibbous moon waxing,
the tallest pointing pine,
wild grasses, Morning Star,
Oracle Maiden tattooed
with symbols of Eternity.

For you, I would design rites of passage
painless
but significant.

I would set your path into the mountains
with flat stones
deeply chiseled with words like:
“Courage” and “Believe.”

You have made me
a fogbound ancient harbor;
I watch the West horizon
for your returning sail.

Crosswords: The Literary Journal
“The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks” is also a part of a literary journal called CROSSWORDS, which is sponsored by York Otterbein United Methodist Church. Carol Clark Williams is the editor along with Pastor Skip Spangler.

The journal is a nice first edition and is available for a $5 donation. Framed as an outgrowth of the Grace Place, a contemporary service of York Otterbein United Methodist Church, it’s a saddle-stapled issue that includes verse from Christian writers and is done rather well. Printed on regular stock with a heavy stock cover, the design is simple yet elegant and includes a versatile array of forms and styles within the Christian tradition. I also like the use of a quote from Mother Teresa on the back page of the journal, “We are all pencils in the hand of God.”

For more information on CROSSWORDS or on the Grace Place, contact yorkotterbein at comcast dot net or Carol Clark Williams at lucybeanstalk at verizon dot net. The church’s website is www.yorkotterbein.org. Tell Carol you liked her Christian poem.

With National Poetry Month just a few days away, Billy the Blogging Poet is gearing up for his annual Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere vote.

As for me, I’m planning a tribute to religious poetry open mic reading in Enola, Pa. on April 13. Carol Clark Williams, poet laureate of York, Pa. will be the featured poet. The event begins at 6 p.m. at St. Michael’s Reformed Episcopal Church.

And the funniest line in the news this week is …

Poetry, huh, yeah, what is it good for?

Washington Post. What’s it good for?

Critic says Lehman’s erotic anthology sucks.

And now, a gift:

Each week, in my e-zine Hyperbole, I publish former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s column American Life In Poetry. I’d like to print this week’s column in today’s blog post.

American Life in Poetry: Column 155

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

The American poet Elizabeth Bishop often wrote of how places–both familiar and
foreign–looked, how they seemed. Here Marianne Boruch of Indiana begins her
poem in this way, too, in a space familiar to us all but made new–made
strange–by close observation.

Hospital

It seems so–
I don’t know. It seems
as if the end of the world
has never happened in here.
No smoke, no
dizzy flaring except
those candles you can light
in the chapel for a quarter.
They last maybe an hour
before burning out.
And in this room
where we wait, I see
them pass, the surgical folk–
nurses, doctors, the guy who hangs up
the blood drop–ready for lunch,
their scrubs still starched into wrinkles,
a cheerful green or pale blue,
and the end of a joke, something
about a man who thought he could be–
what? I lose it
in their brief laughter.

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 (c) 2006 by Marianne Boruch, whose most recent book of poetry is
“Grace, Fallen from,” Wesleyan University Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from
“TriQuarterly,” Issue 126, by permission of Marianne Boruch. Introduction
copyright (c) 2008 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.

To subscribe to Hyperbole, head over to World Class Poetry. I have a free gift for you there.

I just wanted to interrupt this series to bring you Minnesota’s new poet laureate:

I’m a huge fan of Robert Bly’s and I thank Robert Lee Brewer for pointing out that he has been named Minnesota’s new poet laureate. Congratulations Mr. Bly!

Here’s your chance to support freedom of speech.

Get published @ Teenypoet.

Ah, plagiarism.

Reginald Shepherd on New American Poets.

Slamming the Bluz in Charlotte.

Openness, inclusiveness. Is that possible in poetry?

“Outside the Flood Walls” by Edward Byrne.

Slam event: audience participation.

Veterans against the Iraq War.

Making sense of Mamet, the poet and the man.

Simic on time.

Read Ted Kooser’s penultimate column.

Deborah Solomon of The New York Times interviewed U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic. Now there’s a man with a head on his shoulders. Here are a couple of gems:

1. Poetry doesn’t need much promotion. It is doing quite well in this country. (Amen to that)
2. What advice would you give to people who are looking to be happy? For starters, learn how to cook.

What other reasons do you need for reading his poetry?

Introducing The Poetry Best Sellers
It’s not The New York Times, but Small Press Distribution has announced its best sellers in poetry for December 2007. The top 10 of 30:

• Sleeping and Waking by Michael O’brien (Flood Editions)
• This is What Happeneded in Our Other Life by Achy Obejas (A Midsummer Night’s Press)
• Necessary Stranger by Graham Foust (Flood Editions)
• You Are a Little Bit Happier Than I Am by Tao Lin (Action Books)
• Eulogies by Amiri Baraka (Agincourt)
• The Line by Jennifer Moxley (The Post-Apollo Press)
• Case Sensitive by Kate Greenstreet (Ahsahta Press)
• The View From Zero Bridge by Lynn Aarti Chandhok (Anhinga Press)
• Newcomer Can’t Swim by Renee Gladman (Kelsey Street)
• Lip Wolf by Laura Solorzano (Action Books)

Hey, Lady, Show Me Your Tattoo!
The Kenyon Review is passing around tattoos. Reminds me of a poem I wrote in college. Of course, its title was “Tattoo.”

Say young lady with the soft plush eyes,
do you wear pink for comfort
or more for style? Does your hair
flow forever like a river,
a nature spring?
Does the ring upon your
breezy brow
glimmer like moonlight
or reflect the midday sun?
Do you sip dry martinis
with those lush red lips?
And what do you do on Sundays?
Do you sleep in or rise early
for hotcakes and coffee? Is your life
dull and bland or tart and sweet
like that perfume you wear?
Did your diamond-studded nose
come tangled in your figure,
tingling with compassion;
come complimenting pierced navel
with silver-slivered barbell for your belly,
uninhibited, buttoned with desire,
or was that special order?
Do you cherish fine art
cause you sure inspire science;
and do you read for pleasure
like southwest winds brushing skin
through your painted on legs,
or like a book cover hugs too close?
Will you caress the gentle hands
of my knowledge, knead the hard
look of my wandering globe,
and will you lift the fabric
of your melting
dancing
stare
and show me
your newest tattoo?

Get a .pdf broadside of “Tattoo” with a photo of piper.secrets sporting her shoulder blade tattoo. You can get it free by subscribing to my e-zine, Hyperbole.

Poet laureate watch.

A former poet laureate on contemporaries.

Prince Edward Island gets a new poet laureate.

Shelley’s poetry is thick. His life was thicker. Now there’s this thick book explaining it.

A grand resurrection.

Iron John and his ‘Peer’.

He’s no Shelley, but Sylvia loved him any way.

Have a great weekend. And some write poetry.