That time two of my poems were published in Andrei Codrescu’s Exquisite Corpse literary magazine. Issue 49, from 1994.
Poetry
Three poems accepted by Otoliths
Lately I’ve been involved in revising some poems, focusing on some line spacing and line break issues. There are also problems with transitions between sections that make the meaning more cryptic than it should be. Revision is usually a tough slog, but these revisions have been particularly problematic. Usually, the solution involves stripping out all the indents and starting over with arranging the lines. The poems getting this treatment have been rejected a few times by various literary journals, like Deluge, Rattle, Arsenic Lobster, Blackheart, Up the Staircase, and Gobbet; that seemed an indication they needed more work.
On Saturday, July 9, I heard back from Mark Young, editor of Otoliths, that he would use three poems for issue 42: “The Eggshell Skull Rule,” “The Dark Night,” and “Code within the Code.” The happy news came at a good moment, because I had spent many hours that day wrestling with revisions, and I needed the encouragement to stay in the game. You can find the poems on this page in the online journal. It’s especially nice because Otoliths is one journal I’ve enjoyed reading and find inspiring. There’s a big selection of visual poetry and other experiments to create a dynamic mix of styles.
Browsing the Otoliths site while preparing this post, I discovered they also have print versions available, including a copy of Issue 41 which also contains some of my work.
French Version of Cthulhu Limericks?
It seems there may be an unauthorized, French language version of my book Cthulhu Limericks. It’s now on sale in the Amazon marketplace, on offer for $82.28 from a vendor named Prestivo. According to the listing, this is a “French language book” and it “ships from France.” While it lasts, the link is here.
Which is interesting, because I never made a French language version. Even more curious, this is apparently a version with the misspelled title, aka Cthulu Limericks. I wonder if I should take up the challenge and buy it, just to see what happens?
The copies of Cthulu Limericks I wrote about earlier, on offer from a British seller, is no longer listed.
This deleted and non-existent book with the misspelled name has really taken on a life of its own. The Curse of Cthulhu continues!
Update 10/14/16: This “French Version” is now selling on Amazon for $110.64.
Savage Magic live on Lulu
Today I approved the proof copy of Savage Magic, a collection of poems featuring my character Jean Savage. This was the second proof, as I found an error in the first one: a space was omitted between the title and text of one poem. In a month or so, this book should be live on Amazon. At the moment, it’s available on Lulu.
Here’s the back cover blurb I wrote for the book: “[Savage Magic] collects all seventeen poems featuring the philosophy, life hacks, and adventures of Jean Savage, the heroine of the author’s avant garde science fiction novel Savage Night, as well as several short stories which also explore the potential of this rhetorical anima. Violent, erotic, polemical, and mystical by turns, these texts define a poetics of self-actualization and anticapitalist defiance in a mass media ecosphere using images of magic, sexuality, nature, paganism, graffiti, and crime. Something of a cross between a song of self and a rant against the machine, these works offer an obsessive, personal, and rhythmic cleansing and revenge, constructing a hermitage and then defending it from society’s commercial, hierarchical, and fraudulent tendencies.”
I had published four of these poems in my earlier collection Spells of Coming Day. When I recently located a box of old manuscripts, I was surprised to find so many other poems also featuring Jean Savage. I also found three stories I’d forgotten I’d written using the same character. A collection of those stories is planned for release this year under the title, Savage Space.
I’m especially happy with the covers for these companion volumes. The image is the result of experiments with analog video run through a video effects box called the Opti-Glitch, made by a Jacksonville, FL, duo working as Tachyons +. I haven’t had much time to work with my growing collection of video synths and effects, but the images are amazing. Mostly I’ve used the movies as backdrops for live performances. The still photographs make such great cover images I’m planning to use this much more often, especially since a photograph is very easy to work with in creating a cover design in Photoshop.
Rejections are pouring in
I recently dug out this book-length collection of poems for revision, and decided I needed to send some of them out to poetry journals. It would be great to just put out another book, but it seems like it would be more prestigious if at least some of the work had found favor with an outside editor.
Finding a journal that looks like it would be sympathetic with my work is hard. Ultimately, I just have to take the plunge and see what happens. There are a bunch of batches out there now. Recently, I started to receive the all-too-familiar form rejection letters. First I got one from Mudlark, then Rappahannock Review. In-Flight Literary Magazine and Slipstream soon followed. Now I have 15 poems come home to roost that need to go out again. Back to the grindstone!
Cthulhu Limericks eBook available
Anyone who’s actually living in the 21st century can now purchase and read an eBook version of Cthulhu Limericks, available now through Lulu. This is the full text of the print version, with the nifty cover art I painted myself. Even the title is spelled correctly!
This is the first eBook I’ve created myself, and it was a real chore to get the formatting right. Totally ridiculous how much trouble I had getting the paragraphs to indent. It finally looks decent, although I’m a little surprised at how little design is possible with an eBook. When I design one of my print publications, I make an effort to select a great looking font that suits the theme of the book, and carefully design the chapter headings, layout, and so forth. An eBook is far simpler, just being raw text in Times New Roman, with three layers of headings in Ariel. I guess anyone who reads eBooks already knows this. Being somewhat of a 20th century guy, I’ve never read an eBook. I still buy LPs, after all. Yes, that means vinyl records. I’m listening to one now.
The eBook is priced at $3.99. If that seems like too much, please let me know. However, keep in mind that when it appears on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other sites, they take a huge share of that amount. This is still one third the cost of the print book!
jeff bagato 