submissions

One poem in Streetcake #50

Streetcake issue #50, the “50th Anniversary Issue,” went live today (December 30, 2016) including one of my poems, “The Light Becomes the Tunnel.” The whole issue is a quick read, as it’s fairly short–great for year end vacation reading.

Sometimes you just know when a journal is right for your work. Here’s how the Streetcake editors describe what they’re looking for: “We are looking for exciting writing that is visual, innovative and experimental. We also like great imagery and humorous writing. We want to read poetry and fiction that surprises us, looks downright weird and is a little out of the ordinary. So if your writing is a bit of an outcast, then join us, support us and keep returning to the cake.”

Poem on the Resistance Poetry Wall

Yesterday I posted my poem “Soup du Jour (Election Year)” to the Resistance Poetry Wall. Looks like my post was number 129.

A page on the 100 Thousand Poets for Change blog, “The RESISTANCE POETRY WALL has been opened in response to the call by many for an open place to post poetry and art about the recent USA elections. Poets and artists from around the world are invited to post their work here.”

If you have a poem related to the election, you should post it! If you don’t already have a poem, write one!

I wrote “Soup du Jour” several years ago, but it still seems prescient of the 2016 election results, where nihilism seems to have ruled the day. All this past year, I’ve been sending that poem out, thinking a journal would grab it for its timeliness. But no luck. Right now it’s out at another journal, likely to be ignored.

Anyway, if you read it, note that the line spacing was removed by the blog platform. I think the line spacing added to the movement and energy of the piece, but it means the same thing without it.

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!