Dreaming in Iambic Pentameter

If you are wondering why blog posts have been few and far between, look no further than my optimistic decision to stagger the launch dates of the Barefoot Muse and The Raintown Review in order to (ha!) even out my work load. Quincy and I are determined to get the Spring/Summer issue of TRR out in time for the West Chester Poetry Conference this year, and so we prepared a timetable based on how long it took to get the December issue out (January, part of the problem being that Q and I are not in control of much of the process.)

Alas, the timetable has us delivering final issue copy to John for the issue on March 19th. Therefore, I am in full swing moderating the panel discussion on the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, reading the Tom Mathews book I intend to review, and planning my editorial WHILE desperately coding a redesigned Barefoot Muse, for which the new issue goes live on March 1st.

I think I’d better think it out again!

On the positive front, I’ve had a recent acceptance from Light Quarterly, and you can see several new poems up at Chanterelle’s Notebook. This Sunday coming is also the delayed start of my formal workshop poetry series at the Manayunk Art Center in Philadelphia. It will run from 12-3 and we will be covering all the material from the snow-cancelled first workshop (Blank Verse) and making a start on Rhyme. There are still spots available so you can turn up on spec and pay your $15, or email me and let me know you are planning to attend. (FYI the other 2 workshops are scheduled for March 14th and April 18th.)

Hopefully there will be a Quick & Dirty Poetry reading tomorrow night at The Daily Grind in Mt. Holly. The snow doesn’t look too bad out there right now, but one of our featured readers (Laurie Granieri) is driving from New Brunswick. Oh well, spring must be here soon!

Firstly a huge shout out to James Scannell McCormick whose poem “Trouble”, published in the most recent Barefoot Muse, was selected by Dzanc Books to appear in their print anthology Best of the Web 2010. This serves as a timely reminder of exactly WHY I choose to be involved with the production of FOUR journals.

While we are on the subject, my good friend Rachel Bunting also scored with Dzanc, gaining selection for her poem “Martha Stewart Claims She Has Been Struck By Lightning Three Times” (which deserves inclusion simply for the title!)

The formal poetry event at the MAC was a blast last Sunday! It was so gratifying to be with a bunch of poets who care as deeply about formal/metrical poetry as I do. There was plenty of surprising synergy too–Kit Marlowe, Walter Raleigh and even “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley (I had watched the excellent movie the night before).

I am proud to report that I am now ready to teach the first formal/metrical poetry workshop of the MAC series, which starts this Sunday at 12 p.m. (Weather permitting). Is a 6 page-handout too much? I just want to make certain my participants get value for money! There’s still time to register by the way. And you can find the online version of the registration form here. Either print it out and mail it to the MAC, or email it to myself or Peter Krok.

Finally, I need to make a serious point that I have made before in these pages. Quincy and I are getting close to filling the poetry requirement for Vol 9 Issue 1 of The Raintown Review (due out at the beginning of June). As usual he has supplied me with a breakdown of the poets’ demographics, and as usual we are disappointingly male heavy–about 2:1. Being the premier female editor of a predominantly formal poetry print journal (Um…that sounds like I’m boasting, which is not my intent) clearly this frustrates me immensely. But, there is NOTHING I can do as long as we receive approximately twice as many submissions from men as from women. In the past, I have made open calls here on my blog for more submissions from women, and been accused of reverse sexism as a result. I am not going to do that now–I’m just sayin’…

(The submissions guidelines are here.)

This coming Sunday, January 31st, at 3 p.m., the Manayunk Art Center kicks off the first of five programs devoted to formal and metrical poetry, featuring yours truly.

The first program is entitled “Formal Poetry is Alive & Well” and begins with me presenting a short talk on Philip Larkin & Edna St. Vincent Millay. Not seeing a connection apart from the obvious? Come hear the talk…! After that local formalists will read poems in the spirit of the event–either their own work or poems they admire. There will also be an Open Mic.

The event will be the perfect springboard for the series of formal poetry workshops that will follow throughout the spring. Sign up for a single workshop or all 4:

•    Workshop 1 – BASIC METER & BLANK VERSE – Sunday February 7th 12-2 p.m.
If you have ever shaken your head and claimed you can’t “hear meter” here is your opportunity to acquire this basic poetic skill

•    Workshop 2- RHYME & HOW NOT TO FORCE IT – Sunday February 28th 12-2 p.m.
Rhyme made subtle, slant rhyme, assonance, consonance, and tricks of the trade.

•    Workshop 3 – INTRODUCTION TO FORMS  – Sunday March 14th 12-2 p.m.
The villainous villanelle, the seductive sestina, the tricky little triolet and more…

•    Workshop 4 – THE SONNET – Sunday April 18th 12-2 p.m.
Your chance to create one of these classic 14-lined poetic jewels!

Registration forms will be available at Sunday’s event or online here. (Simply mail to Peter Krok, care of Manayunk Art Center, at the address given.)

I am very excited to have this opportunity, because it has long been a dream of mine to teach the craft of formal poetry to a willing audience. Hope to see you there!

My main piece of good news is that I got wait listed for the upcoming MacDowell Colony Winter/Spring residency period. Wait listing may not seem like that big of a deal, but it’s better than striking out completely, which is what happened to my previous two applications. I also received my beautiful contributor’s copies of 32 Poems, in which I am honored to appear alongside no fewer than three of my Sewanee buddies! Oh and I had a surprisingly political poem accepted by The Lyric. (more…)

As I have previously written, I was encouraged by my appearance on the Marketing 2.0 Panel at Push to Publish to give Twitter another try. I duly buffed up my profile, snagged a few good people to follow, downloaded Tweetdeck and dedicated 15-20 minutes a day to posting useful links. I observed (roughly) Don Lafferty’s 12:1 ratio, which suggests that you should tweet 12 things of general interest for every time you tweet something really only about marketing yourself. So I tweeted NJ poetry events that were nothing to do with me, links to contests I happened to receive emails about, links to interesting poetry stuff on the blogosphere, and even links to the odd “famous” poem that swam across my brain. And every now and then I tweeted about my own new blog post, or calls for submissions to one of the many (!) poetry journals with which I am involved. I labeled everything with the hashtag #poetry, and felt like a good Marketing 2.0 citizen.

Unfortunately I am coming to the conclusion that Twitter is not ready for #poetry in any serious interpretation of the word. If you search #poetry then most of what you get is bad haiku–it clearly has not been lost on the twittosphere that you can usually fit a haiku into 140 characters. Not many people, it seems, are tweeting poetry like good Marketing 2.0 citizens. (The exception would be the chat #poettues arranged by @robertleebrewer, but that only really happens on Tuesdays, as the name would suggest.)

I see Twitter being incredibly useful to my fellow panelists @donlafferty and @centsiblelife, and I want to make it work for #poetry as well, so, come on, any ideas?

This morning, during the course of finishing my editorial for the upcoming issue of The Raintown Review, I got into an energetic email debate about the merits and meaning of the term “non-paratactic,” which I was attempting to use in the piece. I thought it was interesting enough to share here, beginning with the question of defining parataxis.

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Today I participated in the Push to Publish Conference run by Christine Weiser of Philadelphia Stories. This morning I did Editor Speed Dating, on behalf of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. (Did I mention I’m now a Contributing Editor there? People are horrifed when they hear about how many literary journals I’m involved in, but at least I don’t actually read submissions for the SVJ.)

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