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.)
