Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Kritya

About: Kritya is an Indian based online poetry journal that has organized four poetry festivals. Kritya publishes poets from around the world, though it seems there is a Polish focus currently.
The layout is different from anything I'm familiar with, but very streamlined. However, it doesn't look like it's very visual arts friendly.

Featured Poets: Being that I am new to the experimental poety scene, I don't know anybody unless we read them in class. So, here are a few people that have been published in Kritya: Nabina Das, Cheryl Antao-Xavier, G David Schwartz, Bobbi Lurie, and Eileen Moeller.Cheryl Antao-Xavier

Editor: Dr. Rati Saxena is the Editor in Chief. She has published 6 collections of poetry (4 in Hindi, 2 in English), and has been featured in a variety of international publications. It also appears that each issue has one or two guest Editors.

Submissions: There doesn't seem to be any sort of deadline. The instructions for submissions are simple and can be done either through email or snail mail. They must be in unicode format; no attachments. They can be emailed to editor@kritya.in. or mailed to:

Dr. Rati Saxena
K.P. 9/624, Vaijayant,
Chettikunnu, Medical College P.O
Trivandrum -695011, Kerala India

DR. Rati Saxena
K.P 9/624, Vaijayant,
Chettikunnu,Medical College P.O
Trivandrum -695011,Kerala India

Parthenon West Review

While I was in Berkeley, I went to Pegasus Books, a renowned poetry hot-spot in the Bay Area and found this little gem of a magazine.  Although it calls that bookstore its spiritual home and seems firmly rooted in and supported by the San Fran scene, it seems to contain work by many up-and-coming young poets from all over the country (and world).  Why not some Tulsa-based writers?  Here's the skinny:

Editors: David Holler and Chad Sweeney
Web: www.parthenonwestreview.com
Submissions: 3-7 poems in on Word document by email or snail accepted between Oct 1 and Apr 15 (so act now!)
Address: editors@parthenonwestreview.com
1808 Russell St.
Berkeley, CA 94703
Aesthetic: A wide variety of avant garde styles from Beat and New York School to Language-esque Poetry experiments.  Also accepts translations and creative essays.
Some names: Timothy Liu (classmate of David Golstein), Bruce Coovey, kari edwards, Johannes Goransson, and Kevin Magee.

Bird Dog

Hey, cool, Dr. Jenkins is in Bird Dog. Did you show us this one in class?

It is "A journal of innovative writing and art: collaborations, interviews, collages, poetry, poetics, long poems, reviews, graphs, charts, prose poems, non-fiction, cross genre..."

...but there are no archives available online. Even so, this sounds like us, for obvious reasons.

Issue ten includes: C. S. Carrier, Christopher DeWeese, Emily Kendal Frey, Anna Fulford, Anne Gorrick, Jac Jemc, Grant Jenkins, Meghan McNealy, Sara Michas-Martin, Cheryl Pallant, Nicole Pollentier, Sarah Rosenthal, Linda Russo, Andrew Sage, Brandon Shimoda, Maureen Thorson, Emily Toder, Laura Madeline Wiseman, David Wolach.

The site doesn't name the editor(s). You can ask Bird Dog questions at birddoginfo@yahoo.com, but don't send them electronic submissions.

Send your submission by September 15, 2009, with a SASE to their little mailbox:

Bird Dog
PO Box 85687
Seattle, WA 98145-1687

Past Simple

The only contributor to Past Simple I've heard of is Fanny Howe. Although their editors, Marcus Slease and Jim Goar, describe the journal as "some innovative poetry and prose of Ireland and Britain," the next issue is open to submissions of writers "from every corner of the earth." They require that you submit a link to your stuff from a blog. (Does this one count?)

They are an online-only journal. I didn't find any physical address or submission deadlines. It seems pretty relaxed, but it would be cool if you got your stuff published here, because Fanny Howe did.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Octopus

Meet Octopus. It is edited by Zachary Schomburg & Mathias Svalina.

 It seems so weird and awesome. Each issue of their online magazine looks very different, and all of them are visually pleasing.

 Octopus is an online poetry magazine that was founded in the spring of 2003 by Tony Tost and Zachary Schomburg. It is named after a sea creature that is intelligent, lives in dens, and uses ink as a defense mechanism. Every issue features a combination of 8.

I'm not sure what this means, but they might appreciate it if you somehow worked 8 into the text or form of your poetry.

Issue #10 is pretty minimalist--eighty black dots on a white background, each dot leading to a different poet, but they aren't independent links. So if you want to look at my recommendations, you'll have to count some dots.

Cynthia Arrieu-King. Column 7, row 5.
Sandra Simonds. Column 3, row 10.
Phil Cordelli. Column 1, row 4.
Paul Muldoon is in Issue 5.

The number of poems per poet generally ranges from 1 to 4, and some of them are translations from other languages. Although most of the poems appear more "mainstream," I think some people in our class would find that their poetry would fit here.

Technically the magazine accepts submissions all year round, but Octopus Mag only reads submissions in the eighth month of the year:

"We are reading submissions of poetry during the month of August. Please send a friendly number of poems in one MS Word attachment before August 31. Introduce yourself to us in the body of the email and feel free to include a list of previous publications, if any.   

Email them at octopusmagazine@gmail.com.

For those of us working on longer projects: Octopus Books accepts submissions for poetry books until April 30th. Check out their cool-looking, mostly sold out books and chapbooks. They only publish two per year, but if you have something really good, you should go ahead and submit. They prefer electronic submissions, but you could also mail your MS to them if you want. There is a $10 reading fee, which is one of the lowest book submission fees I've ever heard of... so go for it!

Octopus Books
1031 SE 21st
Portland, OR 97214

Etude, or something

So,

I was tapped for the next etude, and I totally forgot until... well, now. Since it is Monday afternoon and we meet in two days and I don't know about you but I certainly don't have time to churn out anything interesting by the time class meets, I propose that this etude be due next class period.

As for the etude, Dr. Jenkins requested that it be related to the discussion we had before Spring Break about trauma. I have deep concerns about the practice of writing about trauma on command. It seems too removed and artificial to simply decide to write from the headspace/ wordpsace of trauma. That said, to write directly from trauma is to experience it, something at best unpleasant and at worst triggering of past trauma. So we're going to approach this side-on.

1. Choose a fairytale. Old, authentic ones (Grimm, Andersen) are best, as these often involve lots of toes being chopped off and people turning into stone and such. Read it if you don't already know it by heart.

2. Pick a scene or character that appeals to you or is particularly striking. Since this is a trauma poem, do not choose the part where the prince triumphantly kills the dragon - unless you choose to write the dragon. Ex: How the first stepsister must have felt when she cut off her big toe in order to fit into Cinderella's glass slipper.

3. Write a poem not necessarily retelling the story, but from the general atmosphere of the bit you picked.

I hope that was clear. And if you want to do something similar to this but not exactly the same, go for it.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

E-Ratio Postmodern Poetry

E-Ratio Postmodern Poetry
1) Address: www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com
2) Editor Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
3. A few names of people that have been published:
David Appelbaum
Donald Wellman
Mary Ann Sullivan
Joseph F. Keppler
Patrick Lawler
James Stotts
David Rushmer
Melanie Brazzell
Jennifer Juneau

Here is a poem that I like: http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/issue11_Brazzell.html
3) “E-Ratio publishes poems in the postmodern idioms with an emphasis on the intransitive” INDEED IT DOES.

I sent homeboy Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino an email asking some questions about submitting and here’s the info I got from him:
-No simultaneous submissions
-He will usually respond to a submission between two weeks and two months. If he takes longer, that means you’ve been shortlisted.
-He didn’t really answer my question about when he stops accepting submissions, he just said that he reads them right up until the production process is over and the issue is ready to go online and that he begins reading for the next issue immediately.
-He usually accepts anywhere from nine to 19 poets.