Thursday, July 18, 2013
Vintage Japan
Taxi today features vintage photos of 19th century Japan with a stereo-optic twist. Enjoy this work from the collection of Okinawa Soba.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Tracking the Muse
Blackbird has reinstated its "Tracking the Muse" feature, in which contributors to the journal, including Joshua Gottlieb-Miller and Corey van Landingham, comment on their creative processes. Cynthia Marie Hoffman follows a process similar to mine when working on a project (a series/cycle of poems), while other processes described contain new ideas for me.
I love reading these kinds of things. I'm not sure that they help my process in any particular way, but in general they give me a sense that there are writers out there working hard, and that I should be working hard. Not in a competitive way, but in an inspirational way. (Most of the time, that's how it works anyway.)
I love reading these kinds of things. I'm not sure that they help my process in any particular way, but in general they give me a sense that there are writers out there working hard, and that I should be working hard. Not in a competitive way, but in an inspirational way. (Most of the time, that's how it works anyway.)
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Black Tongue
I've just serendipitously discovered an amazing (newly-)online journal called Black Tongue Review, which pairs poems with original artwork in "a triple dog dare to create art by sending poems to other countries and asking that artwork be made as a reaction".
The current issues features work by poets I've long admired, such as Mary Biddinger (paired with artist Valerie Hegarty), Ocean Vuong (paired with the work of Izziyana Suhaimi), Chad Sweeney (together with the art of Chris Maynard), and Tony Trigilio (with visuals by Greg Dunn).
The styles of poetry and art featured are varied and interesting; this is a site you can spend hours at and not feel you've wasted a single minute.
The current issues features work by poets I've long admired, such as Mary Biddinger (paired with artist Valerie Hegarty), Ocean Vuong (paired with the work of Izziyana Suhaimi), Chad Sweeney (together with the art of Chris Maynard), and Tony Trigilio (with visuals by Greg Dunn).
The styles of poetry and art featured are varied and interesting; this is a site you can spend hours at and not feel you've wasted a single minute.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
A Week of Glitches
This week: 2 rejections, 1 acceptance, and 2 glitches in the communications of such. I can live with the odds, and am amused by the glitches....
First glitch: I opened up my email inbox to see two emails from the same journal with the same message line. Looked like a rejection to me, with a failure in the system used by the journal to send rejections. So I opened up the older email and it was a form letter rejection. I almost deleted both emails at once, since I have twice now received duplicate rejections from two other journals and really who needs to be told twice? But I decided just before hitting the delete button to open the second email, and it was an apology for the first email, which had inadvertently been sent me, and they actually wanted to accept two poems. So yay for that, and beware, writers: open the duplicate-appearing emails. On occasion they may be more than just repetitive rejections.
Second glitch: a journal solicited work from me, or perhaps not from me, since the solicitation letter came to a name very similar to mine, but slightly different. Still, I had met the editor personally a few months before receiving the solicitation and thought he probably just made a small slip-up, and there were no poets with the name of the email, so I supposed it was me that was being solicited for work. So I sent work. Seven or so months later, I get a rejection from this journal, to the wrong name again, though I had obviously sent the submission with my actual name and mentioned our meeting and such. And it was a form rejection. So, I don't know how personally to take this rejection, and of course I don't know whether I was solicited or not. It's a journal I think is a good strong journal, but this amusing mishap will probably keep me from submitting to them again. I certainly don't expect anyone to know who I am when I send to the slush pile, but having been solicited, I find it all a little odd. I probably had my name entered incorrectly into some database there, but I did give them a chance to update their database, but no go.
Anyway, still pretty good odds, and no complaints...just a bit of head-scratching and wondering.
First glitch: I opened up my email inbox to see two emails from the same journal with the same message line. Looked like a rejection to me, with a failure in the system used by the journal to send rejections. So I opened up the older email and it was a form letter rejection. I almost deleted both emails at once, since I have twice now received duplicate rejections from two other journals and really who needs to be told twice? But I decided just before hitting the delete button to open the second email, and it was an apology for the first email, which had inadvertently been sent me, and they actually wanted to accept two poems. So yay for that, and beware, writers: open the duplicate-appearing emails. On occasion they may be more than just repetitive rejections.
Second glitch: a journal solicited work from me, or perhaps not from me, since the solicitation letter came to a name very similar to mine, but slightly different. Still, I had met the editor personally a few months before receiving the solicitation and thought he probably just made a small slip-up, and there were no poets with the name of the email, so I supposed it was me that was being solicited for work. So I sent work. Seven or so months later, I get a rejection from this journal, to the wrong name again, though I had obviously sent the submission with my actual name and mentioned our meeting and such. And it was a form rejection. So, I don't know how personally to take this rejection, and of course I don't know whether I was solicited or not. It's a journal I think is a good strong journal, but this amusing mishap will probably keep me from submitting to them again. I certainly don't expect anyone to know who I am when I send to the slush pile, but having been solicited, I find it all a little odd. I probably had my name entered incorrectly into some database there, but I did give them a chance to update their database, but no go.
Anyway, still pretty good odds, and no complaints...just a bit of head-scratching and wondering.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Literary Cities
Poets & Writers blog has a list of city guides which give the literary side of some 17 US cities, including Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon (the other Portland has a guide too!). Written by writers familiar with these locations, the guides list known haunts and homes of authors, famous bookstores, relevant museums, cites made famous by literature, book festivals and other literary events, etc. Check it out and see if your city is featured, or give your next vacation that literary bent.
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