Category: Mags & Blogs

Mags & Blogs/

Getting published/entering competitions – tips from the experts

The weather’s terrible, I am a ‘music widow’ today and I feel the urge to reconnect with what makes poetry good, and conversely what’s BAD about the stuff I’ve had rejected lately. Yes, it’s time for some serious reading and some BIG edits!

I recently came across Tim Love’s excellent LitRefs Articles blog – and read again his piece about getting poetry published in the UK, a very useful resource, and it got me looking out a few other pieces I had bookmarked about getting published or entering poetry competitions.

For example, on Staple Magazine‘s website there’s Wayne Burrows’ lovely piece entitled Five Reasons Why A Writer’s Work Might Be Returned By An Editor…* (*…that have nothing to do with whether it’s actually good enough for publication) – read the comments too, they are entertaining.

Happenstance has a free download The Dos and Don’ts of Poetry Submission – to access it you have to go through a registration process and possibly input your credit card details (I think, although I didn’t get that far), although you’re not charged anything. I mention this article because I’m fairly sure I’ve read it on a blog at some point and found it useful even though it’s now behind a registration wall.

The Poetry Society has some useful FAQs about poetry publication amongst other things…

On the subject of entering competitions – on her blog, Abegail Morley recently interviewed Bill Greenwell about what judges look for in poetry competitions, and here’s George Szirtes’s interview with Ian Duhig on the thorny question of what poetry competitions are actually for… (George S is himself of course a veteran of the poetry competition judging scene, and there are plenty of his wise words on the subject elsewhere on the web)

And finally, a feast of tasty information (huh?) on Abegail Morley’s The Poetry Shed which includes an interview with Helen Ivory on judging competitions, ‘recipes for success’ from various magazine editors, and a bonus piece at the end about drafting a poem, by Kim Moore.

These are just a few articles I’m aware of – do you have more to add to the list – pieces on getting published or winning competitions, that you’ve found helpful/entertaining/informative? Do share – thanks!

Angst/

Are anonymous submissions a good thing?

Masks

Masks

I came across this article recently, in Anon magazine, setting out the opinions of three writers as to whether anonymous submissions to magazines were a good idea.

I rather like Kathleen Jamie‘s conclusion, that actually by creating a so-called ‘level playing field’ for all poets, regardless of reputation, a magazine like Anon (championing the cause of anonymous submissions) is perpetuating the mistaken idea that there is some sort of conspiracy among well-known poets to keep everyone else out. She suggests the problem is not that the pages of poetry magazines are dominated by the same few names, far from it. But rather this:

No editor fears receiving a sub-standard poem by Seamus Heaney, if such a thing exists. What he fears, understandably, is receiving shed-loads of dreadful half-baked so-called ‘poetry’ accompanied by pages of testimonials, CVs and special pleading.

In other words, an anonymous submissions process doesn’t make it any easier to get poems accepted. If they’re mediocre, that’s the end of it. And big-name poets don’t submit to small magazines anyway. They don’t need to.

Plus, as Gerry Cambridge points out in the same article,

Unpublished poets are deluded if they believe they can’t get published because they’re not known names. After all, those known names were once unknowns, too.

and

… any editor of an individual cast of mind would like nothing more than to print the work of an unknown or little-known poet whose writing, in the editor’s opinion, is excellent – or even promising and individual in a way that marks it out from the majority

Anon isn’t the only magazine with an anonymous submissions process – South also insists on anonymity, as does Iota. Having had work in both, I’ve always wondered if I’ve been a beneficiary of the process. Then again I’ve also wondered if having an androgynous name also works in my favour. We can speculate on all these things and more, I suppose. (And to be honest I quite enjoy it – I find the intrigue, arguments and gossip an essential and entertaining part of the poetry scene – but then again I’m only really an amateur onlooker, so I can see how easy it is for me to say that, and how frustrating it is for others who hate the shenanigans and just want to get on with their writing.)

What do you think? Do aspiring/nascent writers benefit from anonymous submissions? Or is it insulting to editors to assume they are swayed by who the poet is rather than the quality of the individual poems?

 

Image credit: South Peace News

Mags & Blogs/

A feast of first lines

Wordsworth manuscript

Wordsworth manuscript

First lines. Ack! It’s worse than a job interview. You have 2 seconds to make an impression. Or something like that.

Do you find yourself going back to the first line and re-writing because it’s just not strong enough? And as a reader, do you ever read the first line and immediately your mind says ‘uh oh’ and you’ve already got a prediction in your head of where it’s going? I know I do both of these things, and more. After the title, the first line has to be pretty good, do you agree?

In a moment of stupor I thought I would try to finally CRACK the first line thing by doing some research. Ha ha! The appliance of science – always worth a try!

So I dutifully recorded all the first lines from every poem in The Rialto 74. Call me crazy if you like, but it was a fun exercise. And the resulting list of 55 first lines actually reads like a poem in itself, although I don’t think even the (theoretical) love child of Selima Hill and Sam Riviere could come up with this. (Love them both though! No offence intended! But they can be pretty left-field!)

So here we go. If this is a breach of copyright, I apologise – all credit to the poets, but if anyone would like their line pulled from this post, on the grounds of non-attribution, please say.

Hard to think about infinity

We’re the lucky ones

The postman listens to Roxy Music on her iPod nano

Down with poetry! It’s all over the place

We lean into the soft brake BLUES

Some people are bad for the soul. Avoid them.

In the museum-without-proprietor

The bound book lay open on the desk

At least you can sleep, folding us and the hours

You’ll have had me, the view of me, down on the sand

At the high pass, forward scouts report,

You are welcome, you arrive to embraces and chatter

There’s a red spot in the centre of today

Laura shows up in time to have to wait

I reflect on their defects. They give me

spine faded, pages yellowed, corners turned down

What would you do if I died right now, here, you asked,

Until recently we were very pleased with Roger.

We were litte upstarts; our causes imperceptible, inflamed

The bathtub, the Frigidaire, the gilded tap,

We learn why things happen

The inn on the Tokaido Road has

Standing at the sink

The others are glad not to be the corpse

are discussing provocation: holding law up to the light.

Across the road the decorators have finished;

In the last August of the war, my

Dear little damp foot

Really I want to keep this to myself

You tell that story again

A girl is two eggs waiting to be a cake, or a sun; Our Father going round and round in her song.

How the heart wire snapped and on the loose my heart

Wriggling, it pulls. The tip of the tail

Robert makes two cups of tea

Each of my poems is

And this too will pass into spring

You tie my scarf so it drapes like Madonna’s,

It is not the rusting of summer into inevitable

A man coughs like a box

I am an old book troglodyte

For years nobody had been to the library

Make do with my father, speeding

Love was the boy you broke up with years ago

Grief was the flash bloke with the bleached teeth

The smell of bonfires. Autumn in the garden.

I’m sat on a bench on the promenade

And how many men are stood like this in their socks

I ride the famous tourist bus for hours,

He’d forgotten he had his father’s pistol.

He’d never seen such a horse before:

I’m not malicious though have scarred a woman

The stone in me speaks directly into the eyes of a toad

We drive until there are no more mirrors.

We finish and you sigh and gaze up into my eyes

After breakfast I clipped the peonies

(image credit: British Library)

Angst/

Good news, and a few doubts

What a great week. An excellent Bonfire Night, President Obama re-elected, and then I get an email with the subject line ‘Congratulations from Poetry News‘ and find my ‘absent’ themed poem will be in the December edition. Ah, where would we be without small victories?  Because I admit I am STUPIDLY excited.

It’s my first proper effort at using spaces in a poem (instead of commas and my beloved dashes, which are a bit of a habit), something I have Catherine Smith to thank for as it was one of the things she got us doing on a Poetry School course I was on earlier this year.

So here’s to experimentation. But … I’m looking forward to ‘one day’ developing some sort of consistent style. Or is that like wanting to grow up too soon? Is it good to keep trying different things and going off on tangents? Poets I meet when workshopping are often working on bigger, over-arching projects or themes, and I sometimes wonder if I’ll never get to the stage of a publishable pamphlet unless I settle into writing a coherent body of poems, rather than blurting out isolated pieces that have nothing in common. What do you think?

Books/

Where were the ‘Best of British’ poems first published?

Best of British Poetry 2012

Best of British Poetry 2012

Poet friend of mine and soon-to-be-blogger Jo Grigg mentioned she had been reading The Best British Poetry 2012 so I invited her to write about it here. It is Jo’s first guest blog post on Poetgal.

The second volume of this British version of a longstanding US anthology has now thundered through my letterbox. Hurrah! Its 70 poems are selected from the year’s UK poetry magazines.

As with any anthology, how much you enjoy them depends on how much you have in common with the editor. This year’s is Sasha Dugdale and I’m enjoying many of them so far. Along with the poems come each poet’s remarks given in the second section of the book following a brief biog. Some of these remarks are enlightening about the writing process. Others are odd, which is (oddly) reassuring. In the US version you sometimes read ‘the poem should stand on its own without me having to explain it’.

One of the reasons behind the anthology is to draw attention to poets who are not yet published in pamphlet or collection form, because the big prizes select mostly from published collections. There’s also a good showing of established poets. It demonstrates the variety within the poetry mag business, and draws attention to individual magazines.

I looked at which magazines the poems in Best British are taken from – would this represent a ‘best magazines’ list, and if so, might I investigate and then subscribe to one or two of them? Though does having a poem in here mean they are ‘better’ than the many magazines not represented? It is at least a starting point for those unable to get to the Poetry Library at London’s South Bank to spend time submerged in magazines, pamphlets and collections. Here’s my listing:

Magazine / Number of entries

10th Muse 1

13 Pages 2

Agenda 1

Ambit 2

Blackbox Manifold 1

Brand 1

Brittle Star 1

Cambridge Literary Review 2

Clinic 2

Dark Horse, The 1

Delinquent, The 2

Edinburgh Review 1

Fuselit 1

Halfcircle 1

Horizon Review 1

London Review of Books 2

Magma 4

Modern Poetry in Translation 4

New Linear Perspectives 1

New Welsh Review 2

North, The 2

PN Review 7

Poet’s Calendar, The 1

Poetry and Audience 1

Poetry London 9

Poetry Review 5

Poetry Wales 2

Rialto, The 4

Stand 2

Warwick Review, The 2

White Review, The 1

Wolf, The 1

The Best British Poetry 2012, edited by Sasha Dugdale, series edited by Roddy Lumsden, published by Salt, 2012. Cover price £9.99.

Mags & Blogs/

A triptych of poetry blogs

Triptych of poetry blogs

Triptych of poetry blogs

I love the way you can come across a poetry blog that’s new to you and then suddenly two more jump out – just like a row of Routemasters. So here’s the first of what may become a regular feature – a triptych of enjoyable poetry blogs. Let me know if you have any recommendations for future Triptychs.

Fuselit– the editors’ blog. Fuselit describes itself as half magazine, half collaborative art project – a London-based journal of poetry, short fiction, art and sounds. I remember sending off for their ‘Aquarium’ issue and was amazed at the package that arrived – not one, but two little hand-made booklets, a mini-disc of music and three micro fridge magnets of sea creatures. I would call it ‘charming’ if the word hadn’t been horribly corrupted. Anyway, do take a look. Plus there is a new spur word for submissions, FOSSIL. Great fun and many thanks Kirsten Irving et al.

Anthony Wilson – This was a ‘rediscovery’ – after reading Anthony’s touching tribute to Smith’s Knoll I realised I was already subscribed to this blog. Apart from his fascinating musings, super in-depth reviews, recordings of his poetry readings and other numerous projects (such as the ongoing Life Saving Poems) Anthony offers us a huge blogroll and rich resources list. Fantastic.

Kim Moore – I really like Kim’s natural tone of voice, I feel like we’re having a conversation when I read her blog posts. Her blog features anecdotes, readings, reviews, a Sunday ‘featured poem’ and MORE (sorry). I’d love to go on the writing weekend Kim’s currently promoting, in Cumbria, but it’s February half term and clashes with the recording my choir is making. Shame, because the poetry course sounds fab.

(PS I recently blogged about three other poetry blogs I enjoy, over at Blogging for Creatives.)

Mags & Blogs/

It’s my birthday! Hurrah! I think

Children love having birthdays. I quite enjoyed them myself until I got to about 30, then I went through a period of getting a bit grumpy about the whole birthday thing. But these days I don’t mind them at all. So far today:

Woke up with migraine that had been brewing up all night – boo

Husband presents me with a copy of Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies which I’ve been itching to read since it came out, but was waiting for the softback version – hurrah!

I have to go to work for half the day, and the office is freezing – boo

Finish with a meeting at our local friendly cafe, Pleasant Stores, and am treated to a veggie muffin – hurrah!

Jeans are feeling a bit tight and am reminded of urgency of nipping middle aged spread in the bud before I start looking like a veggie muffin – boo

Get home to find the lovely Charles Johnson at Obsessed with Pipework wants one of my poems for April 2013 issue – hurrah!

I see husband has hidden a bar of chocolate in the fridge for later – hurrah!

After popping the pink and yellow pills, migraine is now downgraded to mild headache – hurrah!

So overall a pretty good day. I might even try to write a poem.

Mags & Blogs/

Would you pay to submit your poetry to a magazine? (Poll)

Here’s a thing. Poetry presses and magazines exist on a shoestring. Sometimes half a shoestring. I’m sure we’d all love to support them by subscribing to them all, but it does get a tad expensive. So what’s the answer?

Charging for submissions seems relatively unusual in this country but it’s not in the US. The New England Review, for example, is very upfront about making a charge for submissions, but they made it sound very reasonable:

“We charge a small fee for online submissions ($3 prose, $2 poetry, $2 NER Digital). This fee, which is waived for current subscribers, helps to support New England Review in its mission to encourage literary innovation and exploration by publishing writers at all stages of their careers. It’s also not much more (and sometimes less) than what you’d pay for postage, paper, and printing. We also think you’ll appreciate the convenience of being able to upload your submission from your own computer.”

So what do you think? Should magazines move to this model, and ditch the vagaries of Royal Mail altogether? Would you agree to paying a pound, say, to submit a handful of poems to a magazine? Is it better to give your money to the poetry magazines rather than the Royal Mail?

If you’re reading this and you run a small press, what are the disadvantages of this system – your having to print out poems? Possible loss of formatting? Too much trouble to set the system up? Would a fee deter people from submitting – and possibly the ones you actually don’t want to deter?

Take the quick poll and please comment – I’m interested to know what you think.

Books/

Readings, launches, and the Carmen Rollers

Readers at the Frogmore anthology launch in Lewes
As we were reading: Jeremy Page, Julia O’Brien, Robin Houghton

 

Lots of excitement in the past week. First of all, National Poetry Day and the launch of the Frogmore Press anthology Poems from the Old Hill on Thursday evening. It was standing room only as we’d all brought family and friends to cheer us on. It was fab to see some of my non-poet friends there, just hoping they enjoyed it and went away to tell everyone how great poetry readings are.

Big thank you to Charlotte for capturing some pics of some of us reading. We did look up occasionally, promise! Actually there’s some video footage too, which I may just post here if I can get my nerve up.

One non-poet friend got in a muddle about the date and venue and turned up a day late – but at least she went to Ieko on the High Street so in instead of us she got the lovely Catherine Smith reading from her new collection Otherwhere. Not so bad, eh? I just hope she didn’t accost Catherine and say “but I thought Robin Houghton was reading?” Tee hee.

And THEN on Sunday evening I was persuaded along to the monthly open mic event at the Baltica cafe by my stand-up performance poet friend Louise Taylor, neither of us quite knowing what to expect. But Louise being such a pro she had her material at the ready and performed two VERY funny classics of hers (the second by popular request, poor L being a tad hungover from her birthday party the night before.)

Halfway through the evening (not just poetry but also various acoustic musical acts) about a hundred people piled in, and it turned out to be none other than singing friend Polly with her entire family (including her 90-year old mother) fresh from a four-hour operatic marathon at the Duke of York’s in Brighton. A number of them formed themselves up as members of two close-harmony groups, the Carmen Rollers and the Old Spice Boys, and sang a couple of numbers. Grand entertainment. And what a nice evening – all those people turning out to perform for each other, rather than staying in and watching Downton Abbey. Love it!