Tag: poetry magazines

Angst/

Writing musings/ submissions etc

I’ve been grabbing the odd hour here and there to write while my other half watches the cricket highlights each day.

I need to submit some new stuff, so I need to write some new stuff. I’ve tentatively been trying to come up with something ‘humorous’ for the Moss Rich Prize. Yes I know I’ve told myself not to bother with competitions but as this one is local, has extended the deadline (so may be short of entries – ha!) plus the ‘humorous’ tag may put off many of the usual suspects.

So I’ve whipped up four shorties to try on it. Not sure if they’re ‘funny’ as such but should raise a wry half-smile with luck. But that’s just time and money down the drain really, whereas sumitting to magazines is more my bread and butter. I’ve work out at the moment for consideraton at Ambit and Poetry London, neither of which I’ve tried before and I’m not sure if I’ll hear from either for several months. That leaves 2 or 3 poems that are almost publishable, I think. But where to send?

Are they quirky enough for Obsessed with Pipework? Agenda and The North have both closed submissions for the time being. The Rialto has just published one from me and I don’t like to push my luck too often with them as I feel I’m in there by the skin of my teeth. Three forthcoming in Iota but they too seem to have significantly slowed down their production schedule. And Smith’s Knoll? I don’t know… I know the quick turnaround is great but in some ways it seems worse to get a rejection so quickly… it’s extra demotivating somehow, so I’m reluctant to try them again (it would be my 3rd time, and I tend not to pursue a publication more than twice without an acceptance – stupid I know, but there’s something psychological about it.) Plus, their website talks about the current publication being 2010 – I guess it’s hard to keep a website up with that strict 2 week turnaround to stick to, you’re too busy reading submissions. Nevertheless it makes me lose a little confidence in a publication and wonder if they still have an active publication schedule.

Both Charles at Obsessed with Pipework and Patricia at Agenda were most generous about work I have submitted before so I’m inclined to try them again. If what I’ve written is suitable. But then again I could always writing some more. Hmmm!

Mags & Blogs/

Out now – The Rialto 75

The Rialto: bedside reading for this week at least.

Very proud that I have a poem in it on page 50.

Rialto-75-cover-print-1-small

The Last

They’ve been coming since posters were invented:
sometimes in dreams, to the tipping of cowboy hats

or dressed in Liverpool shirts. Each one appeared
in my diary, in code. My mother wouldn’t explain,

I couldn’t ask.  And still they would come, insistent.
They left my body as they found it: I never wanted

them to stay, or change things. It’s been a while since
I wrote a diary. I don’t know how many there were,

I wasn’t counting.  Too busy getting on with
the business of getting on. For the last, though,

I would have thrown a party, marked the occasion
in some way, worn something red, if I had known.

Mags & Blogs/

Ambit at the Betsey Trotwood

Took Lucy along to an Ambit poetry night yesterday at the Betsey Trotwood pub, a little island of old London tahn amidst the chaos and cacophony of Farringdon Road and on the edge of Clerkenwell Green.

We weren’t prepared for the evening to start on time, but it did, so we missed a little of Kevin Crossley-Holland, and the upstairs room was COSY, but we really enjoyed the evening. Loved Jim Burns. Three headline poets and an entertaining short story from Eley Williams, plus an interesting open mic (with only one woman reading, most unusual).

Lucy did her bit riding the faders and even mopping up someone’s spilt beer (she likes to muck in!) and I bought a copy of Ambit, after hurling all sorts of unveiled hints about when I might hear about my submissions (I should never have had that, um, 2nd glass of wine). With a 9pm end we sauntered back to the station and had a very civilised ride home bypassing Victoria. And I didn’t get rained on. Result!