So my recent poetry efforts have all been re-drafted and sent out into the big wide world. They've been experimental poems for me so I'm curious to see how they'll go down or whether most or all will come back to me with a thanks-but-no-thanks reply. I wish all journals and mags would move to email submission, I've become very lazy about submitting to anywhere that requires an actual envelope and stamp.
Apart from Michelle McGrane's widely admired collection The Suitable Girl, which I bought last week, poetry-reading has been moved aside for non-fiction prose. I'm currently reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (I'd love to pinch that title for a line in a poem!) and volume one of the The Alan Clark Diaries.
My Allen Ginsberg poem, 'The Kitten and the Brick-layer’s Cap' (after his 'The Bricklayer's Lunch Hour) will be up on Ink, Sweat & Tears later on this month, Vintage Sea is now available to buy through Word Power Books (as all Calder Wood Press titles are now) and I even have an Amazon page for my pamphlet but since I've not supplied Amazon with any, none are available through it and thankfully there aren't any selling secondhand...yet...!!
I never got into the Danish Crime drama The Killing first time round so I'm catching up with it now!
9 comments:
Congrats on the Allen Ginsberg and best of luck with the rest.
Yes, you send poems out and then wait and see -- and the wait can be a sort of minor agony, at the mercy )or seeming lack of mercy) of an editor. Good luck with these! I have the same problem with the mail these days. I find myself not submitting to journals that need paper copies, just because I'm too lazy to address an envelope :-)
My patience for sending poetry submissions out by way of envelope and stamps ran out years ago due to the extra hassle of posting from abroad. I'm glad everyone else is totally fed up with it. Who knows, one day even Gerry Cambridge may accept e-mail submissions.
I must say though that even if Gerry did start accepting e-mail submissions, and even if I felt I had a piece worthy of his excellent Dark Horse magazine, even then I would still think twice about submitting unless it were also to be published online.
Why have your work confined to very limited text editions when it can be read by anyone anywhere online?
I'm not knocking paper editions. I actually prefer to read work in magazines or in books. But the online outlet should also be utilized. It's a matter of accessibility.
Duncan
thankyou Dave! :)
thanks, James, I've a feeling I'll be waiting a while to hear about these poems and I'm not a very patient person either...!
I can understand not wanting the hassle of posting abroad, though some places only take email subs from those outwith the UK. Duncan, I know what you mean about readership and print mags, I'm always pleased to get an opportunity to publish online a poem that's previously been published on paper (my Allen Ginsberg poem for one). But I do really love some print mags too, I think Gutter is fantastic and love having had the odd poem in it.
I bought your book at Callander, and can't wait to get into it!
thanks Elizabeth!:)congratulations on your new collection, I'm looking forward to picking up a copy sometime!
Just to clarify: Word Power are _distributors_ for Calder Wood Press, so they're dealing with bookshops, libraries etc. Individual orders are still dealt with by Calder Wood Press (www.calderwoodpress.co.uk)
Colin
ahh thanks for that, Colin!
Word Power keep their retail and distribution businesses separate, so while they have Vintage Sea for distribution to bookshops, they haven't taken any for retail. I tried!
Colin
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