dumbfoundry

Poetry: We are looking for smart, complete poems one to nine lines in length. Don't send us a good line or three-- send us a complete poem that bites, resonates, or sleeps with giants. Submit one to five poems with a cover letter. You may include more than one poem per page provided that you insert ample space in between. We do not accept previously published work or simultaneous submissions. Submit your work to Inch because it belongs in our magazine, not because you're desperate to place it somewhere. All rights revert to the author upon publication, though we will occasionally ask if we may reprint poems in our double-sized spectacular issues. Pays three copies. Submissions that include poems longer than nine lines in length will be read and ignored.

First question: who read the promotional spot for The Bedside Guide? I mean, that was sexy. I felt inappropriate listening to it at work. Do you guys really talk like that?

Molly: I'll let Reb handle that one. She's usually the one doing the handling anyway. I hardly ever read like that. I like it hard and tight and spoken in tongues - good for some spots but not so good for promotional ones.

Reb: Oh, I wish I sounded like that! [...]

The inquest into the death of a poet's wife in a car crash has heard a description of what happened from her husband who was in the car with her.

Joan Abse, 78, also a writer, was returning home with Dannie Abse, 81, when their car collided with another and spun out of control.

Brenda Coultas: 'In my hometown, my mother had some great plans for publicizing the book. We were going to present a copy to the library and call the local paper to snap a pic until my cousin called it porn which cooled my mom's jets. But she even defended the book, calling it art. Mostly my family was confused but kept it to themselves.'

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

Frannie Lindsay: 'I wasn't expecting it! Utah sent the first copy of the book to my work address. So there in the middle of all the interdepartmental envelopes and memos was a padded envelope. I had been having a rough day and almost cried.

Then I opened it. I was afraid to read it. But I made myself read every single poem. It was scary. And it felt good.

The best part, though, was that Jean Valentine was in Cambridge for the afternoon. She came to my office, and I took the rest of the day off to celebrate with her. It could not have been more perfect.'

He said, 'It just happened. It's a public occasion poem and there was a celebration of this young girl and I thought perhaps this is the thing that we ought to give more attention to. That was my initial response.'

In keeping with his desire to be accessible Mr Thomas said his first poem is easy to understand.

He said, 'I tend to be clear in what I am saying at all times. If I do refer to something fairly out of the way then I will add a note so people know what it is. I am not interested in people spending time over a poem like a crossword.'

Your challenge: to write a poem (or two, or three), without using the letter 'E'. Not in the title, not in the body, not even in footnotes, appendices, epigraphs, or epitaphs.

A long-list of 14 books being considered for the first Dylan Thomas literary prize have been announced in the late poet's home city of Swansea.

Poet and librarian, Lisa Forrest, organized the Card Catalog Poetry Project in the fall of 2003. A collection of poems written on catalog cards by poets from around the United States, the project included thirty handmade artists' books created by Forrest using discarded book materials.
...
In memory of the card catalog.

This third volume in the Cornell Yeats series presents previously unpublished manuscript drafts of two key early dramatic poems by W. B. Yeats, comprising over half the extant manuscripts of his poetry written through 1895. The drafts transcribed here for The Island of Statues, his first published work, and Mosada, his first publication in book form, reveal that Yeats subjected his poetry to laborious revision from the very beginning of his career.

Intimates of color, trans-identities, masculinity and relativity: "So I have been asked to edit an anthology on `persons of color* who are / were born female and now live all or a significant portion of their lives as masculine women (butches, studs, aggressors, ballers, playas.,) Ftm, transmen (boi, daddy, tranny, tranny fag, G3 [gee cued gender gifted guy,] drag kings, male illusionists, gender performers, transgenders, transsexuals, gender-queers and the likes.

*I know this term has its problemsif it offends you my apologies. Trust me when I say I wrestled in near agony, before making the choice to use it. I ultimately decided it was distracting me from the task at hand, by giving me a reason to procrastinate. Lord knows I need no help puttin off."

"The poems crept into my sets as I prepared for Hollywood. Prior to that trip, I did a series of guest spots around town, trying out every idea I'd ever had that might get a laugh. It turned out the poems got a great response—in part, I think, because I actually introduce them as serious poems, and that causes people to fear the worst. That tension builds to a great release when the audience realizes it's all a joke. Then they keep laughing because the poems are so ridiculous—and obviously not the audience's rather limited idea of poetry.

I like doing the poems because they allow me to treat certain jokes as little works of art, and it's something of a hook for the audience to remember me by. There are a lot worse things total strangers can say to you after a show than, 'Hey, you're the guy that reads those weird poems.'"

The little magazine is necessary only so long as it insists on those peripheries that the centre neglects. If it moves into the centre, it dissolves.

Poets who are accepted will be asked later to also contribute a 300-500 word essay that discusses why their poetic obsession is important to them, their work, and the larger context of contemporary American poetry.

"If you go to the Amazon website to see what people think of your work, be prepared. I found this review of my first book of poems under the title 'Not what was expected' from 'A reader from UK'; 'I made the unfortunate mistake of thinking this was some newly found material from the 70s singer-songwriter Nick Drake. Needless to say I was dissapointed [sic].' There was then a question, 'Was this review helpful to you?' followed by two boxes, YES and NO."

WELSH poet Kate Bingham will battle it out with Nobel- prizewinning writer Seamus Heaney for a poetry award, it was announced yesterday.

In September 1936, the literary magazine Contemporary Poetry and Prose gave the whole of its back cover to just six words: 'Support the Spanish People against Fascism.' The October issue carried the same stark injunction. By way of variety, the November edition directed its readers to 'Support all meetings and demonstrations to end the farce of 'non-intervention'.' Gradually the back-page advertisements got tougher; instead of asking for sonnets, villanelles and short stories, they started asking for money to buy guns. The words 'Arms for Spain' appeared in block capitals. Eventually, in autumn 1937, it closed down with the words: 'This is the last number of Contemporary Poetry and Prose as the editor is going abroad for some time.'

When the police reached the scene of the crime, they found that the victim was the poet Khalifa bin Mitrrif from Al Ain. His body was found on the ground, and his Land Cruiser was parked half a kilometre away.

The police said that following a call they received, a team of officers, led by Brigadier Abdullah Mubarak bin Amri, found the body of the 56-year old poet, who was also a businessman. The police lifted fingerprints from the crime scene, leading the CID to apprehend various suspects connected to the victim.

Humorous poet Shyam Jwalamukhi, 53, got on a northbound train at the Churchgate terminus and ensured he got a window seat. He always tried to sit there to get inspiration for his verses, according to reports.

"...for all the justified and righteous anger of this book, its ultimate wish seems to be not for apocalyptic destruction but for the persistence of languages, and language. The bleakest moments in the book are those that lack even invective, in which words pile up like heaps of consumerist goods: “the people small ethnic gender illusion catwalk because few speak.” Against this, the passage of the Tagalog “Ave Maria” above is a didactic text; just as the missionary’s first proselytizing tool is to translate Christian texts into native languages, so Reyes gives most Anglophone readers their first Tagalog lesson in the last stanza of this poem."

Place your magnetic message on a black cab.

A PAMPHLET containing a long poem by Shelley that had languished unread for almost two centuries has been discovered.

The extraordinary find has excited scholars, who knew that it had been searched for in vain since 1811.

10 Australian poets write an original poem inspired by the theme of 'the picture show', and poetry's relationship to moving images.

Any description of Cavafy's work soon brings up one quality difficult to appreciate in translation: his mixture of colloquial and literary diction - long permissible in English, but revolutionary in early-20th-century Greek. A striking effect in the original, therefore, is neutralised by the lag between literary time zones. The most exotic words for an English reader are the proper nouns from Hellenic history and geography, often also the talismanic destinations of Cavafy's concluding sentences.

[Robert] Minhinnick thought he saw bats hanging from the ceiling.

"After my guides had taken me through the bunker they said those blackened shapes were children's hands," he said.

"Parents had held the children up to the ceiling to help them dig for safety from the fire but instead their hands became fused to the burning hot ceiling.

"After, they tried to pull the bodies from the bunker but the hands remained stuck to the ceiling."

Punters could soon be enjoying poems with their pints if Professor Gwyn Thomas has his way.

He is determined to introduce poetry to the masses and he believes one way to target them would be in their local pubs.

And he would like to see verses pinned up on buses and trains and in the waiting rooms of doctors' and dentists' surgeries.

...the poet, photographer, activist, scholar and all-round comedian Lisa Bellear died in her sleep at home last week, of as-yet-unknown causes...

: A professor of Welsh from Bangor University has been named as the man to follow in the footsteps of Wales's first national poet.

Gwyn Thomas will take over from Gwyneth Lewis, who wrote the inscription on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

10 Australian poets write an original poem inspired by the theme of the ‘picture show’, and poetry’s relationship to moving images.

Theme: Global Warming
Deadline: June 30, 2007
Media: Photographs, emails, cartoons, collages, poems, visual poems, paintings, prints, digital images...

"Due to the closure of the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, Foster Place, Dublin 2, on the 28th July 2006, the 'Out to Lunch' Poetry Series continues undaunted in the new environs of the Irish Writers' Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 [...]"

Truong Tran: "I am planning on teaching a private poetry workshop this summer that will take place over the course of eight weeks. The workshops will take place in my home in the Haight Ashbury from the hours of 7pm to 9:45 every Thursday starting July 13th and lasting through August 31th.

The cost of the workshop will be $300-$350 sliding scale and will be limited to a total of eight students.

The registration deadline for this class is July 12th 2006 @ 5PM.

For those of you that have taken one of my private classes in the past, you will also know that I also provide a light dinner for the class being that it takes place at my house and during the hours that I normally break bread. This is informal and participation is optional. It should not and will not take up any additional time in our workshop. This cost is included in the tuition. Believe it or not, I was a sous chef while putting myself through college. If you or anyone you know is interested in the workshop, please have them
contact me [...]

Please be prepared to send me a short sample of your work. Registration is limited."

I am always moral
at poetry readings
I pay attention, or I try
I always get lost
I begin to rearrange the hair of the poet
or to trim (or eliminate) his beard
I press his trousers
I am fascinated by his fingers
I love his pleasure and his disarming smile
at a particular phrase
I love the little pieces of paper sticking out of his
books

...

"Write knowing that someday a family member of a lost soldier could read your poem - be considerate of that in your content."

New and published authors are welcome to contribute their stories, poems, essays and other forms of creative expression to this section (The Literary Life).

HOMER could have been a woman, according to a forthcoming book by a specialist in oral literature.

The residents wrote poems about their plight and even pinned them to the oak trees which were earmarked for destruction in a bid to get their views heard.

But their pleas fell on deaf ears and the trees were felled two years ago to make way for the bridge.

Now those who have contributed to the book of poems are hoping to organise a poetry reading to take place on the bridge in the near future.

Here was this poet who I'd dismissed as having nothing new to tell telling me everything in a way that was completely new. This distinctive American voice that in the past had talked on and on in a way that had been uninteresting to me about a job not done, a task left uncompleted, could now not have been more relevant and meaningful. Feminism, I had come to realise, had not fulfilled its promises at all in the way I expected. "You're wondering if I'm lonely," she wrote in "Song", "OK then, yes, I'm lonely...".