dumbfoundry

Sandra Beasley: "Every day people apply for fellowships, jobs, book prizes. And a week later they apply for more fellowships, jobs, book prizes. The cycle never ends, as we try to crab-walk [our] way through this world as writers. Periodically we are put in the maddening position of having to make critical career or publishing choice without all the facts in hand. Sometimes the waste is just $25 in moot reading fees. Sometimes it is much more. So if you have an inbox with a winner's name in it, please, please, please and with sympathy for your under-appreciated service: get the word out with no delay. It's hard enough to make this work without flying blind through life-altering decisions."

Be a part of the 2nd annual New York DaDa Poetry Salon Magazine, by submitting your DaDa-inspired poetry and/or art to Maintenant 3, inspired by DaDa instigator and Three Rooms Press spiritual advisor Arthur Cravan.

Is this the mysterious Carles of Hipster Runoff fame? He's a Brooklyn poet with a quirky blog and a press that publishes Gchat conversations (and other things). The writing styles really are similar, but meaningful-speak is everywhere these days, so who can be sure.

OUR largely unconscious assumptions work like a velvet rope: if a poet looks the way we think a great poet ought to, we let him or her into the club quickly — and sometimes later wish we hadn’t. If poets fail to fit our assumptions, though, we spend a lot more time checking out their outfits, listening to their friends’ importuning, weighing the evidence, waiting for a twenty and so forth. Of course, this matters only for poets whose reputations are still at issue. It may have taken Emily Dickinson 100 years to get into the club, but now that she’s there, she’s there.

It is recorded of the poet Dryden, by Charles Wilson, in his 'Life of Congreve,' that having, strange to say, belief in astrology, he was careful to ascertain to the second the time at which his son Charles was born. He then calculated the boy's nativity, and was alarmed to discover that evil influences prevailed in the heavens.

The theme for the exhibition was inspired by the Chinese custom of combining poetry with painting, and fan paintings in particular, from as early as the 4th century. The unique art of the poets, painters and craftsmen included in this exhibition beautifully complement and enhance each other: an illustration on a fan is poetically translated whilst the poetry illustrates the fan. Poems inscribed by 12th century Chinese Emperors onto silk fans will be included in the exhibition.

Peter Philpott: "If you are from outside Britain, you would be astonished at the anti-modernist and anti-innovative bias within British literary culture, and especially this mainstream poetic culture. To phrase it aggressively, the cults of deliberately narrow-minded provincial pettiness (Philip Larkin), felt-in-the-bones organicism and nature-worship (Ted Hughes) and populist triviality and accessibility (so many! – say Simon Armitage) have all imbedded themselves deep within the dominant British poetic tradition in the period since 1950."

"A young woman asked whether it was important to have a female mentor. I said that to me it didn't make a difference. I learned the most important thing about writing poetry from my community workshop teacher — a man named Michael Wurster — and a different crucial lesson, about the morality of imagination, from Sharon Olds. Not that what I learned from Olds I could have gotten from Wurster, but I didn't learn what I learned from Olds because she is a woman."

SEVEN KITCHENS PRESS announces the 2009 ROBIN BECKER CHAPBOOK PRIZE for an original, unpublished manuscript in English by a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered writer.

Prize: US$100 plus 25 copies.
Submission deadline: Postmarked between March 1 and May 15 of each year.
Eligibility: Open to all L/G/B/T poets writing in English (no translations, please).

Please note the following change to this year's competition: Two manuscripts will be selected as co-winners of the 2009 Robin Becker Prize: one by a writer with no previous book or chapbook, and the other by a writer with previous book or chapbook publication.

A Frenchwoman who posted on a poetry website her plan to kill herself was saved after a fellow poetry fan spotted the warning and alerted police who went to her home and found her unconscious.

David Prater: "It’s my great pleasure to pre-announce the staged release of Cordite 29.1: HAIKUNAUT, our special short form issue. Guest poetry editors Keiji Minato (Japan) and David G. Lanoue (USA) showcase the short forms - including haiku, senryu and interactive renga! - with a special emphasis on the haikunaut in all of us."

I wrote this poem after a road journey from North Derbyshire back to my home in Edinburgh. I was struck by many of the place names and wondered who had invented them. It was a wet, grey day and the fairgrounds, which popped up regularly around the moors and farmland, seemed at odds with their surroundings. I’d also been reading Milton’s Paradise Lost, which must explain something.

I do wonder what will be available in fifty years or more of much of the language and flarf constructs of poets writing today. What will mean something to people in their times of joy or grief. What poetry will say for them when they need some expression in language to stand beside them.

Sure, it's not necessarily easy: you could spend a lifetime mastering this subtle and sophisticated art form.

But it is simple, both in intent and execution, and perhaps a non-threatening choice for a beginning poet.

"I like the distillation of it," says Lyn Reeves, who has been writing haiku since 1993, "[I like] how it can say so much in so few words, and how what it says has a resonance that goes straight to the heart."

Jeremy James: "My father’s interests in photography and poetry merged, as he started to photograph the readings that he went to. He always gave the poets and other participants copies of the photos, and some were used in books and at exhibitions. Many have been donated to archives, the Basil Bunting archive in Durham, the Poetry Society, and many will go to the Morden Tower, which celebrates an anniversary this year.

"So, as we worked on clearing the house, I found a ring binder with a short work about photographing poets and poetry readings. I remembered that he had tried to get it published, 20 years ago. Well, black and white photography of live poetry readings is a small subject area, unlikely to attract the interest of publishers. But I wondered…. Could I publish it myself, in blog form, as kind of thank you for the introduction he had give me? The chapters seem to be about the size of blog entries, but I have done it backwards so to speak – so it reads as a narrative down the blog. The photographs were scanned in, the words retyped, and some minor changes made to suit the format. I probably need to explain one aspect of the work. He loved photographing women, and he was surprisingly good at persuading them to pose for him, in varying stages of dress and undress. This explains some of the references in the text."

"These are a selection of photographs I took on a noisy demonstration against The Satanic Verses by Muslims from all over the country who marched along Kensington High Street, close to Penguin’s offices, on a miserable, wet afternoon in February 1989.
...
"The threats to booksellers and Penguin staff were real. The publisher received letters signed in blood."

"Anon is an anonymous submissions poetry magazine founded in 2003 by Mike Stocks and now under the editorship of Colin Fraser and Peggy Hughes. All poems are assessed without any knowledge of the poet's name. Publication is not anonymous - the editors only find out the poet's name if, and only if, a poem is accepted. If we reject, a poem, we never find out who the author was."

Exploring the words of truckies and their experiences of the road, the project commissions three truck-driving poets and three professional poets who work in non-trucking industries. Often ignored, repudiated and misunderstood, truckies in their constant travels see more sides to this country and its people than just about anyone else – and we want it into words.

Donate a toy truck

A core part of the project involves members of the public who visit Sydney Olympic Park.

Dust Poems is asking you to donate toy trucks to be used in the poem installations. Trucks no larger than the size of your palm can be donated to the project at the following points:

Truck Deposit Box
Visitor Center
Sydney Olympic Park

or by post to:

The Red Room Co
Po Box 1389
Darlinghurst NSW 1300

The Truck Deposit Box at Sydney Olympic Park will also be an audio installation where you can listen to the poets read their poems and hear audio material linked to this project.

Andrew Billen: "Now why would I go quoting an obscure American poet at you? For the same reason Americans googled O'Hara last summer. His lines, taken from Meditations [in] an Emergency, ended the season two debut of Mad Men. Our hero, the Madison Avenue creative director Don Draper, had spotted a young intellectual with the book. “I don't think you'd like it,” said the thinker. By the end of the episode Draper had not only read it but was furtively mailing a copy personalised with “Made me think of you”. His affair with Midge the beatnik artist may, we infer, not be beyond rekindling."

"Today is my annual Sylvia Plath Bake-Off. Bring your favorite cookie and cake recipes, mixed drinks and barbituates, and don't forget nectar for the bees. The bake-off begins at 6 a.m. and ends when I put the towel under the door."

July 8 - 12, 2009
University of Virginia, Charlottesville

In order to help mentor the next generation of Asian American poets, Kundiman, a non-profit organization dedicated to serving Asian American poets, is sponsoring its 6th annual poetry retreat where nationally renowned Asian American poets will conduct workshops and provide one-on-one mentorship sessions with participants. Kundiman hopes to provide a safe and instructive environment that identifies and addresses the unique challenges faced by emerging Asian American poets.

Faculty
* Myung Mi Kim (author of Commons, DURA and Under Flag)
* Rick Barot (author of The Darker Fall and Want)
* Staceyann Chin (author of The Other Side of Paradise and pioneering
spoken word artist)

To keep the cost of the retreat low, participants are not charged fees for workshops. Room and Board for the retreat is $325.

Application Process
Send five to seven (5-7) paginated, stapled pages of poetry, with your name included on each page. Include a cover letter with your name, address, phone number, e-mail address and a brief paragraph describing what you would like to accomplish at the Kundiman Asian American Poets' Retreat. Include a SAS postcard if you want an application receipt. Manuscripts will not be returned. No electronic submissions, please.

Mail application to:
Kundiman
245 Eighth Avenue #151
New York, NY 10011
Submissions must be postmarked by March 2, 2009

For more information, log onto our website at www.kundiman.org.
Questions? E-mail queries at info @ kundiman.org.

Mission Statement
Kundiman is dedicated to the creation, cultivation and promotion of Asian American poetry.

A Pod of Poets is a series of eleven, 40-minute podcasts of Australian poetry, read by the authors. The poets come from all over Australia; some are emerging talents and some are established; several of them are on the school syllabus.
...
The poets are: Robert Adamson, Les Murray, Joanne Burns, John Kinsella, Josephine Rowe, Craig Billingham, L.K. Holt, Aidan Coleman, Jayne Fenton Keane, Martin Harrison, Sam Wagan Watson, Kathryn Lomer, Esther Ottaway, John Clarke and Jordie Albiston.

The Bards in the Bog competition is open to all ages, and poems may be on any subject.

The only rule is that they must be 12 lines or less in length as the posters need to have large print which can easily be read from a seated position.

'I can't figure out if you're a detective or a pervert.'

Seeking poems that explore the twisted world of David Lynch's Blue Velvet for The Private Press's next chapbook anthology.

DEADLINE 28 February 2009.

"A famous poet is rumoured to have wandered by this box of earthly delight and found one of his own books inside. When he opened it, he discovered it to be a signed copy. “To mum. Lots of love ” it read."

"If you choose to read in public then remember this is not just about you, it’s about the audience. First time readers sometimes make the mistake of reading very emotional material – which is fine - but can be hard work for the reader and hard work for the audience; why add to your nerves?

To avoid leaving the audience worried that you might kill yourself after leaving the stage(!), choose, say, three poems and place them in order of: easy to understand; then a harder or longer poem; and end with one of medium length and possibly cheerful. This gives the audience a way in to your material, and a stress-free exit. With shorter poems you might fit in 4 or 5, but observe the same principle in shaping your set."

We'd like writers to be creative in their interpretation of the theme. However, to get you started, consider the following: scars, tattoos, brand names, labels, and the various symbols women wear on their bodies to both create and deconstruct their identities.

At first, officers rolled their eyes at the idea. Some even recited lewd poems for a laugh.

But the attitude changed last spring after a respected sergeant, Rob Johnsey, was killed when his service weapon accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it. At his funeral, mourners learned that Johnsey wrote poetry.

That's when the idea for a calendar was born. Not only would it serve as a poetic outlet, it would also be a fundraiser, with proceeds going to Johnsey's family.

The winner of Project Verse receives the following prize package:

• a contract for a limited edition chapbook published by Limp Wrist
• a week-long residency at Soul Mountain Retreat (for the poet to revise and finish his/her chapbook)
• an interview with Joe Milford of “The Joe Milford Poetry Show”
• a review of the chapbook that will be published in ouroboros review and Limp Wrist

Blood Pudding Press has a newborn spooky little sister named Thirteen Myna Birds.

She has an online presence and is accepting your sinister submissions starting now. See the link below for her semi-amorphous guidelines (and as a small addendum, simultaneous submissions are fine with notification, but please no previously published materials).

http://13myna.blogspot.com/

ICI-Berlin, 24-26 September 2009

Organizers: Manuele Gragnolati (Oxford/Berlin), Fabio Camilletti (Berlin), Fabian Lampart (Freiburg)

After almost seven centuries, Dante persists and even seems to haunt the present. He has been used, rewritten, and metamorphosed through manifold media and cultural productions. This conference will investigate what so many authors, artists and thinkers from such different artistic, political, geographical, and cultural backgrounds have found in Dante in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The complete call for papers can be viewed and downloaded at
http://www.ici-berlin.org/projects/dante/ (Link:
http://www.ici-berlin.org/index.php?id=dante)

Please email an abstract of maximum 500 words and a short bio-bibliographical profile (no more than 1 page) to dante @ ici-berlin.org by 30 April 2009. An answer will be given before 15 May 2009, and a detailed program will be published on the ICI-Berlin website.

At The Wheatsheaf (where Dylan Thomas met his wife Caitlin)

We are seeking poems in all styles whose subject involves the bridges of New York City. As with our previous anthologies we interpret this theme loosely. Poems can be about bridges, islands, what the bridges cross or the peoples these bridges connect; either physically or metaphorically. But we will always want the poems to be recognizably about New York City and the concept of a bridge. We also seek black & white photos or graphics on the same theme.

Scroll down to #21 and be sure to listen to the end. "How do you stop it?"

At 9.15 am on Friday, October 21st, 1966, at Pantglas Junior School, Aberfan, South Wales, the children had just returned to their classes after singing "All Things Bright and Beautiful" in their assembly. A colliery spoil heap above the village collapsed, engulfing the school and 20 houses in the village. 144 people died in the Aberfan disaster, 116 of them school children. About half of the children at the school and five of their teachers ere killed.

"I wanted to collage and improvise upon some interviews with and online ‘essays’ by people living in the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad. The driving fascination was the eerie similarity between the descriptions of life there and compound-life in Doha, and what I imagine to be the barricaded world collapsed (e.g. the front page of a newspaper depicting atrocities next to an ad for expensive watches)."

Poetry reading and discussion with Atlanta native Collin Kelley, author of Conquering Venus (novel, 2009), After the Poison (2008, Finishing Line Press), Slow To Burn (2006, Metro Mania Press), Better To Travel (2003) and a spoken word album, HalfLife Crisis (2004).