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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Print Journals That Accept Online Submissions



Time to once again update the list of print journals that accept online submissions. The list has grown by two dozen journals. I anticipate a day when all submissions will be made online. I remain happy to save paper, envelopes, and stamps—and even happier about conserving gas. Thank you, Journals!

Journals new to the list (not necessarily new journals) are indicated with a double asterisk.

The number of issues per year appears after the journal's name.

The reading period for each journal appears at the end of each entry.

Unless noted otherwise, the journal accepts simultaneous submissions.

As always, please let me know if you find any errors here. And good luck.


Jan 31 - April 30

Agni—2x
Sept 1 - May 31

February 1 - May 31

all year

 $3 fee
check website to see if open for submissions

June 1 - November 1

**Barrelhouse—2x
check website to see if open for submissions

June 1 - November 15

Bateau—2x
all year

all year

Sept 15-Dec 15

all year
no sim

all year

Sept 15 - May 15

Boulevard—3x
November 1-April 30 

Breakwater Review—2x
November 15 for the January issue;
April 15 for the June issue

Caesura—2x
August 5 - Oct. 5

Caketrain—1x
all year

Carbon Copy Magazine—2x
May 1st through September 1st, November 1st through March

**The CarolinaQuarterly—3x       
 all year

The Cincinnati Review—2x
Sept 1 - May 31

Columbia—2x
September 1 - May 1

Sept. 1-Dec.1 (all year for subscribers)
$1.50 fee

August 15-October 15 
January 31-March 31

Crab Creek Review—2x
Sept 15 - March 31

all year
$2 fee

August 1 to November 1
December 1 to April 1

CutBank—1-2x
October 1 thru February 15

**Ecotone—2x
August 15–April 15 
$3 fee

all year

submit@explosion-proof.net 
all year

**Fence—2x
 check website to see if open for submissions 

FIELD—2x
all year
no sim

no Jan, Feb, June, or July

August thru May 
$3 fee

Fourteen Hills—2x
September 1 to January 1
March 1 to July 1

Gargoyle—1x
most recent reading period was June 1, 2011-August 1, 2011
September 15 deadline for the Spring issue
February 15 deadline for the Fall issue

Grist—1x
August 15 - April 15

All year

deadlines: Winter issue: November 15
Summer issue: April 15

Sept 1 - May 31

Aug 1 - Oct 1

All year
pays

Sept 1 - Dec. 15

all year

The Idaho Review—1x
Sept. 1 to April 15

rolling for 3-4 weeks at a time
check website for dates

Jubilat—2x
September 1 - May 1

September 15 - January 15
no sim
check website for submission dates


Little Patuxent Review—2x
check website for submission periods

Submit to Poetry Editor: lareview.poetry@gmail.com
Sept 1 - Dec 1

all year

Lumina—1x
August 1 - Nov 15

all year

October 1 - April 30

Measure—2x
no sim
all year

July 15 - Sept. 30

Meridian—2x ($2 fee)
all year

all year

August 1–November 1 
January 1–April 1

all year

December, January, and February only or all year if a subscriber
August 1-May1
$3 fee

for the Summer issue January 1 through March 1
for the Winter issue July 1 through September 1 (contest only)

no sim
Sept 1-May 31

August 15 - November 1

Sept-May (summer okay for subscribers)

Aug 15 - May 1

New South—2x
all year

weekly magazine
all year

September 1 - April 30

September 1-December 1 
January 15-April 15
$3 fee

Jan 1- May 1 (but on hiatus for 2012)

**Pleiades—2x
August 15-May 15

June 1 - Jan. 15

Poetry—11x
year round
no sim

September 15 - April 15

check website for submission dates

Sept 1-May 1

Prairie Schooner—4x
Sept 1 - May 1
no sim

September 15 - March 31

all year
considers previously published

All year

Rattle—2x
year round

year round

Redivider—2x
all year

No June, July, August, or December
no sim

Rhino—1x
April 1 - Oct 1

Sept. 15 through Jan. 15

Rosebud—3x
All year

year round

Salt Hill—2x
August 1 - April 1

Jan 1 - Feb 1 / July 1-Aug 1

**Saw Palm
—1x
July 1- October 1
       
Feb. 1 - April 1

All year

All year

**So to Speak—2x
feminist
August 15-October 15 for the Spring issue
January 1-March 15 for the Fall issue

All year

All year
  
All year

No June, July, August
$2 fee

August 15 - May 15

Sept 15 - May 15
No Sim

The Stillwater Review—1x
deadline Nov. 15
poetrycenter@sussex.edu 

**Subtropics—3x
September 1 - April 15
No Sim       

All year

Sept 1 - Dec. 31
no sim

via email
Sept 15 - Nov. 1
no sim

Sept 15 - April 30

**32 poems—2x
via email
all year

**The ThreepennyReview—4x
      
 Jan 1 - June 30

Tiferet—1x
Sept  - December

September 1 - May 31

**Tuesday: An Art Project—2x       
Check website to see if they are taking submissions

Upstreet—1x
Sept 1 - March 1

Versal—1x
Sept 15 - Jan 15

All year

August 1 - Oct 15
Dec 15 – Feb 1

April 15 - July 31

Aug 15 - April 15

all year

all year  

Yalobusha Review—1x   
check website for submission dates   

**Yemassee—2x        
All year

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Dodge Poetry Festival 2012

The 2012 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival was held this past weekend, October 11-14, in Newark, NJ. This was the second time that Newark hosted the event. For many years the biannual event had been held at Waterloo Village in Stanhope, NJ. Two very different settings—one urban, the other country. This year's festival in Newark was bigger than the one in 2010 and offered a larger number of poets and one additional day.

As I did last time, I worked as part of the Dodge staff. However, this year the assignments changed, largely because Dodge was sponsoring the book tent on its own since Borders has gone out of business. So I had one 3-hour book tent assignment. Not my favorite, and between that and a 2-hour assignment on Sunday at the Information table, I got to hear less poetry than in the past. Still, I had a good time and enjoyed running into lots of friends I hadn't seen in a long time.

My favorite assignment of the weekend was hosting the Adrienne Rich tribute reading on Saturday. This was held in Aljira, a really cool art gallery. About 50 people turned up and many of them were very willing to come up onto the stage and read a favorite poem.

On Sunday one of my assignments was Storytelling with Queen Nur and Dwight James backing her up with music. Now, to be honest, I would never ever have chosen to attend that event. After all, I was there for poetry. However, it turned out to be really quite wonderful. Queen Nur sings, tells stories, talks, and adds just a bit of dancing. Dwight plays a wide variety of African instruments, mostly drums. His music is unobtrusive, always enhancing, never overwhelming the stories.

My camera work was not at its best and halfway through Saturday my battery went dead. But I managed to get a handful. I hope they give you a sense of the festival.

 Friday was Students Day—tons of students. They swarmed the book tent and bought lots of books. That was truly a beautiful thing to see. Praise to all the teachers who brought their students to the Festival! For many students this was an experience they will always remember. You, Teachers, gave it to them.
 Students browsing the books. This picture was taken during a performance segment so really does not give a good idea of how many kids were there.
 Oh! Look at this. Whose books could these be? Hm.
 This is the Main Stage in the Performing Arts Center. On Friday this was filled to capacity. The balconies were overflowing. I had to go up three floors to find a seat.
 Kahlil Murrill introducing Joseph Millar
John Murillo in a reading with Rachel McKibbens and Joseph Millar
 Queen Nur doing her thing
 Dwight James with his instruments
Queen Nur feeling the story

Saturday, October 6, 2012

The Poet on the Poem: Matthew Thorburn


Matthew Thorburn is the author of two books of poems, Every Possible Blue (CW Books, 2012) and Subject to Change (New Issues, 2004). A third collection, This Time Tomorrow, is scheduled for release from Waywiser Press in 2013. He is the recipient of a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Mississippi Review Prize, and two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prizes. His poems have appeared in literary journals such as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Prairie Schooner. A native of Michigan, Matt has lived in New York City for more than a decade. Today's poem comes from Every Possible Blue.
Click Cover for Amazon
Still Life                                         

     —Pierre Bonnard

That he would go back
after hours to retouch
the ones hanging in the gallery—
he must have had an in
with the guards—to get it righter 
if never right, you've heard
before. How he'd revisit
the light—bring it up
or turn it down—just as I have
returned to this morning
all afternoon. They make me
hungry, these two pears
he must have hurried to paint
so she could eat. A few green ideas
about grapes. The apple
shows off its high bald head.
To be fascinated by fruit.
Not fruit, but light. Imperfect mirrors,
imitation mirrors. His broken
pinks and reds, green and
yellow mottle, this dash of white—
no, light—no, canvas
showing through. I almost catch
my face there, looking back.
I know this fruit. I've eaten it
all my life, though this basket's
new to me—a few brown twists
of vine, uncertain transport
but I'm moved. I'll say that.
Made to speak. Such
tenderness, his abiding
affection for anything touched
by light. And he needed
so little. A few pieces of fruit.
A window. The sky
trying on every possible blue.  


DL:  Tell us something about the impetus behind this ekphrastic poem. What compelled you to attempt to enter the painting, to repaint it with words?    

MT:  A few years ago, I took part in a weekend poetry workshop in Manhattan where we were given an assignment to complete during our lunch break: go find a place to eat and write, then come back with a new poem to share with the group. Faced with this deadline, I ducked into a nearby Chinese restaurant and turned—in a panic—to my go-to poetry prompt: write about art.

I like poems that emphasize visual details and enable you to really see things—colors, shapes, light and shadow—so writing about paintings comes naturally to me. Sitting in that restaurant and staring at my blank page, I thought of Pierre Bonnard, one of my old favorites, and his light-filled interior scenes. I remembered, too, this sort of famous story about him: he had a habit of going back to his paintings to add a little more color, make something lighter or darker, or change some detail he wasn’t happy with—even after they were hanging in galleries or shows. I remembered Jane Hirshfield has a poem that describes this painterly form of revising as “Bonnarding.” Since I was working from memory, my poem doesn’t match up exactly with a specific painting of Bonnard’s, but I tried to convey the feel of his work and some of my feelings about it. As I say in the poem, after looking at and thinking about his paintings, I was “made to speak.”   

DL:  I'm intrigued by the introduction of "she" in line 14. Why did you hold her back and then give her no further mention in the poem?  

MT:  There’s that place where all the wonderful ambitions of trying to express yourself creatively run up against the practical business of everyday life, and that’s a place that always interests me. Whatever musical phrase or clever line break I’m just about to get right as I revise a poem, dinner still needs to be cooked, the dishwasher emptied. I still have to go to work every day. Being aware of this friction is partly a way of staying grounded, and it makes the act of writing a poem that much more meaningful. (Tess Gallagher’s wonderful poem “I Stop Writing the Poem” is about this, and about much more than this.) I guess I was imagining the same was true for Bonnard too: as a painter he may have seen these pieces of fruit as colors and shapes to be explored in paint, but to Marthe, his wife—she’s the “she” I had in mind—they were apples and pears, there to be eaten. I hope a little note of thoughtful tenderness comes through, too, in the way he hurries his work along so she can have her lunch. 

That’s all a very roundabout way of answering your question. Marthe appears in many of Bonnard’s paintings. These paintings aren’t portraits exactly, but they wouldn’t be the same without her. I suppose I thought she could nonchalantly appear in my poem too, fleetingly but in a way that felt important to me for the ballast it provides. Otherwise for me the poem is mostly concerned with what a strange thing it is to be so focused on one activity—in this case painting, being fascinated by light—and to feel that obsessive urge to get it right on the canvas.

DL:  While you make only one brief reference to the "she," you make ample use of repetition. Light and fruit both appear four times. Then you repeat sounds as in the rhyme of right, white, and light. The same sound is echoed in the assonance of I, ideas, high, life, vine, abiding, sky, trying. Tell us how you crafted these musical effects.    

MT:  I appreciate you noticing the music of the poem, because that’s something I strive for as a writer and admire as a reader. I love rhymes and off-rhymes that fall within lines, as well as assonance, repetitions and echoes, and all the rhythmic effects you can produce with patterns of long and short lines, or by using phrases and fragments of sentences. I usually write and revise out loud when I’m working at home, so I can hear how lines sound. Of course I couldn’t do that in the restaurant, but surely did later on when typing up the poem and revising it. 

DL:  As I read this poem, I feel as if I'm witnessing a mind at work, reaching and stretching for what it wants to say. I think your use of syntax is responsible for this effect. There's the reversed order in the first sentence which covers seven lines, several fragments, several sentences broken by the use of dashes, and a few declarative statements followed by their negation, e.g., "To be fascinated by fruit. / Not fruit, but light." Was all of this intuitive or crafted?  

MT:  I love the way certain poems convey the sense of a mind at work, the poet working out her or his thoughts—saying something, hesitating, backtracking and correcting—as the poem moves forward word by word. That’s something I admire in my friend Stuart Greenhouse’s poems, for instance “Poppy-red.” And it’s something Elizabeth Bishop probably invented in her “Poem,” when she interrupts her own methodical, detail-by-detail description of a faraway landscape—it’s a poem about a painting—to exclaim, “Heavens, I recognize the place, I know it!” So I was definitely conscious of striving for a similar effect in different ways throughout the poem.

But there’s also the fact that I was on the spot there, with a short window in which to get my poem down on paper, so what shows through in the poem is also my effort to get to the heart of the thing.  

DL:  What made you choose the single stanza form?

MT:  I wrote the first draft of this poem quickly—for me, anyway—and so it felt like one long thought or breath. As I work on a poem I usually try different line breaks or stanza breaks until I find the form that feels right for that particular poem. Certain poems need some air and light to shine in between stanzas, to give the reader those pauses for breath or that little extra emphasis of a stanza break, as opposed to a line break. But here I wanted to hold the focus in this lingering moment, so it’s one long breath and then it’s done. Readers, please enjoy this recording of Matt reading "Still Life," along with some of Bonnard's paintings.