Before my first book, Eve's Red Dress, came out in 2003, I admired the cover art on the book of another poet I knew. When I attended the book party for that poet, I met Brian Rumbolo, the artist, and asked if he'd be interested in doing my cover art if my publisher agreed. He said Yes and my publisher agreed. I loved the cover that resulted. So when the manuscript for What Feeds Us, my second book, was together, I asked my publisher if we could again use the same artist. Again, he agreed. Again, I loved the result. So when the third book—okay, you get the picture. Yes, my new cover is by Brian Rumbolo. I think he's an amazing young artist.
I sent him the title poem and a handful of others that I thought captured the essence of the collection. He then sent me one piece. I loved it, but since Brian had in the past sent me several sketches to choose from, I asked for one more. I was asking for trouble as I loved that one too. (No, I don't love everything! I'm really not that easy to please.) I vacillated for a few weeks. I made the mistake of asking for other people's opinions. I say "mistake" because the votes were 50-50. But my publisher favored the first one and so did I by that point.
Then someone said, "Oh, that's Hiroshige's Wave." I didn't know who or what that was, though it turns out that I should have. I did a Google search and the first thing that came up was the exact image of MY wave.
I thought, Oh no, now I can't use that one. But I did some more research and learned that Hiroshige himself had borrowed the wave from his teacher and that it has become a practice and a tradition for other artists to create their own renditions of the wave. I liked that sense of history. Other artists have put boats, trees, flowers inside the wave. I liked my piece even more now with its insertion of a woman—and there's a woman in the title poem, a woman who wants to walk into the sea. I also learned that this tradition is associated with Japanese haiku. Poetry and Art. Furthermore, my title poem is an ekphrastic one, based on Matisse's Open Window. So I was back in love again. When I later asked Brian if he'd used Hiroshige's Wave, he replied, Oh yes, it's my favorite image. Mine too now.
And so my mind was made up. Then onward to the layout—the publisher's job. I asked him, though, to leave as much of the art work visible as possible. Thus the name bar at the bottom instead of my name somewhere in the midst of the art work.
Ta Da! Drum roll, please. I'm pulling the veil off the cover of my soon-to-be-released book. I hope you love it as much as I do. Story behind the cover will follow soon. For now just the cover. Look, but don't touch!
Here is an updated list of print journals that accept online submissions. Note that some guidelines specify that the journal does not accept email submissions, but does accept via their online submission manager.
Eight journals have been added to this update. Each addition is indicated by a double asterisk.
Note that 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.
I've fallen way behind on my New Year's Writing resolution to be more productive, to show up at the desk more often. True, I've been busy with other things, but the itch to get the pen moving is coming back. I feel that in a physical way, a restlessness, a little tingly thing going on inside.
So no more excuses. I'm done with all my school visits. My new book is in the publisher's hands, though I'll still need to proof the galleys. The snow is finally gone and the flowers are coming up. Time to spring into action, into poetry.
I'll be leading two workshops this month. Time to practice a bit what I'll be preaching. So I'm turning to a book of prompts. I know that some poets disdain prompts. But this poet loves them and says so in public! Bring them on! I'm turning to Kim Addonizio's book, Ordinary Genius: Guide to the Poet Within. I've already read it and even gotten some poems from it. I need to dip back in and try some of the other prompts that I marked. If you don't already have this terrific collection of prompts and craft tips, rectify that omission right now. Get thee to Amazon. Order thee a book.
(Click Cover for Amazon)
I was delighted when I came across Kim's book trailer. It offers another example of what a trailer might do, i.e., simply show the poet talking about her book. I also enjoyed hearing what Kim had to say about the book, about how she put it together and why. Plus, I liked seeing her in her living room and feeling like I was there too. (If it's not her living room, don't tell me.)
Here's an interview Rachel Dacus did with Kim at Fringe Magazine. Kim talks about some of the differences between writing prose and writing poetry, learning the craft of poetry, and some elements of craft. Rachel is currently taking a course with Kim in Kim's house in California. That fills me with envy! I want to be there, too. At least I have the book which I've already pulled off the shelf and will use to get me back in action.
I spent every day this week with third graders. Need I say that I'm really really tired? Third graders are adorable, so open to trying new things, so full of imagination. They write amazing poems. But oh my, the energy level. Forget about sitting down. I was on my feet the whole time for each of four one-hour sessions all five days. Three cheers for third grade teachers! Fortunately, this school is one town over so my drive was fast and easy. And I now know my way around the school as this was the fourth year in a row that I've been their poet-in-residence.
We did a new poem each day. Day 1 was a color poem, day 2 a rose poem, day 3 an ekphrastic poem, and day 4 a memory poem. My favorite this year was the ekphrastic poem, my first time trying that with such a young group. Back in January when I met with the teachers for a planning session, they told me that parents had been coming in all year teaching the kids about famous paintings, so they wanted something that would bring art and poetry together.
The timing of the ekphrastic poem could not have been better. The title poem of my forthcoming book, Temptation by Water, is an ekphrastic poem, based on Matisse's The Open Window. So I showed the kids a print of the painting, and we talked about the colors and the details. We talked about how it provokes curiosity. I asked them how they might get into the picture and what they would do once inside. Then I read them my poem, a bit over their heads but it's short and they heard the colors and details and understood how the woman in the poem got into the painting.
Then I told the kids that I'd sent that poem and a few others to my cover artist and how he'd used the poem to stimulate a piece for my book cover—again, art influencing art. My cover is a rendition of Hiroshige's Wave, so yet another example of art influencing art.
I'd found a portfolio of prints Hiroshige's One Hundred Views of Edo and used five of them for the writing. I put them on the board, and we pretended we were in a museum as the kids lined up and walked by and studied each print. Then back to their seats to get the writing underway. Fabulous poems! Full of colors and details, imagination, mystery, and wonder.
This sweet card was presented to me yesterday, signed by each student. And on the other side . . .
Two weeks ago I spent time at Chatham High School as the visiting poet for Mrs. Lori Roper's English classes. On both Monday and Friday I spent one hour with a group of seniors and then one hour with a group of freshmen. We talked a bit about poetry. Then I took the kids through two different writing activities. They were such terrific groups! They read their poems, and I was very impressed. But no surprise, really, as that's what happens when a teacher brings poets and poetry into her classes. There is simply no better way to get kids thinking creatively and playing with language. So kudos to Lori Roper for initiating the Guest Writers Series at her school.
When Mrs. Roper began teaching at Chatham High School, she inherited the school's dormant literary magazine. She held an Open Mic night and brought the journal back to life. Then she went a few steps beyond and applied for and won an Unsung Heroes Grant. With the money which is given for her discretionary use, she began the Guest Writers Series and a Poetry Festival. Not one festival per year, but two! One in the fall and one in the spring. It was my pleasure to be part of last Friday's spring Poetry Festival.
The event was held in the auditorium which was packed with approximately 500 students. Students came in for a single period as they were able to be excused from classes and/or during free periods. Each one-hour session included students who had signed up to read poetry or sing. The poetry could be something the student had written or simply something the student liked by someone else. The music was a wonderful addition to the festival. There were individual singers, duets, and groups. Lots of instruments. And in the background was a large screen where student art was projected. What a wonderful mixture of poetry, music, and art. My role was to read 3 of my own poems. It was quite thrilling to read for such a large audience—as well as a bit terrifying, especially in a dark room where I could not see any faces.
I loved being Chatham's Guest Writer and then reading at the festival. I hope the administration and students realize how fortunate they are to have Lori Roper on the faculty.
You may already know Ed Byrne as the editor of Valparaiso Poetry Review, one of our better online journals. You may also know Ed through his blog, One Poet's Notes. You may already also know him as a poet. If not, here's a chance to fill in that gap. It is a particular pleasure to put the spotlight on a poet who, in his other capacities, so often puts the spotlight on other poets.
Edward Byrne is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Seeded Light (Turning Point Books, 2010). His poems have appeared in numerous journals such as American Poetry Review, Missouri Review, and North American Review. His essays of literary criticism have been published in various journals and book collections, including Mark Strand (Chelsea House Publishers), edited by Harold Bloom, and A Condition of the Spirit: The Life and Work of Larry Levis (Eastern Washington University Press), edited by Christopher Buckley and Alexander Long. He is a professor in the English Department at Valparaiso University, where he edits Valparaiso Poetry Review.
Today's poem comes from Ed's new collection, Seeded Light.
(click cover for Amazon)
After the Miscarriage
Before breakfast, passing below the blank . . . . .windows of lovers' hotel rooms, we walked
toward the harbor. At the end of a steep . . . . .cobblestone street, we could see the water's
edge, its morning mist still lifting . . . . .like a vague gray veil and dissipating
as if in some deliberate act of abandonment, . . . . .although the horizon line was yet nowhere
to be seen. A few boys in black coats . . . . .huddled together against the still chilly
spring weather. Beside the low wall . . . . .along the wharf that now seemed bleached
white by an early light, hands cupped . . . . .for shelter from the wind, they smoked
cigarettes and spoke of last evening's . . . . .adventures-once more told those lies
they'd told before. Alone among rows . . . . .of umbrellaless cafe tables, you wrote
notes home on a picture postcard . . . . .addressed to your sister, while I bought
fresh fruit and flowers at the market, . . . . .even though I could not find the yellow
Returning, we moved through the public . . . . .park, its thin trees and clusters of lilac
shrubs just beginning to bud, its large . . . . .garden plots already filling with color.
As we followed the red brick path . . . . .all around a reflecting pool, we listened
to the shrill whistle of an overnight . . . . .train finally arriving at the railway
terminal, and we heard the slow toll . . . . .of cathedral bells calling parishioners
for morning Mass, both of us believing . . . . .each sound offered its own form of warning.
DL: The title of this poem is a good example of the power a title can have. Yours colors the reader’s understanding of and emotional response to the poem. Did it come before or after you wrote the poem? Did you set out to write a poem about a miscarriage?
EB: I never decide upon a title for a poem before the end of writing a first draft, especially because my method of writing does not allow for me to know what the poem will concern until I am somewhat into the process of composition. I almost always begin with only an image or phrase that I regard as interesting, which initiates a discovery of other lines describing scenes and actions, one leading to another. I remember that this poem initiated with the following simple thought and straightforward opening statement: “Below windows of hotel rooms, we walked toward the harbor.”
I frequently comment that my poems begin with an image or incident, seek out a conflict, and arrive at a resolution, whether stated or suggested by the close of the poem. When I wrote this poem, I didn’t know what the topic would be until I was two-thirds of the way through the original draft. At that point I realized I was wondering about the emotional state of a couple that has felt a sense of loss.
The poem is not autobiographical or documentary. Indeed, after the book was published, my wife had to assure friends and relatives that she’d not kept from them the secret of a miscarriage. Instead, I drew inspiration from those I have known who have been through such a situation. I also considered how my parents might have felt after a sister of mine died in her infancy when I was young. In addition, I might have been reflecting an emotion felt when my own son was diagnosed with autism—representing an initial awareness parents of autistic children often experience, that the individual they had envisioned growing up and inhabiting a certain kind of imagined future had somehow been taken away from them.
DL: In addition to the work done by the title, your details provide an understory, a sub-text. For example, “boys in black coats,” “Shrill whistle,” “slow toll / of cathedral bells,” “morning Mass,” and “its own form of warning” convey an untold story and heighten the emotional intensity. How do you manage to balance the lyric and narrative impulses?
EB: My style of writing seems to naturally combine lyric language and ingredients of narrative or implied narrative subtexts. I feel comfortable with this mixture. Indeed, I intend that the two parts complement one another. Most of the details you mention were added in revisions (although all of them come from specific memories I have about various actual instances) after I had established the context of the poem, and each was inserted in order to create an ambiance supporting the subject matter or as a contrast to the position in which the couple find themselves.
My personal history includes interest in film studies, a topic that I have taught over the years and about which I have written extensively in the past. As my wife can verify, when watching films I’m always conscious of the many minor components within the frame of the screen. Directors making movies are aware of the contribution subtle background atmosphere (natural scenery, weather, sounds, actions, set decorations, and extra actors populating the area) can add to a film moment’s dramatic tension and emotional tone, even offering possible undercurrents or sub-plots. In my poetry I try to think cinematically and inject images or elements evoking various senses, as well as objects that mirror the kind of attention to detail I observe in effective movie scenes.
DL: What attracts you to the 2-line stanza?
EB: I have always believed the opening and closing lines of stanzas receive added attention from readers, and perhaps this form similarly forces such a concentrated focus on each line in the poem. Also, since my lines tend to be longer, the added white space between the many couplets serves to lessen the weight the poem might appear to have if the stanzas were shaped into large black blocks of print. I like to think of the stanza breaks as the leaven, substances that lift or transform what otherwise could be a heavy and doughy passage burdening the poetry.
I like the way the two-step form gives an illusion of order and a feeling of regular pacing throughout the poem, while the language remains a more relaxed and familiar free verse, presenting a tension between an apparently arranged stanza pattern and the casual flexibility within the lines. I am a big fan of jazz musicians, particularly those figures from the bebop era who used riffs from a standard song as a starting point around which they improvised and wound inventive solos. I like to think that in a small way the free verse two-step stanza imitates that method.
DL: Tell us about your use of syllabics.
EB: In the past I would write first drafts of poems in syllabic form: for instance, counting 8 or 9 or 10 syllables per line, sometimes simply for fun as an exercise. Then in the revisions I would add or subtract syllables as I sought more exact words or inserted more lyrical choices. Therefore, the final draft would contain only a rough resemblance to the strict syllabics in the original version. Still, the ghostly sense of syllabic form would somehow remain when readers encountered the poem.
In fact, even though I didn’t attempt to preserve the syllabics, and I thought the lines in final drafts always varied from the initial composition, occasionally the syllabic pattern would withstand the revisions. When one of my colleagues once asked me about a poem in one of my books that he taught to his class as an example of syllabic form, I had to confide to him that I was surprised because I thought I’d lost the true syllabic form when I had made many emendations in revision. In fact, I’d never counted the syllables after the first draft and didn’t realize the syllabic count had survived my revisions.
DL: You have a wonderful ear for the music in language. I find internal rhyme, assonance, consonance, and alliteration. To what extent do you labor to make use of such sonic devices? At what stage in your drafting do they enter in?
EB: If there were an aspect of my poetry that I find myself enjoying the most, the musicality of the work would be a primary candidate. As you indicate, I like to employ various devices that more subtly assimilate sound as a central element: internal rhyme, near rhyme, alliteration, assonance, or consonance. I enjoy adding onomatopoeic words as well. At times, I even playfully place words that are anagrams within lines of poems just for the ways they resemble one another in the reader’s eye and maybe the reader’s ear (i.e., “form” and “from,” “trace” and “crate,” or “grown” and “wrong”).
I’m also aware of purposely trying to have the speaker’s voice group similar sounding words or phrases and use vowels or consonants that imitate the tone of the content in the poem, perhaps contemplative or combative—whether with soothing softer sounds or the introduction of harder and harsher notes. Again thinking cinematically, I compare such an aural motif to soundtrack music that echoes the mood in a movie.
I regularly remind my students that writers must love words for their denotative meanings and connotative suggestions, as well as for their historic or cultural associations. I know I do. Moreover, they should be prepared to exploit the musicality of the language, appealing to the ear as well as the eye. If our selections are accurate and effective, each facet of the perfect word in any line of a poem could contribute to the overall goal of evoking emotional and intellectual responses from readers.
I thought, Oh no, now I can't use that one. But I did some more research and learned that Hiroshige himself had borrowed the wave from his teacher and that it has become a practice and a tradition for other artists to create their own renditions of the wave. I liked that sense of history. Other artists have put boats, trees, flowers inside the wave. I liked my piece even more now with its insertion of a woman—and there's a woman in the title poem, a woman who wants to walk into the sea. I also learned that this tradition is associated with Japanese haiku. Poetry and Art. Furthermore, my title poem is an ekphrastic one, based on Matisse's Open Window. So I was back in love again. When I later asked Brian if he'd used Hiroshige's Wave, he replied, Oh yes, it's my favorite image. Mine too now.
