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Poetry

Weekly Roundup for Calls & Contests :: January 17, 2020

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January is half over with already. I swear that the older a person gets, the faster time seems to fly. Thus…never put off submitting your work today! Before you know deadlines could very well pass you by. I keep saying I will get around to submitting and then another year has gone and my writing just sits in a pile of proverbial dust.

Don’t be like me! Keep your submission goals on a role with these journals and presses currently seeking submissions.

January Submission Deadlines

If you are a younger female-identifying writer between the ages of 14 and 21 or know a writer who fits that bill, don’t forget annual literary magazine Girls Right the World is open to submissions through January 31. They are on the lookout for poetry, prose, short stories, lyric essays, and visual art. There is no fee to to submit. [Read more…] about Weekly Roundup for Calls & Contests :: January 17, 2020

2019 Rattle Poetry Prize Winner & Finalists

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Rattle - Winter 2019Pick up the Winter 2019 issue of Rattle for the Rattle Poetry Prize winner and finalists.

Winner
“Stroke” by Matthew Dickman

Finalists
“Punch Line” by Kathleen Balma
“Bonanza” by Susan Browne
“Mother and Child” by Barbara Lydecker Crane
“Foreign-ness” by Maya Tevet Dayan
“Cathedrals: Ode to a Deported Uncle” by Daniel Arias Gómez
“The Never-Ending Serial” by Red Hawk
“Gender Studies” by Sue Howell
“From Oblivious Waters” by Kimberly Kemler
“Red in Tooth and Claw” by James Davis May
“Self-Portrait, Despite What They Say” by Gabrielle Otero

Along with the winner and finalists, there are twenty-three other poets included in this issue in the “Open Poetry section.”

Two Poems by Bill Snyder

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Weber - Fall 2019Magazine Review by Katy Haas

The Fall 2019 issue of Weber includes two poems by Bill Snyder: “Redundancy” and “Home.”

Snyder travels through time in these poems. In “Home,” he brings us to 1972 as he hitchhikes to his father’s house in Florida to surprise him with his arrival, and in “Redundancy,” he brings us to 1995 while he plays Scrabble with his mother.

Snyder writes with clarity, each poem rich with description that never bogs the message down. Each feels like a tiny short story, grabbing readers and pulling them into the scene. We are sitting at the table with his mother, “sunlight seeping in.” We are standing on the side of the road waiting in the humid air for a car to stop, “the sun behind a Burger King, Kentucky Fried, / all the rest.”

These poems are a pleasure to read, an intimate gaze at the familial bonds of Snyder’s speaker.

NewPages January 2020 Digital eLitPak

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NewPages has sent out our monthly digital eLitPak to current newsletter subscribers this afternoon. Not a subscriber yet? Sign up here: npofficespace.com/newpages-newsletter/.

Besides our monthly eLitPak featuring fliers from literary magazines, independent presses, and creative writing programs and events, we have a weekly newsletter filled with submission opportunities, literary magazines, new titles, reviews, and more.

Check out the current eLitPak below. You can view the original newsletter email here. [Read more…] about NewPages January 2020 Digital eLitPak

2019 Zone 3 Literary Awards Winners

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Zone 3 - Fall 2019Find the Fiction and Poetry winners of the 2019 Zone 3 Literary Awards in the Fall 2019 issue. Winners were chosen by the genre editors.

Fiction
“Five Variations on Parnell’s Blues” by Matthew Fiander

Poetry
“Sandy” by Jasmine Dreame Wagner

For more contest winners, readers can pick up the Spring 2019 issue to check out the winner of the nonfiction prize: “In Praise of the Plains” by Sarah Fawn Montgomery. The Literary Awards are currently open until April 1.

Frontier Poetry Partners with Antioch University LA for New Fellowship

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Frontier Poetry Antioch MFA Fellowship PrizeOnline literary magazine Frontier Poetry announces a new fellowship in partnership with the creative writing program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

The Antioch-Frontier Fellowship allows the winner to experience one of Antioch University LA’s MFA residencies first-hand. This includes 10 days of intense learning and immersion with mentorship and community opportunities. The fellow can choose between the Summer 2020 residency or the Winter 2021 residency.

The fellowship will cover travel expenses and lodging. Also, it awards a $1,000 cash prize to cover any additional expenses. The Winner will also be published on the Frontier Poetry website. February 15 application deadline. The Editors of Frontier Poetry and staff of Antioch University will select the winner. Learn more about the fellowship at Frontier Poetry‘s website.

The Massachusetts Review Seeks Native-Authored Work for Special Issue

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The Massachusetts Review Issue 60 cover Literary magazine The Massachusetts Review is kicking off the new decade with a special issue, the first of its kind for them. They seek new Native-authored fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for their first-ever issue with a Native focus.

Scheduled for publication in December 2020 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the Plymouth Landing, guest editors include Tacey Atsitty (Amenorrhea), Laura Furlan (Indigenous Cities: Urban Indian Fiction and the Histories of Relocation), and Toni Jensen (From the Hilltop). Send queries and submissions for this special issue to MRPlymouth400@gmail.com.

MR, celebrating 60 years of publication, is a journal committed to social justice and equality and regularly publishes poetry, fiction, artwork, and essays. Check out their current call for submissions as well as their website to learn more about them.

‘We Are Meant to Carry Water’ by Carlson, Reed, and Dibella Seluja

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We Are Meant to Carry Water

Guest Post by Kimberly Ann Priest

“Are we only bone, skin, and urge?” asks the speaker in The Great Square That Has No Corners. I am beginning to wonder if the answer to that question is affirmative. Yes. As I write this, I am sitting in my living room on a Tuesday afternoon in October, mid-way through another semester teaching, and realizing that, this autumn, I have over-committed myself . . . again.

As projects begin to pile up and my network grows, while responsibilities increase and my own poetry demands that I give it more of my attention, I have to let some things go. After four years reading and writing about new works by various authors and publishers, this will be my last review for NewPages. It’s time, once again, to listen to my body and check my urges. And, how fitting that I should end my review history with a review of a collaborative manuscript by three clearly very talented women who have written an elegant collection of poems on assaulted womanhood—a topic that continually shows up in my own work. Drawing from mythology, Tina Carlson, Stella Reed, and Katherine Dibella Seluja have woven a modern (though not modernized) conversation between Helen, Leda, and Lilith, and they have done so with such precision, such tastefulness, such raw beauty. [Read more…] about ‘We Are Meant to Carry Water’ by Carlson, Reed, and Dibella Seluja

Writing Program & Event Roundup :: January 10, 2020

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Finding the right graduate creative writing program can be difficult. So can finding an event near you that sounds promising. Check out these programs and upcoming events.

Creative Writing Programs

Florida Atlantic University offers an MFA program with concentrations in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. All accepted students are a offered a complete funding package and also have a chance to work on literary magazine Swamp Ape Review. Core faculty include: Ayşe Papatya Bucak, Andrew Furman, Becka Mara McKay, Susan Mitchell, Kate Schmitt, and Jason Schwartz. [Read more…] about Writing Program & Event Roundup :: January 10, 2020

Weekly Roundup for Calls & Contests :: January 10, 2020

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It is the end of the first full week of January in 2020, writers. How are your submission goals coming? Want to start filling your calendar with upcoming deadlines? These magazines, presses, events, and more are all currently accepting work!

January Submission Deadlines

There is now only 5 days left to submit poetry, flash fiction, short stories, dramatic monologues, and creative nonfiction to publisher great weather for MEDIA for their annual anthology. Deadline is January 15 and they do not charge a fee. If you’d like to support their endeavors, they do offer a tip jar submission option.

Barrow Street. 4×2 Project. Poetry. $3 Fee. Deadline: January 31. Restrictions: Cannot have published a full-length book or chapbook.

Timeworn Literary Journal. Historical Fiction. No Fee. Deadline: January 31.

If you are a younger female-identifying writer between the ages of 14 and 21, don’t forget annual literary magazine Girls Right the World is open to submissions through January 31. They are on the lookout for poetry, prose, short stories, lyric essays, and visual art. There is no fee to to submit. [Read more…] about Weekly Roundup for Calls & Contests :: January 10, 2020

‘Night Sky with Exit Wounds’ by Ocean Vuong

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Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean VuongGuest Post by Andrew Romriell

Ocean Vuong’s collection of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, is a masterpiece that illustrates the most vital and sincere hardships of humanity in astonishingly few words. Leaping from free-verse to prose poetry, from stringent format to broken syntax, Vuong fashions here a collection of inclusion.

We open on “Threshold,” a poem where Vuong introduces his themes of body, parenthood, sexuality, and history. He warns us from the very beginning that “the cost of entering a song—was to lose your way back.” Vuong asks us to enter into his words and lose ourselves there. And we do, poem after poem, until we close on Vuong’s book with the penultimate piece, “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong.” In this poem, we read an assumed message from Vuong to Vuong where he tells himself “don’t be afraid,” and to “get up,” and that the most beautiful part of his body “is where it’s headed.” Before this, we’ve read pages of poetry full of pain, fear, and shattering, but here, Vuong embraces himself—and us alongside him.

“Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” like all the poems in Night Sky with Exit Wounds, rings with pain, wonder, regret, and history. Yet, there is also hope here, and I would say this is the theme of Vuong’s work: hope, inclusion, and change. Vuong takes us through a journey, shatters our expectations, holds our hearts, tells us to get up, and that, like him, we can survive the voyage.

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. Copper Canyon Press, April 2016.

About the reviewer: Andrew Romriell is a creative writing student at Utah State University.