Writers-in-Progress

Call for Best New Poets

Just received, so passing on to you, Dear Writers!

I wanted to let you know that the Open Competition for Best New Poets 2008 is now taking submissions. This year's entry fee is $3.50. For full details, see http://www.bestnewpoets.org

As it has for the last three years, Best New Poets will publish 50 poems by emerging writers, which we define as someone who has yet to publish a book of their own poetry. Before you decide what poems to enter, please read our full eligibility guidelines: http://www.bestnewpoets.org/eligibility.html.

This year's guest editor is Mark Strand. Best New Poets 2008 will be available through online retailers like amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, but thanks to an agreement with the University of Virginia Press, it will also be widely distributed to retail stores.

A few big changes from past editions:

- Our Open Competition deadline is June 5, 2008, some 10 days earlier than last year.

- Our entry fee has been lowered to $3.50, but does not include a copy of the book. After we announce our results, Open Competition entrants will have the opportunity to buy copies at a reduced rate (about $6) but this is entirely optional.

- All Open Competition entrants published in the book will receive a payment of $50.

Another big change is that we're taking submissions through ManuscriptHub.com this year. This is an online submission service where you can upload a manuscript once but submit it to multiple magazines. You can also withdraw individual manuscripts from consideration and track the progress of multiple submissions in one place.

For best results, we ask that you prepare your manuscripts this way:

You can upload two poems per entry. We recommend saving each poem in a separate file. Please save using the following formats: MS Word .doc or .rtf, or as a .txt (text) or a .pdf (Acrobat) file. Please do not put your name on the manuscripts or in the file names. ManuscriptHub links the manuscripts to your account but keeps the reading process blind until we make final selections.

Then,

- Go to http://www.manuscripthub.com and register/log in.

- Click the blue "Your Manuscripts" icon and upload all your poetry.

- When your manuscripts are on the system, click the blue "Submit Work" icon.

- A list of magazines appears. Select the "Best New Poets 2008" link next to our cover.

- Use the drop-down menus next to "Manuscript 1" and "2" to select which manuscripts to submit.

- Click the "Submit" button.

- Click the "Pay Now" button to pay your $3.50 fee by credit card. If you plan to enter more than once, you can wait to make one payment. Just click the blue "Submit Work" icon, select "Best New Poets 2008" again, and create another submission. Then pay once at the end.

We apologize if this seems like a lot of steps. Because ManuscriptHub takes submissions for several magazines, you have to first upload your manuscripts, and then submit them to a particular magazine/competition. You can always check the status of a submission by clicking on the blue "Submission Status" icon. An "open" submission is one we've received and that's been marked paid. Feel free to e-mail if you get lost during the submission process.

Jeb Livingood
Series Editor, Best New Poets
www.bestnewpoets.org

Poetry Visualized

I just found out about a new website called Poetry Visualized, which is offering a place for poets and other artists to show off their work as either audio, text, or text and film (video, music, etc.). They plan on gathering the pieces into a feature-length film to take to festivals next year and doing an online visual festival this year.

It seems very new, so who knows whether they will or won't become a good forum for poets and other artists. I'm for anything that allows writers to stretch their wings and experiment with other disciplines, and same for other artists experimenting with words. The only red flag for me is their definition of Visual Poetry, which I don't find accurate. They're defining it as mostly a graphic and film medium in the modern sense.

BUT, the term is somewhat interchangeable with Concrete Poetry, which is more text-based than Visual. Concrete Poetry began, technically, with the Greeks and continued on through time, including George Herbert's shaped poetry (Easter Wings, for example), Mallarme, e.e. cummings, etc. It was revived by Brazilian poets in the 1950s and given the CP term then. It began with text and painting, collage, and photography (static images) and sound, then included motion.

Sorry for the mini-lecture, I'm always a little suspicious when there's no nod to history/tradition. Most art forms don't just appear out of nowhere! Perhaps that's the formalist in me.... :) I couldn't find a mention about rights or permission, so if you decide to participate, check that out first. It's apparently run by attorney Rod Underhill, who was cofounder of MP3.com.

For the all-time best resource for Concrete/Visual Poetry - go to www.ubuweb.com

Link to Poetry Visualized: www.poetryvisualized.com

I wouldn't be a good advocate for Baltimore poets or Write Here, Write Now if I didn't toot our horn and say that we had a Visual Poetry class in spring of 2007, which included a gallery show at Creative Alliance, and are turning poems into visual pieces (paintings, collage, mixed media), then animations/video right now, a class I planned last summer, but a form I've been working in for ten years. So we're ahead of the curve here in Bmore!

Be Quiet

This is a challenge I'm giving myself so thought I'd extend it to you. Take a day (or a weekend if you can manage it) and just be quiet. No phones, no TV, no email, no music, no visitors, no parties, etc. Stay home if that works best for you, but you can also go out - you just can't talk to anyone!

The last year, for me, has been so busy, which has been great, but I haven't heard myself think in a long time. Not good for any artist to not be able to hear that 'still, small voice' within. Now that my residency with Creative Alliance is over and I've moved into the new house, I finally have the quiet and privacy I've been craving for a while, and can see and feel how much I need a big, healthy dose of silence. Right now it sounds better to me than chocolate, which is really saying something.

So I am setting my intention to do this within the next week or so. If this is harder for you - you might have kids - lock yourself away somewhere for an hour (closet, laundry room, master bath?). Figure out what might work for you and take whatever size dose you can. It does add up.

Yes it's good to find time to write and to read, but it's also important to find time to make space - in your head, in your heart, as well as your life, for whatever belongs to you to enter. Have pen and paper handy if you must, but just listen and think. And don't expect anything momentous to happen right away. It's a process. It's a journey. It's cumulative. Let your mind clear, and just be quiet.

Doesn't that sound delicious?

Poetry Out Loud Nat'ls in DC, April 28-29

I have a bone to pick with Poetry Out Loud.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe in the program, after all it: "helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage," but its emphasis is too heavily on the side of poetry as an oral art.

It takes patience, practice, creativity, and skill to craft a poem. It's not enough to read someone else's work and understand the tones and nuances, the pacing of line breaks, the themes, etc. That's just one half of the equation. Think of it in terms of always being a passenger in a car and never the driver. Most people learn how to follow directions and find places by driving themselves, not being the passenger. You learn by doing. You learn about what makes a good poem by writing poetry. Memorization and recitation, though each has their merits, don't go far enough.

What I'd like to see is a category added to the competition in which the participants have to write and recite one of their own poems. Perhaps one influenced by one of the pieces they choose to recite, either in subject, style, or form. I believe they should demonstrate being good poets in their own right, as well as good interpreters of those that inspire them.

That said, go see for yourself. The nationals take place at Lisner auditorium in DC April 28th and 29th.

Poetry Out Loud

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

A wonderful resource for artists of all disciplines, you can find the nationwide directory here:

Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

If you are a Maryland resident like me:

Maryland Lawyers for the Arts

Info about their services, which I'm sure applies to all the states:

Founded in 1985, Maryland Lawyers for the Arts, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that provides lawyer referral services and pro bono legal assistance to income-eligible artists and arts organizations. In addition, MLA presents educational workshops and seminars that focus on the legal aspects of arts related issues such as copyright, contracts, and entity formation, including nonprofit, tax-exempt corporations. Maryland Lawyers for the Arts is committed to protecting the legal rights of the arts community and to providing legal assistance and education to artists and arts organizations in all creative disciplines.

Their first newsletter - it began in winter, 2008

Arts Brief

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE ARTS BRIEF: go to website, choose 'library' in the menu at the top and click on the subscribe link.

Sign up for A Poem a Day for National Poetry Month

A Poem a Day - sign up here

Mary Gaitskill Reading in Rockville, April 4

Well R.E.M. was wrong - DO go back to Rockville because Mary Gaitskill is giving a reading there!

Mary Gaitskill Headlines Authors at Fitzgerald Spring Event

Renowned author Mary Gaitskill will read from her work at the Spring Event of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference. The event takes place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 4 at the Rockville Vis Arts Center.

Mary Gaitskill has been nominated for the National Book Award, National Book Critics' Circle Award and PEN/Faulkner Award. She is the author of Two Girls, Fat and Thin; Veronica; Bad Behavior; and Because They Wanted To. Her short story "Secretary" was made into a feature film.

Gaitskill will be joined by four local authors: Dave Housley (Ryan Seacrest is Famous), Nathan Leslie (Madre, Believers), Susan Muaddi-Darraj (The Inheritance of Exile), and Lalita Noronha (Where Monsoons Cry).

Don't miss this rare opportunity to see Gaitskill and other talented authors read from their work. The event is free to members of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference, Inc. and their guests, and the cost is $10 for the general public. There will be a minimal charge for students. Parking at Town Center is free after 7 p.m., and refreshments will be served.

For directions to the Vis Arts Center, visit www.visartscenter.org