mariness

So last week the latest issue of Mythic Delirum, containing my poem, "Gleaming," arrived in my mailbox, with its cover of a freaky snowman and an interior of marvelous poems. I've just started dipping into the words and am caught, as always, by the magic.

"Gleaming" is the poem that I submitted completely by accident, not even realizing that I'd done so until weeks later. And by "completely by accident" I mean that I was so unaware that it was in the file I submitted that I didn't name it in the title of the file or on my cover letter, learning that I'd sent it along with three other poems (which I did list on the cover letter and in Excel) only weeks later on Twitter. From the editor. Oh well. The perils of copying and pasting and going through about five different combinations of poems to sell.

In related news, Mike Allen, the editor, rejected the three poems I so carefully picked out, assuming he would love, and grabbed this one instead. Which says something about my ability to figure out what editors will or won't love.

In unrelated to my incompetence news, Mythic Delirium is about to switch from print to ezine form, so you might want to grab one last print issue while you can.

I have other thoughts, but I don't seem to be caffeinated enough to express them, so, more blogging later.

I meant to add this to my last post, but got distracted by thoughts of chocolate, as you do. Anyway.

If you missed it, this may be one of the worst opinion posts published by the Washington Post, like ever, containing this particular "gem":

He has overcome numerous obstacles, struggled against opposition both internal and external — in order to excel in poetry, a field that may very well be obsolete.
I say this lovingly as a member of the print media. If poetry is dead, we are in the next ward over, wheezing noisily, with our family gathered around looking concerned and asking about our stereos.

Ok, a, who the hell asks about stereos on someone's deathbed?

Moving on, she continues,

Still I think there is a question to be asked. You can tell that a medium is still vital by posing the question: Can it change anything?
Can a poem still change anything?
I think the medium might not be loud enough any longer. There are about six people who buy new poetry, but they are not feeling very well.

This is followed by some snarky comments about MFA students, but I'll let you read that yourself.

Petri's arguments, such as they aren't, seem to boil down to, a) the inaugural poem wasn't very good (I didn't hear it and haven't read it, so I'm withholding judgement on this point), b) poems are supposed to tell us news, and now that we have the nice media doing that for us we don't need poems, c) nobody is reading poetry, d) nobody is publishing poetry, e) nobody is buying poetry. Also, apparently, Ezra Pound would have keeled over if he'd seen any recent movies. (Well, this last one is probably true, but not for the reasons Petri is suggesting, and I'll just let you all contemplate the image of Ezra Pound watching the last Transformers movie for a moment before we move on.)

Let's unpack:

1. Just possibly -- possibly -- judging the state of poetry in general from the inaugural poem is not the best way to go about doing things. To return to the classical period that Petri seems so happy and ignorant about, all sorts of people wrote all sorts of inaugural poems to celebrate the ascent of various city leaders, Senators, Emperors, prefects and so on to various positions. All of these poems are deservedly forgotten today -- with the fragments that survive showing exactly why nobody in the classical or medieval period thought they were worth keeping. We do use the fragments to get information about particular lives, but great poetry, this is not. And that's ok -- bad poetry is also part of the human experience.

2. As I've noted, back when I was in high school, poetry was difficult to find. Oh, sure, it was assigned in high school to a degree (mostly Shakespeare and a couple of other standard poets) and you could find anthologies with the same poems printed over and over, but that was about it. Poetry reading? Hi, Shakespeare.

Back in South Florida I was able to head to various bookstores and coffeeshops to hear live poetry readings. (They also exist in the Orlando area, but not in trike-accessible places, so I haven't gone.) Yes, most of these have been very earnest poems written by devout Christians, which is not my kinda stuff, but nothing wrong with that either. And you want to know why those poems were worth while? They made the poets happy, and allowed them to explore their relationship with their god and their faith. That seems important, at least to them.

Moving past the Christian poetry movement, you have the explosion of singer/songwriters, who, yes, are writing poetry -- Petri, wrongly telling us that all poetry used to be set to music, should have noticed this. You have rap music which I can't stand but which is doing all kinds of fun things with language and, yes, telling news and telling stories.

And then you have the internet, with its explosion of poetry journals of all sorts, not to mention the possibilities for publishing poetry on a blog, or through a little ebook, or more. You have YouTube which allows people to share their poetry performances with the world. Poetry is not just what I like, or what Ms. Petri likes: it's larger than that.

Poetry dead? Poetry, Ms. Petri, is exploding. It's one of the the things that gives me a bit of hope to cling to in the world. It might not be making earth shattering changes, but it provides moments of beauty and hope. And that is a reason to keep it.

(And honestly, for any member of the media, and more specifically the Washington Post, to be dinging any other part of society for not telling the news right now...are you kidding me?)

Strange Horizons just published my poem, Sisters.

Usually by the time I actually manage to publish a poem I've forgotten why I wrote it in the first place. In this particular case, however, the myth it is loosely based on has haunted me for some time, mostly because of the numbers involved. 50 sisters! All ready to marry at once. 50 sisters! I tried to write a short story focused on one of them, but it flopped, so this is the result instead.

Forgive me for crushing all these links together:

1. Over at Tor.com, the Freddy the Pig reread continues with Freddy and the Perilous Adventure.

As a general note, since Tor.com was also chatting about the New Yorker versus science fiction yesterday, the Freddy books were written by a New Yorker writer/editor. I think the real question here is why so much of the creative energies of more than one essayist for New Yorker ended up focusing on talking pigs.

2. Also over at Tor.com, as a follow up to my morning post, DC's new gay character is not, after all, Wonder Woman, but Green Lantern. (Well, ok, one of the Green Lanterns.) I shall now pause to let you get over this not exactly shocking development.

3. Meanwhile, over at Locus, Karen Burnham has very kindly been putting together a series of posts about speculative poetry, in part, I suspect, so I never seize her at a bar and bore her on this topic again. My contribution popped up today.

Much thanks to Karen and others who stepped in to shine a bit more of a spotlight on the really amazing things happening in speculative poetry today. I admit I'm a bit biased here -- but really, guys, I had a horrible problem trying to keep myself down to just ten recommendations, and am kicking myself for not including Bull Spec, Fantastique Unfettered, Not One of Us, and so many more on that list. If I left your favorite zine out, let me know in the comments.

After a slight delay caused by the OccupyOrcs movement, the Goblins have at last broken free and released the Winter issue of Goblin Fruit. It contains one of my poems, Unmelted, as well as delectable treats from shweta_narayan, csecooney, ankh_hpl, and many others. Go, enjoy. They will warm your winter.

One of the reasons I stick around Livejournal (aside from pure laziness) despite its myriad issues and the ongoing spamming is the Great
Poets community, where members post various poems that have inspired or amused them. I'm familiar with most of the poems and poets, but not all, and every once in awhile, the community introduces me to someone I have inexplicably completely overlooked. As in this week, where someone posted this poem from poet Alice Duer Miller:

What Every Woman Must Not Say

“I don’t pretend I’m clever,” he remarked, “or very wise,”
And at this she murmured, “Really,” with the right polite surprise.

“But women,” he continued, “I must own I understand;
Women are a contradiction—honorable and underhand—

Constant as the star Polaris, yet as changeable as Fate,
Always flying what they long for, always seeking what they hate.”

“Don’t you think,” began the lady, but he cut her short: “I see
That you take it personally—women always do,” said he.

“You will pardon me for saying every woman is the same,
Always greedy for approval, always sensitive to blame;

Sweet and passionate are women; weak in mind, though strong in soul;
Even you admit, I fancy, that they have no self-control?”

No, I don’t admit they haven’t,” said the patient lady then,
“Or they could not sit and listen to the nonsense talked by men.”

The poem cracked me up, so I did a bit of internet hunting and discovered that Guterberg had posted an entire book of her satirical poems on women, voting, and elections. The great -- or depressing -- part of this is just how much of these poems, published, if Wikipedia is correct, in 1915, still ring true nearly one hundred years later, but many of them still made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd pass the link along.

In other news still feeling exhausted this week, which in turn seems to be slowing down all of my words and turning what I want to say into mush, quite unlike Miller's crisp satire.

Yes, I know: my blogging has slacked off terribly these past few weeks, except for the occasional self-pimping post...and I'm back today with another self-pimping post. It's not that I don't have things to blog about, exactly -- I do -- but I am finding it difficult to put those thoughts into words, or, rather, coherent words.

But I did blog about Meet the Austins over at Tor.com yesterday. Interesting note on these L'Engle posts: usually people comment on my Tor.com posts, if they comment at all (which isn't often) within a day of the post popping up. Here, the comments are popping up later, so if you want to see where the discussion for, say, And Both Were Young went and why the book might be like Twilight, you might need to check back later.

In other self-pimping news, my contributors copies of Mythic Delirium 25 popped into the mailbox this morning (apparently we are all good as long as everything can get squeezed into the mailbox, which with today's mail meant quite a bit of squeezing), which means I shall be pulling a few moments from the day to lose myself in the weaving of words.

The tentacles, they are coming!

Just got word that Future Lovecraft, an anthology containing my little poem, "Do Not Imagine," is ready for pre-order -- and, er, already up for the Kindle for regular, buy right now order.

Before people gulp and squeak, wait, tentacle poetry, let me assure you that the anthology contains lots of short fiction as well, by people like Nick Mamatas, A.C. Wise, Jesse Bullington, and E. Catherine Tobler. And, er, tentacles.

More about this later when it's available for regular order, but meanwhile, note that pre-orders get a 20% discount, and you wouldn't want the horror of missing that.

The 40th issue of Abyss and Apex is out, and in it, my poem Frenzy.

"Frenzy" actually grew out of another poem entirely, a few lines that didn't quite work in the first poem, quite probably because they demanded a poem of their own. And, as poems do, they grew into a series; this is the first of the group to appear.

Just got my contributor copy of Bull Spec #6, which contains five short stories, various articles and reviews, and oh yes, my little poem, "Petals." It also informs me that next year, Steampunk will be meeting Renaissance Pirates at ConTemporal, an idea I thought was worth spreading the word about. (I doubt I'll be there, though.)

In other writing news, I have the contract, and since this is the sort of news that I need to chat about in advance....my short story (not flash), "Nameless," is forthcoming in DailyScienceFiction.com. If for some reason you've missed them, Daily Science Fiction sends you a free short story (usually flash, with longer stories appearing on Friday so you can wallow in them over the weekend) every weekday, for free, from various new and established, name authors. It's awesome and well worth the money you aren't paying for it :) I'll have more about this once I know what date the story is appearing.