FOR PRACTICING POETS - A CALL FOR POEMS

Hello Practicing Poets. In spite of the week long phone outage and internet down, I'm back. It is a shock to see what can happen in just one week away from my desk.  No readers is what happened. And that made me think seriously of "going out of business."  If you read my blog you know it is not a business. It's free to you and no pay check for me. 


I do fully understand you are seeking up to date info. My focus has been and will remain Poetry, Poets and Writers from the South and especially work by writers living in and inspired by  the Southern Appalachian Mountains. I'm interested in all things appalachian and will admit I step into the forest every once in a while, go walking by the river or might stand staring up at the full moon.   


There is a featured poet  each month each month. In June the featured poet has been Shelby Stephenson. I hope you have found time to read his poems. There have been four posts about him with poems and photos.


Another focus from me to you is THE CALL FOR POEMS. Regularly editors and publishers send me up to date calls for poems. I always share them with my readers, either in a regular post or in the right column. Posts move down quickly, as you have noted, so check regularly. Calls for poems posted on the right stay on the right until the deadline passes.


As a practicing poet, you can keep hammering away at the "best" lit mags. I encourage you to "send only your best and send only to the best,"something I learned from Kathryn Stripling Byer. Truth, southern poets seem not  in high demand at this time.  Oh yes, there was a time when the southern voice rose above all the others. Now, it is next to impossible for a southern poet to get a poem published in 
a southern based literary magazine. I encourage you to keep writing. Keep submitting. 


At this time, I open my mail and find editors looking for the best poems they can find. You do not have to be on their "cronie list" nor on their fellows and associates list.   Recently I've received calls from editors wanting  and actually seeking political poems and poems of social comment.  Until recently that  used to be - never.  


Editors of FutureCycle  Robert S.King (Georgia) and David Choriton (Arizona)  are asking for poems that show "what poets see" in our world today for an anthology on American Society. Editor Paula C. Lowe of Solo Novo in California has sent out a call for poems written in 2011 between September and December. "But that is in the future" you say. Yes, September has not arrived yet, neither has July or August.  Most of us practicing poets do not write by assignment but rather heed the call and go looking in our folder for a poem already written that will fit the call and then fine tune them more  and send.  Paula C. Lowe does not want old poems. She wants new poems  happening and written in the present tense (Sept. - December 2011) .  The guidelines are carefully spelled out below for you. If you missed them, scroll down.  Both calls were posted in June before my phone and internet went out.


More calls for poems will be posted. Stay tuned, and please leave a comment once in a while so I know you are alive and well and still practicing poetry.