Medusa's Head

I have a pretty big deadline coming in up in less than two months, and to honor it, I've begun a new poetry project! Finally. It helps me a little bit to think of the shape and content and big ideas in the project when I'm thinking about new poems to write. In this one I want to pursue a couple of ideas 1. Time and 2. The Domestic. That's pretty much my life right now, and whereas for the past few months I haven't been thrilled about it, I've finally come around that bend in the country road where everything illuminates and you realize you're in the right place. So my next blogs will focus on ways/forms to help shape and show the passage of time, and forms that duplicate the domestic. Project the First: Rag Rug. I'm totally in love with the rag rug I've been making for my second spare room.The rag rug is an old-timey thing they still make a L.L. Bean, we had one in our family room growing up. It's made out of long strips of fabric crocheted together ...

In most writing classrooms as well as on most rejection slips, you'll get a suggestion from teachers and editors that you read a literary journal before submitting to it (or read any literary journal before submitting to another one) in order to get an idea of what they might like. There are a few problems with this advice. 1)Time: Many working poets find they don't have the time to read EVERY journal they'd like to submit to. OR 2)Money: They might skim over them at the AWP bookfair, look into their wallets, and sigh. There just isn't enough money, or usually a well-enough stocked library nearby for poets (or writers) to read every journal they'd like to. $20 bucks a pop doesn't get you very far on what most people have to spend. I know my subscription/ conference registration/ contest entry fee money comes out of a small grant I was lucky to get and have just about used up :( Which is why I've spent a little bit of time lately going over journals I've ...