Schooling

Binghamton starts classes today, but my first day is tomorrow.

I didn't write much the first year, which I expected, but I'm hoping this year will change that.

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I found out near the end of the reading tour that my new manuscript, currently titled Sirens and Wildfire, was a finalist for the Akron Poetry Prize and a semi-finalist for the Cleveland State Open Competition.

Like it was when I first started sending out what finally became Ghost Lights, it's just fuel for the fire. Late nights reading poems, thinking about order, feeling out if any should be cut or if new ones should be added. All of that will continue to happen with the new manuscript, and it becomes both fun and maddening at the same time.

I have a list of contests and open reading periods for 2010 and 2011, so it's back to getting it out again soon enough.

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And somehow, since the tour, miraculously, I've been writing a lot of new poems. Since I wasn't able to send out a lot last year, I'm hoping I can have a good September to add more poems to the ones I've already written.

My goal, then, is to send out as many that I feel are ready for a big push at the beginning of October.

Maybe there's even the kernel of a third manuscript in there somewhere...?

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Speaking of submissions, it's interesting to hear all the hullabaloo about New England Review and Ploughshares charging writers to submit their work now.

My take on it personally is this...

I haven't submitted to NER for one simple reason: currently I don't, and have never, sent to places who don't accept simultaneous submissions. If I wrote as much as Bob Hicok and had his reputation, I'd have enough poems to wait on a response before sending those poems to other journals. The simple fact is, however, that I don't write enough. So I respect the policy for non-simultaneous submissions. I know many others that don't feel this way, but I do.

I've sent to Ploughshares many times in the past, with form rejections following every single time, and with chances already slim to get in (because of the notoriety of the journal, the amount of submissions they get, and the guest editor usually soliciting a lot), I'd rather submit work to other journals at this point. But Ploughshares will be in my sights for the future.

If many journals follow with charging for submissions, which I hope they won't, I'll either go back to sending via snail mail or not sending to them at all.

With so many journals out there, I just don't think this is a huge concern for me. I know where folks are coming from as far as being annoyed, but alas, if I get the itch to send to some of these places, I'll just send via snail mail, or I'll look at other journals who don't charge.

Simple as that.

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Bring on PhD year number two...

Labor

Just spent about three hours tweaking the second manuscript. Well, not an entire three hours, but the majority of it.

Cut some poems. Updated Acknowledgments page. Rearranged some sections and poems within sections. Worked with the title. Thought about it in a different light. Wondered what kind of poems might fit within the pages that are kicking around in my head.

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Also got a list of about forty places I hope to submit to electronically once I have more poems, hopefully by the end of the month.

It's awesome that more and more places, seemingly month-to-month these days, are using emailed submissions or the submissions manager to accept poems for consideration.

I want to save as much money as I can for $20 or $25 contest checks instead of the around $1.50 total single USPS submission...

I have my first workshop next weekend (Maria Gillan does three weekends, Saturday and Sunday, over the semester instead of a once-a-week night: it's supposed to be intense), and I'm hoping I can begin a new project if I can't get any of those poems written to fit into the second manuscript.

Tenative new second manuscript title: What's Left to Burn.

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Had a great time at the Binghamton Mets game with Luke and Chana.

Hopefully next summer we'll be able to hit a bunch more on weekends.

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Went to Tioga Downs yesterday with some friends. I won $25 after hitting four 2s playing video poker.

And though we only were doing $2 bets on the horse races, we ended up winning a few bucks by the end.

It's about twenty minutes down the road, and just like the Mets games closing out soon, the horse races are also done in a week or two (though the slots and other machines are open year-round).

But this way we have some things to do already once May comes next year...

Another Post About Submissions and Journals

When I was looking through my poems I was working on the other day, I thought to myself, "I think these are good enough to gather into a batch to get out into the world." Clearly I could be wrong, and I could get all rejections back, and if that happens, I'm fine with it. I would be anyway, but it makes it easier to be fine with it when so many journals now are utilizing the online submissions manager.

Print journals. Magazines. Online Journals. Everyone.

It makes it so much easier on the folks submitting. Of the aforementioned batch, every submission was to a place -- some print, some online -- that either accepted email submissions or uses the online submissions manager. I didn't have to go to the post office. I didn't have to spend any money.

Think about it. If you send a batch of poems out to ten journals that accept simultaneous submissions -- as I do, and have yet to really hit places that don't accept simultaneous submissions because I don't trust their response time (meaning it's a lot easier to accept a form rejection when you know it's at more than just one place) and want to follow their rules -- it can add up.

SASE stamp costs: $4.20
Business-sized or 8 1/2 x 11 mailer (benefit of the doubt at $.75 cents to mail): $7.50

Basically it's going to be at least $10, or around $1 per submission with the SASE, which isn't a lot, but over time it can add up, not to mention all the ink and paper costs, which, again, add up.

Journals are making it easy on us. Easy to know when the rejection comes, since I think it probably hits the in box right when they reject it. Easy to upload. Everything about it's easy.

There are some things that need to be tweaked, yes, like being able to withdraw one poem in house, rather than the whole submission, which has happened to me before. You can always email each place and let them know if something's taken, but again, it would be easier for them so upon looking at the submission again you could see what's available and what's not. And Fence actually has you upload one poem at a time, which doesn't take too much extra time and does make it easier to click any poems that have been accepted elsewhere.

Gary had a post about this (about halfway down), and I think literally, if you had a batch of five poems, it was November 1st (a good bet that almost all the journals are taking submissions, but not a guarantee), and you wanted to send to 50 places -- online and print -- that accept email submissions or use the online submissions manager, you could. I'm not making a list, as you should start to make your own if you submit yourself (though Gary has a good one started), but it's just so nice to know these things. And it seems every month a journal that I really like and really want to get into starts up the submissions manager or now accepts emailed submissions.

Clearly I get very excited about the little things. But that's cool with me.

Rumi Nation

I'm not really responding to this post by Nick Courtright directly, but it's certainly worth reading, and I suppose has to do somewhat with the semblance of a post I'm writing now.

Because yes, folks, it's that time again. Submission time.

I feel like I have about 6 poems ready to be out in the world. Usually my date is October 31st for the fall. With the exception of very few journals, that's usually a safe date to get your work out there. That said, I started thinking about waiting, and it seemed a bit ridiculous, especially when I have a batch that I think is ready to go out. And many journals are reading starting September 1st. Agni, Bat City Review, Puerto del Sol, and West Branch are even switching to online submission systems (the infamous Devin Emke one that everyone is using, if they're not just accepting .doc or .rtf files via email), which is great, and which I just found out yesterday. I imagine that trend probably helps journals get more and more shitty work that isn't even close to publishable ("It's free, why not?"), but then again, it probably encourages folks who are writing good stuff to go ahead instead of being lazy, which we can all be, especially since stuffing envelopes isn't the most fun thing out there.

When I send stuff out I'm always inspired to write new stuff. I may still be tinkering with them... oh no, did I just say that? "How dare you send stuff out and still work on the poems." Pretty sure everyone does it, so I got over that a while ago, especially if you're just tinkering with the mostly meaningless things. If you're changing whole stanzas or endings, maybe you shouldn't be sending your work out.

And yes, who knows if anyone will ever want "Ghost Lights," but as I said, 37 of the 39 poems are published, which means at the very least, those aren't going out anymore. It may be a fat stack of papers as just a manuscript, sitting in my desk forever or as a file on my computer, but at least I don't have to make batches of poems that have already been rejected by many places. I should mention that I don't give up on my work either, as far as trying to publish. My thing is if it's a good poem, it'll find a home. If you want to give up on your work or be lazy, that leaves more room for my work. No, I'm not obsessed with publishing. Yes, when poems are ready to go out, I send them out. Make of that what you will.

See the posts below about Stacey Lynn Brown's debacle with her book, which has also spurred many of us to really consider all the issues, especially those of us with first books we're "shopping around," since that's essentially what we're all doing by sending to contests. Open reading periods? Starting your own presses? Reb has a good response to everything (post on 8/25/08), full of thoughtful things to say, from someone who has a lot of experience on where she's coming from. But then again, I wonder why Cider Press Review even started, how and why. Maybe they felt the same way, but decided to do a fair contest system, or something like that. Who knows?

Either way, there's been a lot to think about lately with people finding out about this. Maybe it'll die its little poetry death soon enough, but I hope people are paying attention, as much as they can, for reasons I'm not sure of yet.

I don't really know where this post was meant to go, but I don't really feel like deleting it. So be it.