Tag: literary journal

November PAD is almost here

Over two months of writing a poem a day

Anyone interested in the November PAD (Poem-A-Day) Chapbook Challenge? Details are available on Writer’s Digest website.

It has been awhile since I mentioned the writing exercise I often practice of writing 30 poems in 30 days. A couple of years ago I stopped posting poems on this blog under the advice of a published poet. Poems posted on blogs qualify as “published” and therefore are ineligible to be published in a literary journal or magazine.

So, I started writing poems for friends and others on a manual typewriter and posting the photos—like this short poem for a fellow poet, writer and friend: “Some days all you need.” Or this poem written for the wonderful staff at Dunkin Donuts who always know my order and have it ready for me before I get to the counter: “Never look a doughnut dealer in the eyes.” It is not that I wouldn’t like to get published in a literary journal or magazine, but I really enjoy the process of writing to a specific person or persons.

Due to unemployment followed by new employment challenges, the practice of using the manual typewriter to compose poems ceased due to circumstances I can not share at this point. But I kept composing and writing offline—analog, if you will. In lieu of a manual typewriter, I discovered an app awhile ago. There’s always an app for something, right? During the last month or so, I composed several poem sketches. In the next weeks, I shall share some of these visual poems. Tomorrow, the first one will be posted.

For the month of November I plan to compose a poem a day. Who is with me?

Life is lived as a messy first draft

How do you explain a poem without revealing its mystery? I thought about that question this weekend after a private poetry reading session. A few poets gathered under a full moon to read new work….

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UPDATE: This blog post is available as part of an audio podcast.

Listen now:

Or listen on:
PodOmatic: coffeehousejunkie.podomatic.com
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/coffeehousejunkie

E-book: This blog post will be featured in a forthcoming e-book. More details coming soon.

No more Free Lunch

This weekend I received a letter in the post informing me that Free Lunch is closing shop. The news really disappointed me for two reasons. One, I was hoping to have some poems published. Two, I reviewed an issue of Free Lunch for Small Press Review and really enjoyed the publication. Some literary/poetry publications are dense with inaccessible poetry and my work doesn’t seem to fit. But Free Lunch felt like a good fit. Here’s an abridged version of the review I submitted to Small Press Review:

Free Lunch presents an engaging 20th Anniversary issue. Unlike many poetry magazines that contain a smattering of good poems and a couple great poems, the Spring 2009 issue of Free Lunch collects stellar work by Billy Collins, Stephen Dunn and many others. It is my habit as a reader to dog-ear pages in books or magazines that elicit some sort of physical response; like smacking a book on my knee and saying “yeah” to the amusement of fellow bus riders. Lyn Lifshin writes, “I love the sense/ of her contentment/ feel it moving/ inside me the/ way when a/ poem works…” in her poem “Writing a poem is like why and when a cat purs.” In “Advice from a Pro,” X. J. Kennedy writes, “I vowed to make my work intensley sober.” There are many great poems by poets Roger Aplon, Denise Duhamel, and others. And, in short, my copy of the 20th Anniversary of Free Lunch has almost every page dog-eared with praise.