Rejected by Whom?: Red Neck Poems

It's been a busy six months. I still don't know how stay at home parents get much done other than child care, but I have been writing a little here and there. I took another couple of courses that have just finished up, including intro to creative writing (which I took after, instead of before the slightly more advanced poetry writing workshop). I have been accepted into the creative writing concentration at U of H and next semester will be doing a Poetic Forms course in addition to post colonial lit. So, expect lots of limericks about colorism.

But the writing: quality feels like it's going up, despite the pretty low rate of quantity. I am submitting my stuff to somewhat higher profile journals, although I am never sure how to tell a good journal from a less good one, other than some look pretty awful. Submitting to a few contests here and there, which brings me to sixfold.org. It advertises itself as being all judged by poets and so in theory, the Sixfold process is a good one. Be judged by other poets and so many other poets that you are sure to come up with the “true” measure of your work, compared with others.’ I was a little skeptical because it felt a little gimmicky, but what the heck.

I submitted two poems and dutifully did three rounds of voting. One was a long and (for me) playful poem about the movie Live and Let Die and verbal games that couples play with each other. The other was a poem about a rural couple who are still together after a long time. Nothing earth-shattering.

 In general, the poems I read got better each round, suggesting that overall, the better poems were getting through.

My own poems made it through only one round of voting, so had a total of six votes. I had two 6’s (meaning, they thought my poems were the best of the six sets they read), I had two 1’s (my poems were the worst), and two 3’s. This isn’t exactly the perfect middle of the perfect scores, but it’s pretty close.

Being insecure, I started with the feedback from the two 6’s. It was constructive, thoughtful, and had suggestions for improvement. The 3’s were less positive, and while I didn’t agree entirely, they were written by people who had read and thought about what I wrote.

The 1’s I had saved for last. One of them had no comments at all. The other had this feedback, reproduced in its entirety: "Red neck poems with incorrect capitalization and punctuation do not appeal to me. Sorry, but writing a good poem is different than writing a good poem with bad punctuation and capitalization. Appreciated the themes with everyday life in them."

I think that kind of speaks for itself. I probably won’t do the sixfold thing again. It seems as much of a crap shoot as sending stuff to a particular editor. If it’s a journal I like, I at least know the editor has tastes that somewhat gel with mine.

“red neck poems”

Sheesh.

The finite universe of time, and enjambments

Since the last time I posted, the big news is that I am now a dad. Most people reading this blog already know this, but just putting it out there. Being a dad takes time. And energy. So, that's where the writing has been. I have slowly eased back into writing a few poems here and there. Not nearly as many as I was before Jakey came, but still some pieces. I have resisted the urge to write sacchariney odes to childish innocence, but perhaps that's a mistake.

So, the volume of writing is down, but I am actually pretty happy with the quality of the little bit I have been doing. Far fewer pieces that I am embarrassed by and a few I am a little proud of. Quality over quantity or lowering standards.

Nothing new on the publishing front, but I was happy to be shortlisted for the Fish poetry prize.

http://www.fishpublishing.com/2015-short-long-lists.php#ppls15

The feedback I got was that the poem was very nice but I really need to work on my enjambment. Ironically, this was a reworking of the first piece I used in my poetry workshop class last semester and my prof, Karyna, gave me the feedback- wait for it!- that I need to work on my enjambments.

So, I still need to work on my enjambments. I have since tweaked "some kind of record" somewhat, so we'll see if it finds a home.

Enjambments

beautiful, and nothing hurt

Just a quick update. An online ebook has published a poem of mine, "beautiful, and nothing hurt"

The outfit is called Caffeine Presse, they were formerly Wednesday Night Writes, and I am really happy with their treatment of the poem. It looks really nice on the page.

Here is the link to the e-book.
http://issuu.com/wednightwrites/docs/caffeine_presse_online2/1?e=9477927/9490655

My poem is on page 8.

This was one of those poems that was a long time in taking the shape it needed to take. It was originally a two page monstrosity, overly didactic, and kind of a download of only quarter formulated thoughts and unconsidered emotions. I had to get a lot of distance from it, and sometimes the best way to get distance from something is to hack it to pieces and build it back up.

The contrast between start to finish is pretty dramatic. I am happy with the end result and embarrassed by the beginning.

The title, incidentally, comes from the epitaph in Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five:
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

Ironically, enough, also about getting some distance.

moonlight, the serious moonlight

Amongst the rush of classes starting, I had another poem published.

I called it "moonlight, the serious moonlight" and, unsurprisingly, it was published in an online magazine called The Moon Magazine. I wrote the poem a few months ago, and there it sat. Moon had a call for poems and writing on "the shadow knows/facing the dark side" and about dealing with your own shadow.

The poem seemed to fit, so I sent it in.  Here is my poem. I was listening to a lot of David Bowie:

http://moonmagazine.org/rich-thompson-moonlight-serious-moonlight-2014-08-30/

Also, check out the whole special issue, a lot of nice, dark writing. They also have a lot of older themed issues as well.

Everybody needs an editor

Not much new on the writing front. I am working on my novel.

The poetry is there, just waiting. I recently submitted and got accepted a poem at Three Line Poetry, which, ironically enough, publishes only three line poems. The poem was originally 6 lines, which is pretty short for me, but I condensed it down to its essence, and the result was pretty good, if I say so. I originally had a title for it, but with three lines, you don’t get a title. The title was “but gin is not like love.”

You can see it here (It’s in free issue 27): www.threelinepoetry.com

I also just finished an essay for the undergrad English class I am taking, that had a two page limit. I have honestly never though of myself as being especially wordy- I usually struggle to fill the time, but in getting things to fit, it was amazing how much of the first draft could be cut or streamlined without losing the gist.  I was reminded of my oulipost experience earlier this year.

I sent something to Three Line Poetry a year or so ago, and it got turned down. Looking at those three lines now, I could have said what I wanted to say in one of those lines.

I’m not about to cancel my cable and go live in the woods. But at least in terms of writing, I still have a way to go in getting rid of useless clutter.

The Summer of My Content: Random Thoughts on Happiness and Creativity

It’s been a while since I have put anything on my blog. That reflects, in part, some recovery from the month of Oulipost as well as the vagaries of the summer cycle of work and play. I have had a large clump of revise-and-resubmit requests on my academic work; and my better half and I have been traveling and just spending more time together. My running is getting more consistent, and I am just all-around busy. But that’s not the only reason the writing has taken a back seat. To be honest, I have gone through patches of far more productive writing when I have been far busier in real life.  And far more stressed.

 The novel is in stasis. The story in my head hasn’t moved forward from where it is, several chapters ahead of where it is on paper. Poems are coming out roughly once every three weeks.

 A friend asked me if I write love poems. The answer is in general no; certainly not poems that anybody would call love poems. I can only speak for myself, but it’s tough to write happy poems that aren’t incredibly embarrassing. I don’t think I am alone here. I recently read a journal that was a collection of poems about parenthood (NOT the surprisingly good fatherhood anthology). What struck me about the poems was how many were just awful. Page after page of what boiled down to “My child is a precious gift”, “I love my child” and/or, at best, “being  a parent is a lot of responsibility.” They were all like having a conversation on the elevator with an excessively friendly stranger. There’s probably something original that could be written on those themes, but I can’t think of what it might be.  So love poems? Not so much. It’s not just that I have been relatively lucky in that department; it’s that I’ve been really blessed and most of my regrets involve things I’ve done, not done to me. Guilt-riddled writing seems even more depressing than love-struck writing.  I don’t do either well, and I suspect most people don’t either. Love poems often seem like things best kept to oneself.

That seems to be true of “happy” poems more generally. When I look back at what I wrote as a teenager, the really embarrassing stuff that wasn’t all just angst plopped onto the page, was all various odes to love. A few were angsty odes to love, which may be worse.

I originally started writing seriously as a way of working through some bad things that had happened. Once I could get past the initial output of self-pity, some of the things that came out were things I could be proud of. Even now, the stuff I write that I feel the best about are all about dealing with some fundamental and ultimately sad and/or disappointing facts of life. Other people can do whimsical or humorous and God bless them, but that is not me. My recent experiences with Oulipost loosened things up a little bit in that direction, but “lighthearted” is a difficult thing to force if it’s not coming. It happens, and I’m glad when it does, but I can’t count on that (and probably shouldn’t).

All of this is a long way of saying things are pretty good these days, and that may not be great for my writing. These things also come in cycles, and I am about to embark on some anxiety producing projects that are likely to bring me back down to my not-so-happy place.  In the meantime, I’m carving out time to write and hoping for something like the best.

A day late, and a dollar. My exit Oulipost interview

In which I revisit the initial Oulipost questions, and put them into the past tense with my own spin.




What was the most exciting part about Oulipost?


It was really fun to play around with different forms and be a little less structured in the content I produced. While being more structured in specific things that needed to be done each day. Given that I only moved to Houston in the last year, obsessively scanning the local paper was a pretty good way to get a feel for my new home.


Now that I have had time to read other people’s work, I am really impressed by what other people did with the prompts and the different ways they responded. Oulipost is completely new to me, and it kind of freed me up. I have been playing around a bit with applying some of the forms to other texts, and it’s really cool, what comes out.

What was the LEAST exciting part of Oulipost?



I am new to this approach, and while I think it was good for me, there were lots of “Crap! What do I do with THIS?” moments. Scary is different than exciting, for me.



Even less exciting was the commitment in terms of time. April was a bad month in terms of free time. I suspect any month would have been just as bad. The only good month to do something is the month you don’t have to.



What did you learn about writing experimental or found poetry?


I wasn’t aware of how many constraints were possible! It was challenging many days, but what was surprising was that the constraints produce far more in the way of creativity than I ever thought. I was really impressed by what other people could do.


The other thing I learned, more generally, is something I probably should have always known, but that it’s easy to forget. You get out what you put in. When I didn’t have much time to work on things, there was never a poem I was really proud of. Inspiration seems to work best in the context of either a lot of excess time, or a lot of hard work, or both.



FPR: What did you learn about source  material?


I did best when I could sit in the coffee shop, pen in hand, and mess around with the actual physical, literal Houston Chronicle. I can understand why the morning paper was such a ritual for so many people for so long, and I do think a lot gets lost in the translation to digital, at least in terms of the sense experience.


I tried to focus on the local sections of the newspaper, or the sections with the most regional inflections, like sports. This felt a little more general. There were some national stories I couldn’t resist, but I was worried that too many of these would make things generic.



FPR: Who is your- ?


I’m still going with Burt Reynolds, or perhaps Sterling Archer.