Sturgeon's Law

Okay, the first lesson actually is "don't trust Blogger with your fucking posts," so this will be a shorter version of what it swallowed earlier. I just finished helping to judge the Poetry West Chapbook Contest, and here are some things I learned from being on the other side of the contest door (not that I enter that many book contests yet).

• If you haven't achieved some sort of publication or recognition elsewhere, you probably shouldn't enter a contest with a whole book. You can eliminate at least half of book contest entrants with just a cursory look, and many of those are from people who clearly haven't ever done any publication besides self.
• Don't enter a chapbook contest without researching it a little. Get some information on the judges, previous winners, what-have-you. Sending your money off blind is equivalent to stuffing it up a cat's butt (sorry, I've been drinking).
• High-powered journal credits don't matter as much as you think they do. Our winner, Robert Perchan, had a sick set of poems whose publication credits would have lost (in terms of prestige) to a number of semi/finalists, plus multiple entries that didn't even make that level.
• For contest-runners, the solution to Foetry/conflict situations is simple: don't pick someone with whom you have a conflict of interest (duh), keep your rules and processes transparent, and address the facts directly if someone tries to make an issue.
• Unity of "voice" (a problematic word, but nonetheless) is more important than unity of style is more important than unity of theme. None is absolutely necessary. Even 24 pages of poems all on the same thing (especially a very narrowly defined thing like "24 insects I found in my house this morning") is going to wear on most readers.
• Follow the fucking guidelines. Damn.

I may think of more, in which case I'll add them.

I'm excited because The Eleventh Muse is going to be added to the next edition of Poet's Market, out in a couple weeks. I'm sure this will cause an upturn in the number of submissions we get, though we'll have to play a waiting game on the quality. Is there anyone out there with experience in the submissions that come from Poet's Market so I know how much of an upswing to expect, and how much decent stuff will come from it?

Astronomy

It dies. And a gazillion years in the future
the sight of its dying reaches Earth.
—Computed in dinosaur years, that's three days
from the brain's death to its being recognized as dead
in the far frontiers of the tail.

*

Night. A party. "Come out here for a minute."
Dina told me: she'd miscarried. But
her body hadn't registered that yet, it kept
preparing for a birth. And so we sat on the porch
in silence for a while, in the light of that star.

Albert Goldbarth

I just retooled the "ways to give us money" page for The Eleventh Muse, so I thought I'd post it here too. I'm also making this special offer: if you become a Friend or Sponsor of the Muse, in addition to the complimentary copy of the new issue, I'll send you copies of both the 2004 and 2005 issues. I hope you'll be interested in a subscription or sponsorship.

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Subscriptions

Subscriptions are $8 for one year, $13 for two years. Please mail check or money order for the total amount to:

Poetry West
PO Box 2413
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80901

Purchasing Existing Issues

The current issue of The Eleventh Muse is available for $8. Sample issues and back issues are available for $5.

Available Issues: 2005, 2004, & 2002 (20th Anniversary Edition)

Sponsorships

You can become a Friend of the Muse for $25 or a Sponsor for $50. Friends and Sponsors will receive a complimentary copy of the issue they sponsor, with their names noted in the issue. Those at the $50 level have the option of listing an organization, a website URL, or other contact data in addition to their names. All sponsorships are tax deductible.

Advertising

Half-page advertisements are available for $75, full-page ads for $100. The cost is also tax deductible and will include a free copy of the issue in which the ad appears. You will need to provide a JPG or equivalent graphics file for your ad. We will be happy to provide specifics on request. E-mail inquiries to steveschroeder@gmail.com.

Congratulations to Robert Perchan, who just won the 2005 Poetry West Chapbook Contest with his entry Mythic Instinct Afternoon: Prose Poems.

These poems are, to use a phrase I don't often apply to poetry, some fucking sick puppies.

Full results are available here. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest, and we hope to see so many good entries again next year.

Got my contributor's copy of Diner, and it looks lovely. Haven't gone through it much yet, but I already like the poetry by Clay Matthews.

Jury duty tomorrow. Meh. That is all.

You know what I really hate in reviews? The presumptuous use of "we" to speak for more people than the reviewer is actually qualified to speak for. (This is much more prevalent in movie and mainstream book reviews than in poetry reviews, fortunately, though it still pops up in poetry reviews.)

Surely you've seen it (yes, and don't call me Shirley): the writer, in speaking of something in the book or movie or whatever, says something like "This twist stretches our suspension of disbelief to the breaking point." Well, now. Funny thing, but 99% of the time, I didn't experience any such thing, making me wonder if the reviewer is trying to tell me what I think I felt is incorrect, or if he/she is simply using the royal "we" to seem more important.

There are a few instances where the use can be perfectly acceptable, mainly if the writer is using "we" in a more general sense of an audience being presented to ("the movie never tells us the reasons for so-and-so's motivation") or to make a statement that's not really subjective ("we're all human"). Most of the time, however, it's junkity junk junk. In one of the "Questions for the Movie Answer Man" books he did before he became utterly useless, Roger Ebert condemned the use of "we" in movie reviews. Now he uses the word constantly, in grating fashion.

We don't know about you, but it really bothers us when other people try to put words in our mouth or thoughts in our head.

Someone found my site by searching for "Tool AND Chimpanzee AND Review," which is a bit odd.

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For those of you who watch your calories, I recommend Vitabrownies and Vitamuffins. Thanks for the belated b'day gift, K!

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Currently reading in poetry: Fall Sanctuary by Jeff Hardin

Fastest response via snail mail: Margie, 7 days (rejection)
Slowest response via snail mail: CutBank, 266 days (rejection)
Never responded via snail mail: Maize (including multiple queries)

Fastest response via e-mail: eye, <1 day (acceptance)
Slowest response via e-mail: Blue Moon Review, withdrew after 243 days and no responses to two queries
Never responded via e-mail: Southeast Review

Journal that excited me the most with the "nice" rejection plus ink: Shenandoah
Acceptance that caused me the most excitement: 32 Poems
Nicest and most helpful response to a query: Atlanta Review
Least helpful response to a query: California Quarterly (saying they had no record of my submission, then returning it to me a week later with ink and "please submit again")
Nicest response to withdrawing simultaneous submissions accepted elsewhere: (tie) Water~Stone & RHINO
Most poems of a five-poem submission withdrawn due to publication elsewhere: RHINO, 3

Submissions out (not counting places I don't expect to respond at this point): Smartish Pace, Atlanta Review, WSCLM (I'm not sure if the actual name will be something else, but it's a new Literary Magazine at Western State College in Gunnison), New Delta Review, Crab Orchard Review, Vox, Rattapallax, Ontario Review, Elixir, Two Rivers Review, Gargoyle, Many Mountains Moving, Louisville Review, Hudson Review, Pleiades, Southern Poetry Review, Hunger Mountain, Rattle, Florida Review, and Connecticut Review.

Speaking of all these stats, do you use Jeff Bahr's Submission Response Time Database? Have you submitted your own journal response data to it? If not, contact him. That tool is valuable and becomes even more so as more poets contribute to it. It's easy to do!

As a way of thanking Ron for adding me to his blogroll, I wanted to say that I always think it's funny when he talks about "School of Quietude" poets that he actually likes. It always reminds me of Chris Rock's routine about white people praising Colin Powell for being "well spoken":

"Speaks so well is not a compliment. Speaks so well is some shit you say about retarded people that can talk."

My own personal "SoQ" (which really needs a better name) is the 90% you get from my blog title (Sturgeon's Law="90% of everything is crap"), spanning the avant, the mainstream, and the neoformconclasswhatever. And I won't pretend to like anything in that 90%.

And as much as I like the principle of taking poetry to a wider audience, I'm usually so dismayed by the results of bigger magazines dabbling in poetry (e.g. The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate) that I think it may be one of those things that requires a bottom-up revolution. Good thing I'm at or near the bottom.

How do you pronounce Rattapallax? As in the journal, as in "Heavy with thunder's rattapallax"?

I saw in a posting on WOM-PO that Diner could use some financial help. So please won't you go buy a copy or a subscription of this quality journal? I'm in the upcoming issue, too.

Meow meow meow

I like to lick plastic bags
No one knows why
I don't think I know why

I wake Uncle Steven up in the morning, every morning
for no good reason
Meow, I say, and then
BONK with my head

Occasionally when he rubs my belly
which I love
I will suddenly decide
I am very scared
and latch onto his entire forearm

All I want to do during the winter
is crawl under the comforter on his bed
All I want to do during the summer
is lie in the closet
and occasionally melt
into a dark puddle on the living room floor

My favorite hobby is
digging litter

Meow meow meow

All cats and all cat owners
are insane

Lyn Lifshin, Simon Perchik, Ryan Van Cleave, and Virgil Suarez beat you to it.