Sturgeon's Law

Since I'd like to expand, The Eleventh Muse will be considering flash/short-short fiction and nonfiction of 1,000 words or less for the next issue. If you write material that fits into that description, or if you know anyone else who does, please keep us in mind.

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If you take a look at the publication database, you'll see that it's already expanded from 5 journals to 40, and we've added some additional features. Thank you to the people who signed up and added journals already, and please feel free to join us if you'd like.

This outing, I highlight a nice poem from an outlet whose poetry is usually appallingly dull. (Next thing, I'll be saying good things about the poetry on Slate!) Also in this edition, a piece from an exciting e-zine. There might be confusion over which is which.

"How to Listen" by Major Jackson (The New Yorker)
"52" by Sarah Manguso (MiPOesias)

I'm just getting too riled up about things that probably shouldn't bother me that much and that I obviously can't do much about right now, so I'm shutting the discussion here down.

The Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation is $100,000.

Of the last five winners, one (Kay Ryan) was 68 years old or younger. The only other one of the five under 70 was C. K. Williams, who turned 69 the year he won. Richard Wilbur is 85, Linda Pastan was 71, and Lisel Mueller was 78.

Of all the winners since 1986, only one (Yusef Komunyakaa) received it before the year in which he/she turned 55 (he turned 54 the year he won). William Matthews won it the same year he turned 55 and died.

Unless I'm missing someone, a grand total of one of the 21 winners has been of a minority ethnicity.

Yeah, uh, way to widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, Poetry Foundation. Very democratic.

Edited to add: the full list of winners.

Yay, productivity!

Okay, so this one uses a line Rebecca said I could have if I used a Simpsons line for my title--which I didn't quite do, but the key phrase of the title (plus another bit) is taken from the Simpsons. This is a theft-heavy poem--I've also stolen from a Compassion International letter-writer, Aaron Anstett's son, an old draft of mine, and this blog a few days ago. Yes, it is currently a prose poem. Lemme know...

There's going to be a splash page at that link soon where some of this (and other issues) will be explained.

If you click on the name of the journal, you see a whole lot more information than just what's on the first page.

The "Rating" entry is lifted from Jeffery Bahr's concept of An Approximate Print Journal Ranking. Likewise, "Actual Response Time" is based on having 5 or more separate entries on his response time database or other such resources.

If you've signed up as an assistant, you might want to be careful about entering publications--I'm getting a glitch right now that won't let me add anything, and you lose the information you just entered if that happens, though most of it will pop back up again in the appropriate field when you start typing. I don't know if that error is an issue just for me or for everyone.

I'm working on a big online poetry project. Actually, right now my awesome programming friend Rich Miller is doing most of the work on a big project for me--it's a sortable, searchable database of literary journals. Well, it's not searchable yet, but it will be. Also, I've only added five journals so far, but I expect that will expand quickly.

I'm asking for help because I'd like some of my readers to sign up as users (actually "assistant administrators," since users can't really do anything yet) and do three things: (1) help beta test the database so we can make sure it's all working well, (2) suggest new functionality/categories or just identify glaringly obvious gaps I haven't figured out yet, and (3) add new journals to the database, which once the programming is done will be the time-consuming part. So if anyone's interested and has some time to add/edit journals and poke around in the database seeing how it looks and works, go that link above, register for an account, and then let me know by e-mail or comment.

Thanks in advance to anyone who's interested. I think this could be a fun and valuable project, insofar as anything to do with poetry is fun or valuable, ha ha.

Yay, I managed to make a minor miscommunication worse, so I'm starting over.

I was under the impression that one of my poems was appearing on the Ghost Road Press poem-a-day page today because Sonya at GRP had said "your poem will be up," which actually meant a poem that originally appeared in The Eleventh Muse. I misunderstood.

It turns out that a poem actually BY me will be up tomorrow evening through Monday. Check for it then if you want. It's "Open Late," which originally appeared in Diner. Now I'm going to shut up and stop putting my foot in my mouth for a day or so at least.

(Nate, you certainly didn't say anything to offend me.)

• I'm looking to trade a few poetry books away if anyone has a book or journal they want to trade me back. I have the Best American Poetry books from 1998 to 2001, Donald Hall's Old and New Poems, the Contemporary American Poetry (Second Edition) edited by Hall, and The Contemporary American Poets, edited by Mark Strand. Send me an e-mail and offer me a trade if you want one of them.
  
• After not running well at poker for a while, I won a sit-and-go tournament for $25 a couple days ago and picked up some more in a ring game today. A guy (let's just assume it was a guy and also underage--pretty safe guess) at the table was trying really hard to dump chips, raising with rags and betting into every pot no matter what he had. Having witnessed this behavior in previous hands, I was able to take about $7 off him in one hand with basically nothing because he kept betting at me with even less. I then said "Thanks," and he called me a faggot. Lovely.
• Some more best of poetry online stuff:
  "Mannequins" by David Shumate (Mid-American Review)
  "Homage to Tom Andrews" by Matthew Thorburn (Blackbird)
  
• I was going to comment on the Publishers Weekly article that mentioned poetry blogs. Then I decided to kneecap myself with a baseball bat instead. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.
  
• I believe I've used this space to state that I write poems to impress women. (In fact, I know I have--I'm just weird about my sharp memory.) Anyway, to say so is not to say that it has been a particularly wise or fruitful effort, or that I mean just one thing by the statement.
• Finished taxes last night. I definitely need to install Quicken or some such program.
  

I actually have started some prose in addition to the two poem drafts I have going right now. It feels good to be going back to it. Of course, I need to get my personal life in better order first. First things first: finish double-checking my taxes. Whee!

Thirteen Ways to Popularize Poetry in the Mainstream

For National Poetry Month

1. Convince celebrities to serve as the "authors" of books of poetry.
Books of alleged poetry by Jewel and Jimmy Carter sold way more than you or I ever have. So pay celebrities a small fee to pretend they wrote a book of poems actually ghost-written by you. Imagine the audience for a poetry book by Charlize Theron, Charles Barkley, or Tom Cruise's baby.

2. Print poetry on toilet paper.
I'm firmly convinced this is genius. You can fit a whole book's worth of poems on a single roll, people like to read in the bathroom, and it lets me appropriate/modify this exchange from Blackadder:
"I enjoyed Overlord. Soft, strong, and thoroughly absorbent."
"Yes, I thought it might be right up your alley."

3. Poet insult battles on live television, hosted by Shana Hiatt.
Look what TV and Shana did for poker, another formerly societally marginal venture. Plus, people like rap battles and snarky soap-opera backstabbing, and most poets, not far below the surface, want to bash at least one other poet.

4. Incentive programs.
For every third poetry book you purchase, receive a free milkshake! Or earn frequent-reader points that you can redeem for poet favors such as mowing your lawn or giving you hugs when you're lonely. Poets are like creepier versions of teddy bears.

5. Avant poetry for kids.
None of that pesky education on syntax getting in the way. It'll be like computers--yet another thing to make 8-year-olds think their parents are incompetent cave-people. Imagine the market for Lemony Snicket's Discrete Series of Unrelated Evens.

6. Print poetry on rolling papers.
This one amuses me almost as much as #2. Oh man, I just realized the toilet paper idea is #2. That was totally an accident, I swear. Anyway, can you imagine a stoned teenager reading some Ashbery (hell, some Wilbur) as he rolls up another fat joint?

7. Product placement in poems.
Additional revenue stream plus the hipness that comes from mentioning iPod or Mountain Dew. Can't miss!

8. Set poetry to music.
It's so crazy that it just might work!

9. Door-to-door poets.
Go from house to house asking residents what they want poems about, then writing them. Alternately, web-based poetry writing on demand.

10. Subliminal messages.
Make every nth letter or word of your poem spell out "You like poetry! You want to buy poetry! You find the author charismatic or sexually attractive!"

11. Every time anyone says something you don't like about poetry, punch them in the face.
Free-floating chaos and hostility are always good for business. Just ask Halliburton. (Rim shot)

12. Introduce a new prop at every poetry reading.
A lighter to hold up during solemn poems. A duck call to blow when a poem is done. Cookies thrown into the audience. A sock monkey. Whatever.

13. Stop reading into the goddamn page.
Seriously. Stop it.

I just got back from David Foster Wallace's reading at CC. It was a blast--Dave Mason said he was half-worried that Wallace would be a reclusive nerd, but he (Wallace this time) was very engaged and engaging. He read some funny new draft pieces (he called them "chunks") and then answered questions which, with the exception of one, avoided the terrible lunatic level of questions you get at these things (though they were sometimes involved and very specific to individual works of his). He also half-giggled at points in his pieces, which I suspect means they're relatively fresh drafts. That sort of thing usually sucks at a reading, but it went along with the spirit of the whole thing tonight.

I got to sit right behind him because I was one of the first people into the hall--actually, the front door to the hall was locked, and I found the side door and informed Chris Bachelder about it, so I saved Christmas. My friend Aaron suggested I should tug on DFW's hair while he was sitting right in front of us. Anyway, a good time all around. I've been thinking that maybe I should write some good prose to get over the poetry burnout I'm feeling right now, and this could be a spur to that.

I don't often dream about poetry (though occasionally an image or line will come out of a dream). Anyway, the nuts and bolts stuff about poetry in my life doesn't enter into the dreams for the most part. However, a couple nights ago, I had a dream that Gabriel Gudding sent me some translations for The Eleventh Muse. The dream was almost surely based on the fact that I recently accepted a couple translations by my poetry pal David Keplinger for next year's Muse, but I'm not sure how Gabe entered into it, or if he even does translations. There is a mild resemblance between Keplinger and the pictures I've seen of Gabe, but mostly I think it's because A Defense of Poetry is awesome, and I'd find it very cool if he did ever send poems.

There's a real, long post coming. I'm about 75% done with it right now, so it'll be up by the weekend. I think it's fun.

To Jeannine for having her poem "Femme Fatale" from The Eleventh Muse appear on Verse Daily. I suspect that Jeffery's poem on Sunday(?) may be from the Muse as well, but we shall see.

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I feel like maybe I should give up poetry for National Poetry Month.

I got pretty snarly with a guy at the Poetry West meeting yesterday who was trotting out the most useless part of the poetry accessibility argument in highly condescending fashion. If I can closely paraphrase his point, it was "Your poetry won't be read by the masses unless you use all words and references that the masses know." Ugh, how patronizing. My poetry isn't difficult by most methods, and I do think the house should at least have a door you can get in, and I don't think poets should primarily be writing for other poets, but he took the argument too far and stated it in a way that set my teeth on edge--I'm sure your auto mechanic will take well to your poetry when you tell him you're descending off High Poet Mountain and dumbing everything down for him, ___. It's made even worse by the fact that the specific he was objecting to was an allusion to Cassandra--I objected to the reference on the grounds that it was stale, but too difficult? It's in the fucking lexicon!