Sturgeon's Law

As if the previously mentioned e-mail problem weren't enough, I managed to lose basically my entire Inbox last night. Fortunately, the business-critical e-mails were in another folder, and I can piece most things back together from my Sent Items folder, which is fine, but it's amazing how bad it feels to lose years worth of stuff you took for granted. If you sent me an e-mail I owe you a reply on, better resend it. I don't have it anymore. Sorry about that.

I had a very disturbing/cathartic dream last night. I'm sure as hell not going into the details of it, but I've noticed one thing I find pretty interesting: when I dream about being in my house, it's the house we lived in when I was, oh, 11 to 15. I spent more time in the house before that and the house after that, but I virtually never dream about either of those houses anymore. Barely ever about my current apartment, for that matter, and I've been here for 5 years now.

"Ground Swell" by Mark Jarman (Indiana Review)
"Elegy for James Knox" by Jake Adam York (DIAGRAM)

Both of these poems were on individual author pages, but I phased that feature out, so I figured these were two of my favorites and definitely deserved recommendation.

• If you have either my Adelphia or Comcast e-mail address, you should switch up your address book. Those e-mails are getting lost and delayed at an alarming rate. Better addresses are steve@(this domain) or steveschroeder(at)gmail(dotdotdash)com.
• I won't be going to AWP this year, but I do envy those of you who are. I plan on being there next year, though, especially since I plan on being in a program by then. Plus it's in New York, where I've never been.
  
• The Eleventh Muse is in the final proofreading (and final-cover-obtaining) stage. I hope to send both of those files to the printer this upcoming week, see a proof the next week, and have the whole blessed thing done in mid-March. I think it's going to be really good again this year.
• I've purchased a laptop computer in anticipation of traveling and going back to school. So far so good on it, though Windows Vista is irritating me quite a bit.
  

This time out it's the Winter 2002 edition of Barrow Street. I got this back issue from someone else quite a while ago. Here are the poems I liked, with poems I would especially want to publish in bold (no personal connections in this batch).

"A Beige Scarf," Edward Bartok-Baratta
"The Humorist," John Beer
"Creature," Cheryl Dumesnil
"Primary Reading Lesson," Chad Faries
"Yinglish Strophes II," Thomas Fink
"Kicking Small Dogs," Matt Gambrill
"Morning Breaks the Window," Arielle Greenberg
"Tweedledum," Taj Jackson
"Temperate Rain Forest," Jacqueline Osherow
"In the Jewish Mystical Tradition," Ira Sadoff
"The Dead Don't Return What You Lent Them," Hal Sirowitz
"Towns Along the River," Charlie Smith
"After a Decade Passed, It Was All or Nothing," Paula Szuchman
"Californian," Brian Teare

That's 14 of 41 or 34.1%, which meets Jordan's criterion for a good issue, and it did feel like a good issue while I was reading it--I think the 12.2% of poems in the highest category is also excellent. The general ratio is even better if you take out Osherow's five or six sonnets, which were underwhelming. Why do so many contemporary poets going to the metrical-rhyming well insist on sonnets? Bugs me to death.

As with a number of my poems, Shawn will recognize numerous references from our past here, I think. Happy birthday (Thursday), Shawn!

"Mosey Is as Mosey Goes" by Jeanne Marie Beaumont (POOL)
"Sonnet" by Karen Volkman (Ploughshares)

You have been invited to join a Custom League in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball. In order to join the league, follow the link above or go to game front page, click the "Sign Up Now" or "Get Another Team" button and follow the links to "Join a Custom League". When prompted, enter the League ID# and password below.

League ID#: 48877
Password: schroeder

We will send you a confirmation with further details once you have completed the registration process.

--Fantasy Baseball Commissioner
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

Ophthalmologists. Those dirty sons of bitches. I can barely look at a picture of an eye surgery without getting the heebie jeebies. All that vitreous humor squirting everywhere, ugh! Each time an ophthalmologist is around me, I expect he's going to try to probe around in my eyeball with an eye speculum. Well, if he does, I'll give him a black eye. Even if he doesn't touch them, I can feel the ophthalmologist watching my eyes the whole time, and I just know he's thinking about getting his hands on them. Ophthalmophobia is a bad term for it--I don't fear them, I just hate them. Now, I'm all for wearing contacts, but no sharp objects were meant to go in the eye, ophthalmologists! It's unnatural. If we let you get at our eyes, pretty soon you'll be surgerizing on our gall bladders and our gonads--our gonads! You might even start cutting up dead people. "Organ donors" my ass! And don't even get me started about you people getting married and raising families with your twisted ways. It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Dr. Chris Friedman.

You all should go congratulate Jake on his wonderful news.

Thanks to Mary, I think I've gotten rid of a glitch in the RSS feed that happened when the site went down last week. Any of you who read me through the feed, please do let me know. Thanks, and I'll shoot for a meatier post soon.

It's been snowing here a little bit, but there's not supposed to be too much accumulation, and it's going to melt off Friday. Crap, I just realized I need to go to the bank tomorrow.

I've added some of the key blog posts from the past over on the sidebar. If I realize there have been any others, I'll add them too.

Peace offering?

Items that might be on a top 13 list of my pet peeves if I ever do one: radio DJ banter (especially with callers), comedy based on the discomfort of a patsy being hassled or put on (Tom Green, Borat, etc.), the word "upon" in contemporary poetry.

Entry on this list is based on good poetry, eye-catching (not eye-hurting) appearance and layout, and fresh ideas for presenting poems. The e-zines I like both for reading and submitting are generally a little more oriented toward cutting-edge poetry than the print journals I listed. There are also, sadly, too many good online journals for this list to do justice, so this should be taken as a quick survey, not an actual ranking of any sort.

1. DIAGRAM. Great combination of eclectic work, nice appearance, and features like a cumulative index of authors, plus the print hybrid side.

2. Octopus. One of the few journals to currently have multiple samples on my Recommended Reading page. Sure, that's at least partly statistical blip, but it's indicative of the quality of work.

3. No Tell Motel. Highly distinctive visual design, and I like the idea of running poems by the author each day of the week, even when I don't like them all.

4. MiPOesias. Tons of interesting work and multimedia features. The navigation can be a little confusing, and I don't like that the audio on many pages autoplays, but those are minor negatives.

5. Blackbird. A little more conventional, but lots of heavy hitters and good poems. I kind of wish they'd stop publishing work ("new" or old) by the long-deceased (pet peeve of mine is all).

6. H_NGM_N. I love the eclectic batch of sections (poetry, fiction, "EP" poetry, sections on specific poets, essays, art, comics) and find plenty of poetry to like.

7. Unpleasant Event Schedule. Singular, enjoyable taste in poems (one of the places I sent work where I had the best idea of what might do well) and spotlights each author nicely for a whole week or more.

8. Dusie. Really won me over with that giant DIY chapbook issue, but they publish a lot of exciting work each time out.

9. Poetry Southeast. Relatively young, but they showcase a sharp look-and-feel and good poems. Surprising number of Names too.

10. Typo. Seems like an apt title insofar as the font is blocky and the look is bare-bones, which is fine when the poetry is strong as often as it is here.

11. three candles. One thing three candles does nicely to take advantage of the online venue is rolling addition of work rather than regular issues. I'd just like to see it updated more frequently.

12. storySouth. I'm a sucker for Southern literature and for Jake York's writing when it shows up there.

13. 42opus. Afraid I have to mark down for the new bloggy look (the reason no Blogspot journals made it on here, even the ones with good content), but it does use blog features to some good effect.

Well, one thing I learned is that 13 is too few to cover all the online journals I wanted to. So what are some you like that I didn't get on here?

Edited in for our Blackbird friend: I'm not against archiving work of deceased poets like Levis or Plath (that would be a bit odd), but I am uncomfortable seeing said work mainstreamed into the first-run poetry of a journal, especially obviously substandard poems like Plath's. Special Levis archive section, great. Plath juvenilia in the author list with whoever actually sent work for this issue, pretty weird for me. And I said right up front it was a pet peeve, not some universal standard.

I'm going to be off feeling unhappy for the rest of the day.

Sorry the whole site vanished for a day. I upgraded it to MySQL/PHP enabled so I could move my publication database over here soon (we're over 100 entries now, by the way). I didn't anticipate that the switch would cause the site to disappear for 24 hours because of some DNS issue. But it looks like I'm back now. Let me know if there seem to be any glitches.

People who are famous just for being famous rather than for any accomplishment are the celebrity version of the bad-contemporary-poem straw man I mentioned a couple posts ago. People complain that they only exist now, but I suspect they've always existed to one degree or another. History quickly forgets them, that's all. Think we'll have any idea who you-know-who was in 20 years? Really?

Right now, in anticipation of the arrival of the new issue (by the beginning of March, I hope), you can order The Eleventh Muse 2005 for just $4 or The Eleventh Muse 2006 for just $5. I'll also trade either issue for back issues of other journals. Please contact me via e-mail or comment if you're interested.

I think the biggest mistake in contemporary poetry criticism is comparing the bulk of what's being written now with the select few from past eras that have made the canon. Is the fallacy not obvious? Most of that drivel from previous ages has gone where it deserves.

I have a headache, but I'm still going to try to go to a CC prose reading by James Salter tonight. Soon I hope to have a longer post about my favorite e-zines.

Jordan suggests, and it seems like a good idea, having a repository post for all the poems I note from journals and anthologies that I most would have wanted to publish or that I'm saving in my own little anthology. We're starting with the two of these exercises I've done so far, and will expand later. I'll put links to relevant permaposts like this one (and the open reading periods and first book contests) on the sidebar.

"Treatment," Robyn Art (Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring 2006)
"Baffle the Dark," Amanda Auchter (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)
"Another Poem about Memphis Rocking," Beth Bachmann (Best New Poets 2005)
"Rumination," Hadara Bar-Nadav (Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring 2006)
"Lepidopteraphile," Gary Joseph Cohen (Best New Poets 2005)
"Yinglish Strophes II," Thomas Fink (Barrow Street, Winter 2002)
"Kicking Small Dogs," Matt Gambrill (Barrow Street, Winter 2002)
"Free Electricity," Matthea Harvey (Copper Nickel 7, 2007)
"Manslaughter," Bob Hicok (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)
"Pain Rents a Room off Bourbon Street," Darren Jackson (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)
"Give, Get, and the Prefix For That Changes Everything," Kevin King (The Literary Review, Spring 2005)
"Interstice," Dawn Lonsinger (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)
"Honor Amongst Thieves," Michael Meinhardt (Best New Poets 2005)
"Early Spanish Lyrics (Translations)," D. Nurkse (The Literary Review, Spring 2005)
"Multiples of Twelve," Eric Pankey (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)
"Cigarette Girl," Chad Parmenter (The Literary Review, Spring 2005)
"A Wife Explains Why She Likes Country," Barbara Ras (Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring 2006)
"Wilderness with Glowing Aperture," Tim Ross (Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring 2006)
"The Dead Don't Return What You Lent Them," Hal Sirowitz (Barrow Street, Winter 2002)
"Towns Along the River," Charlie Smith (Barrow Street, Winter 2002)
"In the Details," Laurie Stoll (Best New Poets 2005)
"Creation Myth," Mathias Svalina (Copper Nickel 7, 2007)
"Posing the Donkey," Mathias Svalina (Copper Nickel 7, 2007)
"After a Decade Passed, It Was All or Nothing," Paula Szuchman (Barrow Street, Winter 2002)
"Ice Storm," Allison Titus (Copper Nickel 7, 2007)
"Passing Trains that Barely Slow," Nance Van Winckel (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)
"Passing Trains that Barely Stop," Nance Van Winckel (Smartish Pace 12, April 2005)

Since I'm getting rid of some of my old journals, I thought I'd mention the notable poems from the ones I'm getting rid of. In fact, the most notable ones will be torn from the journals and put into my files. As with my previous efforts in this area, I will list all the poems that stood out to me, and the ones that I most want to save (or would have wanted to publish) bolded, and people I have some prior connection to (I've published them, they've published me, I consider them friends, etc.) in italics. Today's journal is Smartish Pace 12 (April 2005):

"Rare," Betty Adcock
"Baffle the Dark," Amanda Auchter
"Patriotic," Stephen Cushman
"Keepsake," Bob Hicok
"Manslaughter," Bob Hicok
"A Mind Given to Fog," Bob Hicok
"The Way Back Machine," Bob Hicok
"Pain Rents a Room off Bourbon Street," Darren Jackson
"What They Say," Patrick Kanouse
"Work Ethics," Emily Lloyd
"Interstice," Dawn Lonsinger
"The Inner Workings," Eric Pankey
"Multiples of Twelve," Eric Pankey
"Autumn Diary," Giovanni Pascoli (translated by Deborah Brown, Richard Jackson, & Susan Thomas)
"Capturing a Plum Blossom," John Pursley III
"False Spring," Peter Jay Shippy
"Passing Trains that Barely Slow," Nance Van Winckel
"Passing Trains that Barely Stop," Nance Van Winckel
"Weather," Greg Williamson

That's 19 of 85 I particularly liked, not an especially good ratio but not death either--nor did much stand out to me as particularly egregious or bewildering. Just a little too much in the "functional" range. Van Winckel and Hicok were the clear stars of the issue, though some lesser-knowns did very well for themselves too.

I can't remember where I read it, but someone called Super Bowl Sunday America's foremost secular holiday. Ain't it the truth!

"Body and Soul" by B. H. Fairchild (Southern Poetry Review)
"Song of the Powers" by David Mason (The Sewanee Review)

On Ron Silliman's blog, I found a link to A Million Penguins (sounds like they stole the title from Jordan), Penguin's new collaborative wiki novel project. While the concept of wikis is lovely and works nicely on a small scale, their execution on a large scale (see: Wikipedia) thus far is always interesting and potentially valuable but also deeply flawed, and their creators have a tendency to pat themselves on the back far out of proportion with the good they've actually done. Anyway, if something can serve as a reminder that many more people think they have a great novel in them than actually do, this ought to do it. Here's the second paragraph of the novel-in-progress as I'm typing right now. It's Bulwer-Lytton worthy:

Mikhael could not remember the last time someone he did not know had dared call him Sasha, or dare yell at him, did he not know who he, Mikhael Vladlen Lomonosov was? He thought the man must either be new to Riga, crazy, or incredibly bold, maybe someone useful for some particularly risky business ventures he was planning.

The whole piece is also rife with grammar, capitalization, and punctuation errors, not to mention that the little bit of the first chapter I read is narratively incoherent, full of ham-handed exposition, and just all around sub-high-school. I'd describe the project itself as a fascinating train wreck mess that was initiated either by utterly foolish idealists or by cynics in search of publicity, but the end product doesn't rise anywhere near that level--it's just a mess.

Visit this site about my friend's pets. Clicking on the Google ad links or buying something through Amazon or Petco through the site benefits the ASPCA.

I've often thought in the past of how certain product brands have been lucky enough to have their name associated with the product they're selling, so now many or most people asking for the product actually end up asking for the brand. You couldn't ask for better advertising, and it must be awful to be the second-leading brand in that category.

Some examples:
Kleenex
Band-Aid
Q-Tip
Pam
Dumpster
Xerox
Coke is close
and now Google

(and edited in via awesome friend Kristin)
Post It Notes
iPod

Got any others?

"The Cruel Wheel Turns Twice" by Mary Jo Bang (The Paris Review)
"How to Survive on Land & Sea" by Shafer Hall (Octopus)