New and wonderful lit mag locator

Newly tops on my list of luscious and utterly useful websites for writers -- litmags.org! Go explore, and do check out the search, advanced search, and especially the "list all mags" section, where you can easily identify a publication based on color-coded criteria. This is ideal for someone searching for print-only, for experimental interests or more traditional. It's the only place I've seen where you can quickly find publications that print poetry only. For prose writers, some of the search capabilities are even more refined (e.g. word limit).

Most of the entries indicate whether they have been submitted by someone on the staff of the literary publication, to help you gauge the accuracy of the information. You can also submit comments about the publications.

The well organized and visual nature of the website make it a pleasure to use.

New chapbook! pale leaf floating by gaye gambell-peterson

Cherry Pie is delighted to announce a new chapbook -- pale leaf floating, by gaye gambell-peterson. This one is lovely to look at, and a muscular pleasure to read.

The poems gather up the objects of everyday life -- stones, a leaf, a bird, pennies, an egg -- and convert them to a wise philosophy of endurance as the poet navigates her way through illness, losses, the pleasures of grandchildren, the determination to enjoy each day and let every cup overflow.

Here's a poem:

Omens

There flew the gladdening red bird,
again, again, across my path.

There smiled the pale sliver of moon,
with a bright star at her side.

There bobbed upon flooded river, a bit
of trash that stayed afloat while I watched.

Here bloomed, after two years of making
only leaves, the purple ruffled iris.

There upon my cottonwood sat the
mourning dove – but his back was to me.
I am protected from grief.

I collected these omens so they’d tell me
the truth the way I wanted it to be.

Here on my stoop is one of my kept stones –
flecked gray, rounded, a solidity that reassures.
I turn its damaged side to a corner.

And another one, with an equal amount of grit and good cheer in balance:

Corticosteroids

“Common: loss of balance; puffy face; chronic trouble sleeping.
Rare: a sense of well-being.”
- from a list of side effects

I am at my open door, breathing,
as another day lowers.

Magenta stripe flashes a cloud belly
and Venus elevates,

hangs near my moon.
I let my attitude rise to her,

my lifted face newly full.
Some sort of conjunction, this new

aspect – between exaggerated
euphoria and dire possibility.

I’m awake on the high road,
tilting the light fantastic,

exalting for the stiff-jointed
marionette having left the building.

I am condensed to a quiddity,
leaning against my edges.

She moves away.
Comes back. Gleaming.

You might recognize gaye gambell-peterson as the artist of some previous Cherry Pie chapbook covers (Rotogravure, The Permeability of Memory, and the anthology Breathing Out). Here, she has again created the cover artwork, and also included half a dozen collages inside the book to illustrate her own poems.

pale leaf floating (ISBN 978-0-9748468-9-7) is $10, and available at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid, St. Louis, MO 63108 (ph 314.367.6731). You may also order from Cherry Pie Press -- email cherrypiepress@yahoo.com for information, or download the order form from this blog site.

Weaving the Light: review and launch

Mary Ruth Donnelly's Weaving the Light has drawn the attention of Midwest Book Review, which notes it is "a strong pick for those looking for women's poetry with a Midwestern flavor" and that its appearance is yet one more entry "into the fine Midwest Women Poets series."

Read the review here: http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/apr_09.htm#poet

This seems a good occasion for a look back at the book launch event held in early March for Weaving the Light. Rick Spencer provided an introduction to the full house at the event. Rick, formerly part of the notable (and, regrettably, no longer published) Delmar Magazine, now teaches philosophy at Southwestern Illinois College. He's given permission to republish here his remarks introducing Mary Ruth Donnelly’s readings from Weaving the Light:

I don’t know why Mary Ruth has such a love for landscape: why she is drawn to riverbanks and plains, the cup-like hollow of a garden, the shape of a road in the hills. But she is. Perhaps it was her upbringing in Kansas City—another river city—a city near the Great Plains? Maybe it is some spatial gene she inherited from ancestors whose lives were all too influenced by the horizon? Nevertheless, it is a theme in her writing: both her prose and her poetry. Her sensitivity to the land lets her see patterns of landscape in film and literature. In poetry, it pushes the levee into the title and the mountain into the metaphor.

I do know why she writes of painful things, of loss, of tears. Poetry is one of the natural habitats for tragedy. In its environment, lamentation is never likely to become an endangered species. But, for an eye sensitive to landscape, poetry becomes more than a place to enshrine that bitter moment we can’t forget. It becomes the place to show us the truth of our losses: the fragility of this life, the vulnerability of us all, the mystery of fate, and the miracle of our carrying on.

While there are many other themes in her book, these two, landscape and loss, standout. Sure, there are trees and women, museums and mammals, art and architecture. However, I am captivated by the beauty of these two.

Then again, I, too, am entranced by the mountains, and made humble by the sky over the plains. I, too, attend to the lessons of my loss, the sacred truths inside of sadness.

It is a wonderful book. Some of the poems I witnessed as the driver, or navigator, of a car in a storm. Other poems are from places I don’t know. Still, they are as familiar as my own home, with its porch light and peeling paint—a welcome banner to me alone. This is to say these poems speak to me. I think they will speak to you as well.


Thank you Rick. Well said.

Memory and war

Helen Eisen's chapbook, The Permeability of Memory, has been mentioned in the blog Writing the Holocaust. John Guzlowski interviews Eisen about the experience of childhood in the deportation camps, and the experience of absorbing memories of the war from her parents and from other adult survivors. Eisen's descriptions of how she sees memory working, how it moves through time and distance and the body, and how it is shared and transmitted, is fascinating -- layered and nuanced the same way her poems are.

Read the interview here: http://writingtheholocaust.blogspot.com/.

Secure? Keep your poems safe: part 3

April 1 is approaching, with its usual threats of internet bots and viruses -- this year some particularly grim ones. Please take a moment to make sure your computer is secure.

The three best computer moves I've ever made (and 2 of them are free):
1) Secunia vulnerability scanning. It's free, and it scans all the programs on my computer to make sure they're up to date and not leaving any barn doors open due to known security vulnerabilities. Adobe, Flash, Quicktime and such programs are real hotpoints for that sort of thing, and Secunia will catch them all, monitor as they get updated, tell you where to get the updates, and tell you why each vulnerability is a risk. If you don't already have Secunia, go here now and download it: http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal.

2) AVG Anti-Virus free. I walked away from the annual fees and the system-hogging of commercial virus scanners and started using AVG free. It is quick, effective, and has kept me safe. http://free.avg.com/ If you aren't convinced a free anti-virus program can be as good as -- even better than -- one of the paid-for heavy hitters, read this article: http://weblog.infoworld.com/securityadviser/archives/2008/12/the_only_two_th.html

3) And, finally, Mozy for computer backups. I started with the free version, and was so impressed I now use the paid version, which allows me to back up bigger stuff -- all of it! I back up photos and my music library now, not just document files. I pay a small annual fee and I control when the backups occur. I can restore a single file or a folder or everything with about 2 clicks. For a fleeting moment I considered a separate hard-drive backup instead, but all hardware fails, eventually, and I wanted something off-site, so if a tree falls on the computer and the backup hardware I can still get to the files and keep working. (Don't laugh about the tree -- the Cherry Pie Press computer has narrowly escaped two very large tree disasters over the last few years, one of elm and one of oak.) MozyHome Remote Backup, http://www.mozy.com/.

NEA study on Women Artists, 1990 to 2005

This NEA study follows employment trends of U.S. women who work full-time as artists. There are some surprises -- for instance, the pay gap between men and women artists increases with age. Maybe that's a good sign -- are younger women on more equal footing with male peers in the art world now?

Another surprise: women artists are as likely as other women professionals to be married, but less likely to have children.

There's much in this 17-page study to think about....

Artists in a year of recession

The National Endowment for the Arts has published a study about the effect of current economic conditions on artists. While the general percentage of unemployed writers and other artists is fairly similar to the over all trend, the study notes that historically artist employment lags other professions in recovering from economic downturns.

In the last quarter of 2008, artist unemployment hit a rate of 6.0%. That doesn't sound so bad, but it was an increase of 63% from one year earlier.

Blog link: Poet with a day job

I'm adding a new blog to the links here: Poet With a Day Job. This is Melissa Fondakowski’s blog, and it's the nicely organized and updated lists of poetry contests and residencies that makes the site a stand-out. Also do check the "Published Work Awards" -- if you have published a book or chapbook, and there is an award you might qualify for (especially one worth $$$), do let your publisher know. We don't always think of such things, and appreciate the information.

Blog Tours explained

A recent discussion on the WOM-PO listserv centered on 'blog tours'-- what they are, how they work, and who does them. Blog tours seem like the ultimate win-win proposition -- a chance for an author to promote her work, a chance for the readers to get a sense of the author and her approach to poetry, and an opportunity to link together the blogger and the interviewee in a thoughtful conversation.

Especially for small press publishers and for authors trying to promote their own work, this provides a very sensible approach.

Diane Lockward, who is currently participating in a tour (as the interviewer) via her blog, Blogalicious, provides a good explanation of how blog tours work, along with some real-life lessons on the finer points:

"The poet with a new book invites a handful of bloggers whose blogs she knows to participate in an ongoing series of interviews. Her publisher posts the links to and dates of each interview. The publisher also sends a complimentary review copy to each participant. Each participant is asked to compose 3-4 questions and send them to the poet prior to the date of her scheduled posting. Right now I'm reading the book and forming some possible questions. My date is April 8. On that date I will post the questions and the poet's responses on my blog. I'm about in the middle of the tour.

One problem that I'll mention so that others might figure out a way to work around it: A few of the bloggers become over-zealous and ask more than the 3-4 questions. Yesterday's blogger had seven questions, each with multiple parts. Another blogger scheduled to go after me has already called dibs on a particular poem and form. That was on my list of possible questions and now must be eliminated. So if I were running one of these I would ask the participants not to exceed the requested number of questions and would stipulate that calling dibs is not allowed.

I see this as a very viable way of promoting a book, one which might be combined with audios and videos. This seems a sensible way of reaching a wider readership and most likely readers you might not encounter elsewhere."

Heart's Migration by Linda Rodriguez

Linda Rodriguez of Kansas City has a new poetry book out -- Heart's Migration, from Tia Chucha Press. Advance praise on the poems comes from Virgil Suarez and Diane Glancy:

Heart's Migration by Linda Rodriguez is a generous, gorgeous book of
poetry. It's the kind of beautiful book that comes along every once in a
while, to keep the reader the company. It's courageous, unflinching in its
voice and tradition. . . . This is a gifted, capable poet who takes pride in
making a lasting human connection. I praise her voice and her
passion! - Virgil Suarez

These poems are indeed a migration through the interior of the
human heart. . .Heart's Migration is a reading that is worth the
journey. - Diane Glancy

The book launch is Friday, May 29 at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania in Kansas City. For more information contact the author through her blog at http://www.lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/.

Nan Sweet featured in Walter Bargen's column

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured Nan Sweet in a recent column by Missouri poet laureate Walter Bargen. He picked Pipeliners' Picnic, one of her poems from her Cherry Pie Press chapbook, Rotogravure, to discuss in his regular column on Missouri poets.

Women Poets Mentoring Each Other

Here's essential reading, with a growing list of thought-provoking comments -- Annie Finch's piece on Women Poets & Mentorship in Poetry Foundation's Harriet blog.

Arts in Transit 2009 awards

The St. Louis Arts in Transit contest results are in -- this year's winners include Niki Nymark, Catherine Rankovic, and Mary Ruth Donnelly. Their poems will be paraded around town on buses for a year, giving poetry to one of the broadest audiences St. Louis has to offer. Congratulations!
Read the poems here: http://www.artsintransit.org/PIM09.html.

A review in RATTLE

Niki Nymark's chapbook, A Stranger Here Myself, has been reviewed at RATTLE. Read it here: http://www.rattle.com/blog/2009/03/a-stranger-here-myself-by-niki-nymark/.

Chapbooks going to Poets House Showcase

The 2008 chapbooks from Cherry Pie Press are making their way to the annual Poets House Showcase. Work by Mary Ruth Donnelly, Niki Nymark, and Erin M. Bertram will be exhibited in the Showcase and then become part of the permanent collection.

Read more about Poets House and the Showcase exhibit here:
http://poetshouse.org/showcase.htm

Erin M. Bertram, runner-up in another chapbook contest

Erin M. Bertram, author of The Urge To Believe Is Stronger Than Belief Itself, is runner-up in Green Tower Press's chapbook contest this year. Read about the contest, Green Tower Press, and the chapbook series here: http://catpages.nwmissouri.edu/m/tlr/.

Chapbook launch March 3 - Weaving the Light

Please join us for readings by Mary Ruth Donnelly from her new and exquisitely lovely chapbook, Weaving the Light, just out from Cherry Pie Press.

When: Tuesday, March 3, 6:30pm – 8pm
Where: Soulard Coffee Garden, 910 Geyer Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104
Note, the reading is in the upstairs room, which involves a flight of stairs
What Else? There will be some light refreshments, and the company of good people.

Here is the full announcement about the chapbook, with sample poems: http://cherrypiepress.blogspot.com/2008/12/weaving-light-by-mary-ruth-donnelly.html

Hamamelis, a.k.a. Witch-hazel

February, land of dreary gray and also of opening-up things. The landscape here at Cherry Pie is the wheat-blonde of winter, that bland hay-colored absence of color that the living world takes on while it's not actively living. Everything else is gray and brown -- until this week.

Witness the arrival of Hamamelis, the first fireworks to emerge from winter -- witch-hazel. Her name is from Middle English roots of "Witch" or wiche, and that from the Old English wice, pliable or bendable. She is a wild-haired lady.

Here she is, marching around Cherry Pie land. Her accompaniment is a small and optimistic crowd of daffodil shoots.

Send me a poem about witches or witch-hazel. I'll post the most interesting ones.

Tips on blogging and pleasure

Sometimes I scout other blogs to pick up ideas and tips. Penelope Trunk is one of the best, and her nominally business-related posts relate to life in general as much as they do to business. In one of her blog's "how to blog" entries -- see entry #9 on her list, The Poetic Link -- she includes a link that, via the idea of "pleasure," sends you on a circuitous and wonderful journey to Roland Barthes and his ideas on "readerly" versus "writerly" texts. Squeezed to a too-brief essence here, the Wikipedia article cited by Trunk describes "readerly text, which does not challenge the reader's position as a subject. The writerly text provides bliss, which explodes literary codes and allows the reader to break out of his or her subject position."

Translated to poetry, what would that be? Any suggestions for a readerly poem, or a writerly poem? What it does to the reader...

777 chapbooks!

Tallying up the sales and distribution numbers for Cherry Pie, I calculate that 777 copies of the first eight chapbooks are now in readers' hands.

Each chapbook has between 25 and 50 copies distributed free -- to potential reviewers, to the author, to previous Cherry Pie authors, and to a core set of "friends" of the press who in some unforgettable way encouraged the start of all this. The rest of the 777 figure is due to sales, or a small portion of that due to store inventory (3-5 copies of each book) sitting at Left Bank Books, local independent bookstore and haven for the writer.

By whatever means these books arrived in your hands, Dear Reader, enjoy, and read, and may one book lead to another. Thank you.