I won’t tell you what to think, but here’s what I think. This is great.
Tag: poetry
Electrons by James Croal Jackson
I don’t have the time or the bandwidth to do something as ambitious as edit or publish a literary journal, but I do hope to share more things I like in 2021. To that end, “Electrons” by James Croal Jackson.
How Many Submissions do Poetry Journals Get? One Interesting Example, and Some Extrapolation.
I discovered And Other Poems today via Twitter. It’s a very well done project.
And Other Poems opened to new submissions in November in a sort of relaunch. I don’t know exactly when their window closed, but we’re only halfway through December, so it couldn’t have been too very long ago.
They share that over 200 poets submitted over 700 poems in whatever the relatively short time frame was. Some new journals get less, some get more. Long-established venues get many, many more. Still, any way you look at it, 700 is a lot of poems. Reading them and giving them the right attention is a lot of work. No doubt a passion project.
Across the literary world, thousands of editors this past year have collectively read, what, probably millions of pieces? Mostly as volunteers. Mostly because they believe in the power and beauty and necessity of words. They believe their work and the work of the writers they publish matters and makes a difference. Thank you, editors, publishers, laborers of love. You make all of this happen.
Things I Published This Year: “Widowing (After Wendell Berry)”
Widowing (After Wendell Berry) was the first piece of mine published this year. I really like it. Rat’s Ass Review is a very good journal. Many thanks to Roderick Bates.
William Carlos Williams: Pastoral (II) and Tract
In my hot little hands is an anthology of Imagist poetry. Paired together in the William Carlos Williams section are “Pastoral (II)” and “Tract” and I think this is a good pairing.
What’s your Imagist name? In the tradition of Ford Maddox Ford and WCW, I am henceforth Cocca Cocca Cocca.
Imagists
I’ve been revisiting the Imagists lately. HD is from where I’m from and is buried over at Nisky Hill Cemetery. (Stephen Vincent Benet, though not an Imagist, is also from here).
I wrote a poem today in response to a lot of this reading. It’s about finches and thistles and fox-gloves and rain vales. It’s looking for a good home. And maybe also a title. Right now, it’s called Imagistes, which is just the plural of HD’s early pen name (given to her by Ezra Pound, who also called her – insufferably and predictably – Dryad).
We read “Oread” in high school. Our teacher subscribed to what seemed, to me at 15, a rather subversive take. But yes, “Oread” is about exactly what you think it’s about (and also other things). At least I think so.
I really like almost all of “Hermes of the Ways.” Here again, Pound had to interlope, changing “await” to “awaiteth,” because of course he did.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here talking to trees.
Two Poems After Wendell Berry
8 Poems has just published my poem, “Meeting“, in their newest issue. Thank you, 8 Poems!
Earlier this year, Rat’s Ass Review published “Widowing” and I’m very glad to be included in their Summer 2020 issue.
Both “Meeting” and “Widowing” were reactions to respective pieces by Wendell Berry. Check them out if you would.
Chris Cocca 