“I pray like a robber asking alms at the door of a farmhouse to which he is ready to set fire.” – Léon Bloy
I came across this some time ago, I don’t remember how. I ended up having to write a poem about it. Does that ever happen to you?
Tag: writing
To Statecraft Embalmed – Marianne Moore
An early work, and I love it. “To Statecraft Embalmed” starts with an image that might just as easily refer to a certain (current) political figure:
The only version of the full text I can find online isn’t formatted exactly how piece is presented in her Collected Works, a volume I seem to have misplaced precisely as I sat down to write this post.
The whole thing reads to me as uncanny prophesy, hard plumage and all.
Depression – Jane Kenyon
Cosmology of Jawbones
Spacetime is a crooked smile
bent to match the mouths
we love and taste and pray with.
First published at Quatrain Fish.
I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone – Richard Brautigan
I first read this years ago. I stays with me.
Over the Wintry – Natsume Sōseki
Over the wintry
forest, winds howl in rage
with no leaves to blow.
Natsume Sōseki
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.
Chris Cocca 