Poetry Bulletin: August 2024

15+ deadlines, experimenting with the Sealey Challenge, AI poetry, and more

Squash blossom in my garden, with a guest. Gardening is reconnecting me to something like hope these days. Also, gardening counts as writing. I’m sure of it.

Hey poets — The start of August means the return of the Sealey Challenge, an invitation to read one book of poetry every day this month.

“One book” might mean a poetry zine, a chapbook, a full-length collection, an audiobook, etc.

Some folks read by themes, focus on debut books, or choose books from a specific community. I’ve turned it into a craft experiment before, reading for one element or technique in the writing, such as:

• Reading with attention to line breaks, comparing from day to day to figure out what works and how, what pulls you into a poem, and what you could try in your own work.

• Reading with a focus on titles—both individual poem titles and the book’s title. How does the book title promise something about the book or get complicated by the poems?

• Reading for beginnings and endings. What does the last poem of the book know that the first poem doesn’t, and vice versa? Which poems work like turning points (or disruptions) in between?

You don’t have to join in with any particular focus, but I find having a focus helps me just start reading, instead of browsing my bookshelf for too long.

If you’re joining the Sealey Challenge, what are you hoping to read or how are you hoping to read? If you’re open to sharing, drop a comment.

Many presses also run specials to celebrate the challenge, so it’s a great time to pick up new books and support small presses. My publisher, Game Over Books, has a 50% sale going on (use code SALE50)… if you’re focusing on books with unapologetically spacious titles, ha, mine is on sale and I’d be grateful for the support: Divination with a Human Heart Attached —and it has plenty of great, long-titled company at Game Over: Don’t Thank God, Thank The Crash Test Dummies That Came Before You and Recipe for Time Travel in Case We Lose Each Other and Erev Gildene: The Pop Rock Survival Guide for the Modern Jewish Millennial.

(At some point I want to do a round table or post or something about book titles. Especially long book titles. And sharp, short titles. If I had to do it over, I might opt for a shorter title, but it’s because of things I could only learn after the book was published. I wonder about book titles as a space for taking risks. How much can a book title do? Do you wonder about these things?)

emily

In Practice

• “…if you have the feeling of winning a golden ticket that will save you when you get into the program, you are in danger. You are already giving that institution too much power. You will save you, as it were. To believe otherwise is to give too much power to the faculty and your new peers.” —

  Alexander Chee
  on MFA programs, submitting your work, finding/creating your community, and more

• If you’re working on back cover copy, pitching your book to a press, or just trying to figure out how to describe your writing to others,

  Cassie Mannes Murray
  of Pine State Publicity has thoughts on—and real world examples of— “chiseling away the generic.” (Full disclosure: I worked with Pine State for my debut and try to keep bias in mind when sharing things from folks I’ve worked with. This post is like a clinic in book positioning and shows how more creativity is possible, so it felt worthy of sharing.)

• There is now a camera that writes AI poetry. I stumbled into this right after hearing about someone’s boss who used AI poetry in a company announcement. I just… yeah… sigh. (All those figurative light bulbs, powered by cliché.)

Creative Support: Workshops, Awards & More

If you’re writing and submitting in solidarity with writers facing genocide now, I included tips for researching and vetting organizations in this document. Even a couple minutes of searching Twitter, Substack, or an organization’s website can be clarifying.

• Workshops4Gaza is bringing writers, artists, and educators together to offer online workshops, with all proceeds going to Palestinians in Gaza. They’ve got a handful of upcoming workshops and are looking for more folks to lead workshops.

• August 1 — Granum Foundation Prizes “to help U.S.-based writers complete substantive literary works—such as poetry books, essay or short story collections, novels, and memoirs—or to help launch these works.”

• August 15 — Arc Poetry is seeking a Canadian poet to be their next virtual poet-in-residence.

• August 18 — The Center for Book Arts invites BIPOC writers, poets, and artists to apply for the Small Press Incubator.

• Songs of the Sunbirds, a column at New Orleans Review, has welcomed three new editors and increased the honorarium for prose pieces to $300. They’re seeking submissions in a variety of formats, from poetry to video to letters and art and more. All contributions are paid, and submissions are free.

Upcoming Deadlines

Between now and mid-September, there are two reading periods with presses that are working in solidarity with writers facing genocide:

• Abode Press is open for poetry and hybrid chapbook submissions. Fee waivers are available for queer and/or trans writers of color. (Also appreciation / more of this please! for guidelines that are transparent, generous, and easy to read.)

• August 31 — Sundress Publications has an open reading period for full-length poetry books and has been vocal and concrete (e.g., a microgrant) in supporting Palestinian writers, although PACBI isn’t mentioned in their posts or site.

PACBI isn’t the last word on or only form of solidarity, but it’s a place to begin. If you’re submitting in solidarity with writers facing genocide now, in Palestine and elsewhere, it’s a way to find presses that are more likely to share your values in spirit and in practice. Publishers for Palestine and Writers Against the War on Gaza both have lists of presses committed to PACBI.

There are about a dozen deadlines for full-length poetry books between now and mid-September. The full spreadsheet of upcoming manuscript deadlines is available here.

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The bulletin is made by Emily Stoddard, and the big list of poetry publishers came together as she found a publisher (Game Over Books) for her poetry debut, Divination with a Human Heart Attached. If you have updates to a publisher’s listing or want to share a resource, please leave a comment.