Pushcart and Best of the Web Nominations

Congratulations to the following poets whose poems I nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the 2010 Best of the Web anthology published by Dzanc Books:

Amy King, "All Moons Are a Scrumptious White Silver"

Karyna McGlynn, "Square in the gut of lovemaking lessons"

Natasha K. Moni, "Letter to a Lover Whose Name Spells Dark Bird"

The above work appears in the sixth issue of Siren, along with several other deserving poems (and great art, not eligible for either honor), a few of which made this decision difficult. Bravos all around.

excerpts from the nominated poems:

That took her voice in half. She dipped it in a pan

of dead lilacs and licked the inner thigh seams.

I turned around on rotary machines.

The best of us plunge cultural defectors that crow

a weaker side for the salt of tides ripping our childhoods out.

- Amy King

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A cubic inch of Texas tumbled to the bed

My eyes were still swollen from dusting

Just then, I pinched the blue

bonnet cat-claw of what could be my future, entire

- Karyna McGlynn

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...our limbs liquid

our eyes opening like lilies. Meet me and we will

forget our bodies were ever anything but

a little salt, water

waiting to be stirred.

- Natasha K. Moni

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happy (belated?) birthday siren

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If I get this posted by midnight (I've been watching Stephen Colbert a lot lately, which has interrupted a few relationships of mine, like my long-standing nightly dates with Charlie Rose, and now it seems I can't type a few sentences past 11:30...) I can still say happy birthday, Siren. The first issue went up online three years ago, and the sixth issue went up recently. Bravo to all sixty-one writers and artists who have made it grow.

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siren's new issue!

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photo by Gundega Dege

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Finally... it's issue six!

POETS Michelle Bitting * Mark Cunningham * Valerie Fox * Amy King * Ryan Laks * Gareth Lee * Karyna McGlynn * Natasha K. Moni * Sally Molini * Cait Rappel * Paul Siegell * Elizabeth Volpe

ARTISTS Gundega Dege * Matina Stamatakis * Lafayette Wattles

& News & Notes from former contributing authors and artists Arlene Ang, Kristy Bowen, Stephanie Dickinson, Jehanne Dubrow, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Ira Joel Haber, Dorianne Laux, Rachel Loden, Kiki Petrosino, Peter Schwartz, and Alex Stolis
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art by Matina Stamatakis

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google boggle

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It seems the little glitch with Google was, fortunately, short-lived, and is now fixed. For a short time, trying to travel to Siren via Google took a route to a spam site, instead. That has been remedied, though, thanks to a helpful Google rep, as well as the Siren readers who first alerted me to this problem. 'Gratitude all around.
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yes virginia there still is a siren

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and most of the things I needed to finally build a new issue recently arrived under my Christmas tree, which is a little evergreen that lives outside in the dirt year round and is one of the first things I look to when my belief in Santa Claus wavers.

So now when there's no snow outside in which to play, I can have my fun peicing together the sixth issue of Siren. It should be available online in early May.

If you have submitted work and have not heard from me either not at all yet or not in quite a while, I will be in touch soon. If you submitted work that was already accepted, I will contact you first, right after Christmas. I will respond to everyone else after that, but as there's such a backlog now, depending on when you sent a submission, that could possibly be as late as mid-March. But I will do my very best to contact you as soon as possible. My sincere apologies if it's been too long since you've heard anything: much of 2008 I was more tired than usual and just not quite up to par after a knock-down-drag-out wrestle with meningitis and encephalitis. And of course thank you so much for your patience.

Maybe tomorrow morning I will find a co-editor in my stocking. If not, I will not be accepting any new submissions until further notice (check back here or at the magazine itself in about a month or so for news), but Siren will be out and about again in 2009.

pssst: thank you ryan laks for reminding me a little bit of the guy in the big red suit

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siren on goodreads

yippee, there's new poetry to read

I am in mourning today because John Edwards has suspended his campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency, essentially ending it. Plus I've been sick with meningitis. Ouch. But all is not dreary in the world, thanks to the appearance of fresh poetry, prose, and art in new issues of the following journals and magazines:

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Read Dorothea Lasky, Kismet Al-Hussaini, Marco Giovenale, and many others in Coconut 11 and check out the free, printable chapbooks by fine poets from the whole coconut chapbook series.

Siren poet Jack Boettcher and other great talents like Matthew Rohrer, and among other prose peices, something from Simon DeDeo with the great title "fuck you, aloha, ecopoiesis," that I'm really looking to reading in absent 2

Siren friend and poet Bruce Covey and other accomplished poets such as Brenda Hillman in the new, spring 2008 issue of Caffeine Destiny

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Hangman #7 features fiction, comics, essays, and reviews, as well as poetry by Noah Eli Gordon, Robert Krut, David Sewell, Laura McCollum, and Siren all-star Matt Hart, and others.

Press 1 Number 3 is out with work by Siren experimental contributor Paul Seigell, as well as the wonderful Michaela Gabriel and others, and also boasts some provacative visual art by Paul Bleiweis, whose "Winter in Thought and Deed" is shown below.

Paul Beiweis, copyrighted photo from Press 1

And concerning literary journals, Siren fave Nick Courtwright has written the thought-provoking "The Nature of Publication: Poetry in Literary Journals," which can be read on his Teir3 blog/journal.

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siren number five

is up live at www.sirenlit.com

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and includes poetry by the following forces:

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Robyn Art * Adam Clay * Mark Cunningham * Sarah J. Den Boer

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Jehanne Dubrow * Kathleen Flenniken * Valerie Fox * Matt Hart

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Tim Keane * Kathryn Rantala * Paul Siegell

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and beautiful photography by Arlene Ang and Maria Szulc

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sirens and dancing girls

isn't it lovely? to get your very own copy of this new chapbook by its equally lovely author, michi gabriel, just visit dancing girl press, the publisher that along with the poet is responsible for all this lovely-ness. or if you'd maybe like your copy to be signed by the secret meanings of greek letters' poetess, stroll over to her blog.

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also available now from dancing girl press is scenes from the body by robyn art, who is becoming one of my favorite poets. dancing girl press is a rare bird -- a truely independent press that publishes chapbooks by women poets, and sells these wonderfully-made collections for such low prices that it's a very pleasant surprise when you receive the quality products.

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speaking of robyn art, siren's issue five will be out soon. robyn's poetry will appear alongside other great work from adam clay, matt hart, jehanne dubrow, mark cunningham, kathryn rantala, valerie fox, kathleen flenniken, and others. look for it around november 15th, and if you don't already, love siren's poets as much as i do. aren't they lovely?

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Siren: Nominations for "Best of the Net" (with links)

Seriously, it was wretched choosing among all the great work Siren's been so lucky to get. But I finally decided on the following:

(poems)
Robyn Art, "Weltscherm"
Jehanne Dubrow, "Shulamith Writes Fuck You"
Matt Hart, "How Can We Fail in Our Mouths"
Amy King, "A Ghost is Born"
Erin Martin, "Admiral Benbow"
Kathryn Rantala, "The Hall of Bird Cries"

(prose)
Jenny Boully, "Kafka's Garden"
Stephanie Dickinson, "Unity Cloud"

I should mention a few other particular poems that made the choices particularly difficult -- it took me a while, but I finally had it down to ten poems, including Nick Courtright's "The Movement of Beauty" and Jack Boettcher's "Our Debut Album," both so beautiful, as well as Daniel Nester's haunting "Another Updated Childhood Dream," and Elizabeth Volpe's exquisite "Theatrics." A maximum of six poems and two prose pieces were allowed to be submitted. 

To the above writers, as well as all of Siren's painfully lovely poets, writers, and artists: Bravo, Bravo, Applause, Applause!

Siren Issue Four, the zine Absent, and "I'm the man who loves you"

art by Peter Schwartz

Siren is up again, with a new issue, number Four. Which, by the way, sort of marks its first birthday too. Well, I'm sort of unclear about that -- the first issue went up on July 2nd of last year, but the first actual action I took toward creating Siren was in May, and the idea, hmmm, somewhere around March of 2005. Alright, so I guess its birthday won't be until 2 July, but you can give it a hug and kiss anyway if you'd like. I'm sure you will feel affection for the wonderful work the wonder-plus-ful poets, writers, and artists contributed....

POETS Tao Lin, Elizabeth Volpe, Alex Stolis, Gareth Lee, Natasha K.Moni, Jack Boettcher, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Susan Denning, and Changming Yuan FICTION WRITERS Stephanie Dickinson and Denise Downs ARTISTS Diana Magallan and Peter Schwartz,. and REVIEWS by Mark DeCarteret.

And find out about great new books and other such news from some of Siren's luminaries including Dorianne Laux, Robyn Art, Ira Joel Haber, David Hernandez, and Amy King, whose new book I'm the Man Who Loves You not only possesses the best title so far this year, but has also garnered reviews on the level of wow, and contains other keeping-with-the-title (xoxo for Wilco) poems like "A Ghost is Born."

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Elevating online literature journals, as well as all literary offerings and magazines of the arts, is Siren's friend, the new 'zine, Absent. It has a great editorial board, including Simon DeDeo, and an A+ first issue. Definitely check out the lovely and strong poems by Adam Clay and the mysterious and yummy from Justin Marks, as well as all of the poetry, translations, prose, and, woohoo, music.

....be back soon

I miss my blog, I especially miss other poets' blogs, and I miss those other blogging poets and all the creativity and other marvels they generate.

I've been on a Siren-sabbatical-of-sorts. But I'll be back to blogging, I'm thinking maybe feverishly, in a week or two. And I think I'm going to start an occasional walk-the-walk kudos post, and maybe a talk-the-talk booooo post.

And, oh:

Siren's new issue has been up for about a week or so. (Details soon -- or, just go and see those details for yourself. That's my attempt at a shameless plug for today.)

'Hoping you're all doing well.

Siren's Second Issue

The second issue of Siren is up and (exciting-ly) features poetry from the wonderfully talented Dorianne Laux, Oliver de la Paz, Bruce Covey, Robyn Art, Laurel K. Dodge, Erin Martin, Kiki Petrosino, Nick Courtright, and Dan Raphael, as well as showcasing the artwork of Melanie Faith, and a twenty-two peice retrospective of the accomplished artist Ira Joel Haber (whose drawing "Washington Square" is below). Check the issue out, enjoy it, and let us know what you think. And we just looove our writers and artists, so I'll make sure they know how much you love them too (*grin*) if you let me know.

During the next week, we will be updating the site overall with a few improvements and additions (a "contributors' news" page, etc.) , so visit again soon to see some new features.

And if you haven't yet seen Siren's first issue, view it in our archives. We would not have been able to have such a good showing for the second issue if it weren't for the success of our inaugural issue, and that success is due to the generous contributions of such great poetry, prose, and art by Matt Hart, Rachel Loden, Daniel Nester, Amy King, David Hernandez, Jenny Boully, Scott Odom, Glenn Ingersoll, AnnMarie Eldon, Kathryn Rantala, Laurel K. Dodge, and Jacob Kedzierski. (Thank you again, so so much, to these innovative pillars and sweet souls.)

We'll be posting our nominations for a Best of the Net anthology on Siren next week, and you can see them here, too, around that time.

Cheers.

What is it good for

I recently read somewhere that when one is writing, one is, "of course", not living. Depending on one's definition of living, that could, arguably, be true. 'Not a pleasant thought for a writer. Of course comfort can be found in knowing that when one is writing one is recording what it is to be living. And so starts the real argument, often captured by the oft-cited quotes:

Poetry does nothing. – W.H. Auden

It's hard to get the news from poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there - William Carlos Williams

But are these positions mutually exclusive? If mainstream culture is any reflection, poetry, it's true, is not doing much, and I would assert, equally as true is that people are dying "miserably every day for lack of what is found there." And if this is true, then poetry and all art is always important, but even more urgently vital at a time when tens of thousands of Americans, Iraqis, and others, are indeed dying because of the commands of a President who, seemingly elated with his role as Commander-in-Chief, boasted, "Bring it on!"; at a time when most every major phone company has been secretly providing the government with millions of Americans' phone records; at a time when children in the richest country on earth have a 1 in 4 chance of being born into poverty; at a time when many in government, as well as many in citizenry, are persuaded by chemical companies and oil conglomerates to act as if global warming is just a little bit more summer; at a time when it is representative of how dire things are to simply remember that George W. Bush is the leader of the "free world."

The word "siren" can be defined as a warning; something that cautions people to a danger or important event; a sound or sight that alerts. On the belief that any and all art can be and often is an alert, a small and not yet very loud, but earnest and aspiring Siren will soon be sounding. For more information, to contribute a small donation of money or any amount of artistic energy, or to submit quality poetry, visual art, short fiction or nonfiction (for the second issue), contact me by way of e-mail.