poet james escher

I received an email this week from the fine journal no tokens. I had submitted to them once last year and got a very polite rejections. This time, it was very encouraging. According to Duotrope, a submission tracker I use, the average response time for no tokens is 31 days and but it was 65 days for this one so I think it really was under consideration. Looks like I’ve got a Submission Sunday coming up to get them back out there.

Dear James Escher,

Thank you so much for sending us “James Escher Poems”. Although we are going to pass, we enjoyed these poems very much. We particularly admired “Napa Cabbage,” but, ultimately, it does not quite fit into the narrative of this current issue.

I hope that you’ll send us more work during our next reading period. Best of luck, in the meantime, with all of your current projects.

With gratitude,
Lauren Hilger
no tokens

And this is pretty much why.

can be found here.

Hi there. Are you familiar with MOOCs? Massive Open Online Courses? Basically, they are free uni courses offered by various institutions. There’s a great one out of Penn on Modern Poetry that repeats every September and there is also this one from Iowa. Steve and I signed up last time (and maybe Will, too, not sure). Steve was much better than I was at doing the exercises but I’m committing to it this time again. Here’s an intro email with links:

Dearest Writers,

Greetings from the University of Iowa!

Our new MOOC, How Writers Write Poetry 2015, opens next week! This seven-week online poetry writing course is open to everyone in the world, free of charge, and will be taught in English. Class discussions will run 24/7, so you can join us from any time zone. Watch our welcome video here on Vimeo or here on YouTube.

If you have already registered, we can’t wait to see you — and if you haven’t, come sign up! How Writers Write Poetry 2015 will present video lectures from a diverse group of poets, including:
Robert Hass ~
“This is a matter of feeling the rhythm of two lines”
Camille Rankine ~
“The power of repetition is not only to build up, but to take apart”
James Galvin ~
“Poetry is a way of surviving”

No previous writing experience is necessary, only a stable internet connection. If you cannot stream video, the course will offer small low-res video files, audio files, and transcripts for quick downloading. If you would like to take this course but do not have stable internet access, please contact us at distancelearning.iwp@gmail.com.We are working with U.S. Embassies around the world to support local MOOC viewing and discussion groups and would love to support one near you.

Class will start on Monday, March 23! Sign up here:
https://www.canvas.net/browse/canvasnet/uofiowa/courses/how-writers-write-poetry.

Until then, you can find our community on Facebook and Twitter at #heypoets. We’re looking forward to writing with you!

Sincerely,
Susannah Shive, Distance Learning Coordinator
International Writing Program
University of Iowa

I’ve been posting on the Champaign Urbana Poetry Group blog lately and have decided to link those posts here. On a good week, there is a post highlighting a poem and a Submission Sunday post. This week, I only got to the submission post which you can read here.

Call for Female Artists: visual artists, writers, poets, performers and musicians.

Submissions open until 3/23/15

I’ve been blogging on the CU Poetry blog lately. There’s a somewhat regular schedule of Wednesday prompt for the upcoming weekly workshop, poem feature on Friday, and submission Sunday featuring a market. The latest can be found here

Here’s a link to an interview with one of my favorite poets, Jane Hirshfield. In just a few responses she touches on poetic analysis, process, and the future with technology.

North Carolina found itself in a mess when the governor appointed a poet hobbyist to be poet laureate. She has since stepped down (up?) and refused the appointment. Here’s a thoughtful piece from Chris Vitiello at IndyWeek. It’s a good article even if it does remind me that I, too, am a poet hobbyist.