Malcolm's comments (member since Jul 08, 2008)

Malcolm's comments from the ¡ POETRY ! group.

Ruth,

This really hit home for me. You see, I haven't a single living relative on the planet. No siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, children, wives or ex-wives, not a soul.

Can't wait to read them. Congrats!

Likewise!

I just received my contributor's copies of New England Review today so now I'm going to post "At a Gallery of Unknowns" on "Malcolm's Writing" on my Goodreads profile.

Atlanta Review just emailed me and said they had room in their upcoming issue for a second poem of mine, "Bristlecone". They had already accepted "Toll". Once these come out in print I will post them on my profile.

Matt,

I'm curious as to where you had poems published. Are any of the poems on authorsden among those that were published?

My favorite part is the final stanza. I think the poem as a whole might benefit from a bit of cutting. Maybe let it sit awhile and then come back to it fresh.

Dear Randi,

To continue with the boxing metaphor, I am encouraged by seeing you take a punch, hit the mat, and then come back for another round even stronger. Keep it up.

Incidentally, I've also been working with "Trice" (Patrice) who is essentially a beginner as well. I can't wait for one of you to knock my socks off (and yes, cliches are okay in this context, just not in poems!)

I just receive a letter from Hanging Loose that they have accepted two of my poems, "Gem" and "Poem about Everything".

However, I was advised that it isn't a good idea to print them anywhere online before they are issued in print because it may violate at very least the spirit in which an editor/journal publishes a poem as new and previously unseen. So I'm going to refrain from doing so, and I'm withdrawing "Toll" and "At a Gallery of Unknowns" on my topic "New Poems".

Cat,
I like that this poem is not as didactic as some of your others; it simply tells a neat little story. I do think that a bit of compression would help it--it's a bit wordy. Also, there are times when the tone fluctuates widely, as when you say "the eminence of the acclivity..." You were going along in sweet, conversational English and then, without warning or reason, something out of geology textbook pops up. Be on guard against this.

I hope I don't always sound negative. There's a lot to like in all of your poems. Someday in the not-so-distant future I will be a college professor teaching poetry and this is good practice for me, so I in turn appreciate critiques of my critiques.

Now, some other thoughts: Like in a novel, a really eye-catching opening line is valuable. I think your second line, "I stand aghast at the rising of the sun" should be your opening line. Granted, the word "aghast" seems to contradict what follows--but it sure entices the reader!
However, then you're faced with explaining the reason why you're "aghast" and not, say, "entranced" or "delighted" (neither of which would be as thought-provoking as "aghast").

Also, strike cliches such as "Nature is giving quite a show." In this case, it's not only redundant to the previous line, it's TELLING and not SHOWING. Same with "The mountaintops are beautiful." Sure they are, but you telling us this isn't helpful. Try making us feel, not in elevated language but in unusual word choices and juxtapositions, HOW the mountaintops are beautiful.

Another cliche is the bit about "taking your breath away". Sheesh, Cat, even a beginner should catch this one and strike it.

One more important thing: Detail is cool, but even a whole bunch of nifty detail, in the absence of some minor philosophical point/observation, is much like dentist office art: pretty but not profound (I owe this analogy to Stephen Dunn's memoir, "Walking Light", which contains a whole bunch of sage advice for a poet and is a book I super-strongly recommend you read, Cat, ASAP!!)

In any case, I look forward to your revisions of this poem. Cut, cut, cut, shape, and refine. Good luck.

As far as sending poems to your own geographic area first, I can't see that it much matters. My first acceptance was in Alabama, followed by the West Coast, then Maine, then New England, then Wisconsin, then Louisiana. The two journals in Arizona that I submitted to--"Hayden's Ferry Review" from Arizona State, and "Sonora Review" from my own school, the University of Arizona--both rejected my submissions. Several poems I'd submitted to each were subsequently picked up by more well-known journals.
I would say that submitting geographically close is limiting.

As far as cover letters, submitting blind to a journal where you've never been accepted is vastly different from submitting where you've previously been published. It's like the difference in sales work between cold-calling and a repeat customer. In both cases the latter contact will be far easier and more personal. It's the former that presents the challenge: how to make an editor you don't know pay close attention to your work, given the volume of poems in the slush pile.

I still don't know the answer to this one. Sometimes editors refuse to look at the cover letter before he/she reads the poems. I applaud this stance with all my heart. It was C. Dale Young, Poetry Editor for New England Review, who was the first one to say this is how he worked, and he later wrote to me to say that he was quite surprised to note my pencil-lettered cover letter and discover that I was a prison inmate at the time. For a look at this, Google me (put "malcolm alexander" in quotes, then a comma, then the word poet) and scroll down to PoetryFoundation.org:Journals and read his comments. It still brings a tear to my eye.

You might find it interesting that I covered the living room walls of my small apartment with notices: rejections on one side and acceptances on the other. Perhaps some distant day the latter will crowd out the former.

In any case, good luck to you all!

I guess the only adequate answer to "How much time do I spend on my poems?" is this: As much time as the poem requires. Some poems, like "Beginner's Lessons", evolved over a number of years. Yes, YEARS! Other poems are essentially written in one slam of inspiration, with only minor tinkering required. All I know is that, if I force myself to write, what comes out is garbage. So I accept the way my own mind (subconscious and otherwise) works.

One thing I understand: Often, reading someone else's poetry makes me start riffing on it. So the more I read, the more likely I am to write.

Cat,

Though I can appreciate your life situation, this is not a poem but an essay. Poetry is first and foremost about LANGUAGE. You have the opposite problem from Trice, who tries to make everything sound overly "poetic". Here, the reader is essentially bludgeoned with confessional details. I'm sure there's a poem lurking somewhere within your experience, but you have to gracefully unearth it.

Julia is quite right when she points out the best line in the poem.

Marc,

I finally got around to finding your poems and I must say I'm impressed. Those two on crowvoice are just excellent! I would like to read more. Perhaps you could do what I've done and post some more poems under "Marc's Writing" on your Goodreads profile. I would sure like to read more, and unfortunately I'm not in the position to buy any books; I can't even make this month's rent.

Robert Frost once insightfully said that a poem should begin in delight and end in wisdom. Call me old fashioned but I agree, and this poem does none of the above. Sorry, but it doesn't work for me; it's just word games. Your "Tammy's Life in Tanka" was a much more inspired, worthwhile poem.

Trice,
I sent a couple messages to your inbox. I unfortunately don't have much time right now or in the next few days to do your poems justice because I have to work a lot of hours. but likely next Monday I'll have some time.

Until then, I have a suggestion or two: The lower case personal pronoun "i" is a rather dated convention and these days looks, well, amateurish. I personally have no problem with it but editors sometimes do. Also, your not capitalizing the first letter of a sentence doesn't do you any favors. All that experimental crap has been tried for decades now and it generally detracts from a poem.

I'll read this a few times when I have the time and get back to you.

Malcolm

Tammy
This is just an ingenious, incredible poem! I'll bet just about any journal would take it. I wish I'd written it.
Malcolm

Thank you all for the needed strokes. For all that most of the people I know care about poetry, I might as well work in a dungeon.

Nina, I suppose you could call it a system: I basically flood the mail with submissions. At any given time I have 20 to 30 packets of poems under consideration at the various major journals in America.

I started with only a Poet's Market (the book, available at any bookstore) when I was in prison (I served a total of 10 years for drug smuggling). My former professor, mentor, and now dear friend Richard Shelton (quite a famous poet/author--check out his books on my Goodreads!) would type up my finished poems and mail them back to me, at which point I wrote cover letters in pencil and sent the letters & poems in big manila envelopes to the journals I thought were just under the very top tier (no submissions to the New Yorker, the Atlantic, etc. but I did submit to Poetry--to no avail). My first acceptance came 2 months after I started sending poems out--by Black Warrior Review, followed closely by Rattle. In the first two years (and a total of about 50 submissions) I got published in all those places listed in Malcolm's Writing in my Goodreads profile. The past year or so has not been as good: I was only accepted in places where I'd already been published (Southern Review, New England Review, Rattle, Confrontation), not that there's anything wrong with that--those are all excellent journals--but I wanted NEW places. And then just the other day came the acceptance by Atlanta Review (my first time there) and so I'm upbeat again.

Nowadays I write my cover letters on the computer and make rather profesional-looking mailing labels as well. But what matters most is, of course, the poems. As a virtual unknown, I can't yet rely on name recognition to get mediocre work published: the poems have to shine. And of course you never know how a given editor is going to feel on a given day. Maybe an intern spilled coffee down his shirt and so that day he wouldn't accept a sonnet from Shakespeare himself. Like I said elsewhere, it's a crapshoot. And the best way to beat such long odds is sheer volume. Submit like there's no tomorrow! One hint: I simultaneously submit everywhere and NEVER say so (though once a poem is accepted, I email all the other journals where it was under consideration and withdraw it. You HAVE to do that, out of courtesy. It also makes you look professional). However, until you're famous, the chances of more than one journal accepting the same poem is infinitesimal. And the poem you think is most likely to be chosen is seldom the one they take. Odd...

When selecting which poems to submit to which journals, it helps to have read a RECENT issue so as to gauge the editorial tastes if your poems vary widely in style/form. And much better than using the Poet's Market book is to go to each journal's website and follow their submission guidelines. Don't forget to include an SASE! A small number of journals are now using electronic submissions (and more & more are going this route) which saves all the expense & hassle of snail mail.

Here at the U of Arizona they have a brand new, nationally acclaimed Poetry Center, which subscribes to ALL the important journals, and by looking at each one I can get their website. I'm sure there's an online resource for that too, but I just don't know what it is.


I created a Submissions Manager file that I keep on my flash drive (I don't own a computer; I use the U of Arizona library's giant computer room), as well as a paper copy I update in pencil. I'll be happy to send it as an email attachment to anyone who wants to use it as a format. I'll do that with a sample poem as well, so you can see the format I use.

The following is a sample cover letter.


Malcolm Alexander
P.O. Box 206
Tucson, AZ 85702
malcolmalexander11@gmail.com


July 22, 2008

Editor:

My name is Malcolm Alexander and I have enclosed a selection of my work for your consideration.

My poems have been recently published in The Southern Review [twice], New England Review [twice], Confrontation, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Puerto del Sol, Colorado Review and numerous other journals, including Verse Daily (June 20, 2006) online.

Concerning my personal history, you may find it interesting that I have spent roughly half of the past twenty years in prison for several drug convictions. I also spent several of those years as a creative writing student at the University of Arizona in Tucson. As to which experience I benefited most from, from a poetry standpoint, I am still uncertain.

In any case, enclosed is an SASE for reply only. Please just recycle what you can’t use. I look forward to your response and any comments you’d like to offer.

Best,

(note: this comment format doesn't allow me to put the date or the closing "Best,"
out on the page where they properly belong)
----------------------------------------------

I hope this has been helpful to anyone interested.

I no longer am posting poems that have been accepted for publication but are not yet published--out of consideration to the journals which have accepted them.

Rather, this topic is now for info about submitting to journals. I now know a fair amount about what works, which I discovered mostly by trial and error, and I am happy to share this with all of you.

Marc,
I'm going to check the U of Arizona's Poetry Center for your book. Meanwhile, could you please post a couple samples here? It would be greatly appreciated