Susan Rich's Blog, page 3

5 Things to Look for When Sending Out Your Work: December

When I send out poems for publication I look for a trifecta of things (+2) that have made me happy in the past. Do you have a list of things that make you go through the permutations of cover letter, bio, final revisions of revised poems? The longer I do this, the longer this whole process seems to take. And that's why when I find a magazine like December, it makes me want to share the news!


1. Most importantly, the magazine must be physically gorgeous. Call me shallow but I do judge a journal by its cover. And its font, quality of paper, layout. I want to know that a good deal of care and yes, love, went into the making of this object. There are 1,000s of literary journals publishing today. You get to choose where to send your work. The poem you perhaps worked on for years deserves the best!

2. In this world, I want my poems to also have some on-line presence. While December selects a few poems to place on their website (and mine wasn't one of them this time) they do have a user friendly site. At the end of this post I will share the beginnings of the the two poems I published in their recent issue so you can get a sense of their taste although the journal a a whole showcases diverse talents and tastes. As an aside, The Baltimore Review publishes every poet on-line and in an annual journal. I should say, however, that their annual journal is not as elegant as December. But they also pay in gift cards!

3. Cool fellow poets. This one's self explanatory. I love being in the same issue with friends or poets that I look up to. My poet friends and I are always trading sources and so it's imperative to read the journal before you send them your work!

4. Payment. Yes, I want to be compensated for my work in the exchange material that our culture values. And no, $20 for a poem is not an hourly fee. I don't believe anyone who writes poetry does it for the money. (Okay I once met a Zimbabwean poet who told me he was getting rich off his poetry but that's a different story.) I worked on "Binocular Vision" for many years and so even a small check feels as if the world is valuing my poem a little more. I did come across a press recently that gives all their books away for free as long as the reader makes a donation to an organization of her choice or passes the book along. I like this model, too --- although the funding must be all donations?

5. And this last one might be a bit more controversial. I look for a woman editor. Thank you Gianna Jacobson! Yes, gender matters. In my decades and decades of sending work to journals and being published in all 50 states, I've noticed that women editors tend to be more communicative, more generous in offering small but important edits, and more interested in my work. I know there are many exceptions to this statement. For example, Rick Barot at New England Review and Peter Grimes at Pembroke Magazine are two exemplary editors and people.


For many years I sent my poems out to play the License Plate Game --- wanting to have a poem wandering every state in the country. When I finished that project (it took about 20 years off and on) I needed some other guide for where I wanted my work to appear. These guidelines are my current map to the wondrous world of lit magazines. I'd be curious to know how you make your choices!

And here are the first few stanzas of my two poems in this month's December. If you like what you see, you can purchase a copy on their website!

Binocular Vision

What happens to a zygote who never becomes—no cartilage to deliver back
to the ground; no evening meals for the earth-worm, no morning glory?
Today is your Happy Non- Birthday, 31 – perhaps you would have developed
into a geologist or lounge singer—keen observer of the disappearing life. I imagine you the way
politicians often fantasizeabout their voters: illogically and with a little greed.
I had you and thensuddenly, didn’t have you.
My insides retracted
(to be continued in December)
Goldfinch
They locked me up and then forgot me—
here in the rope-cold dark
I stammer a calligraphy of fears;I listen to a cinema
of laughter and then its silence.
This will be my life.
The subtitles of something—terror, imagination, flare
across my throat. I am not yet
four, trapped in the attic eaves as I decipher

my sister’s half-words
(to be continued in December)

A Must Read: ANGEL BONES by Ilyse Kusnetz

Angel Bones by Ilyse Kusnetz This book seems to have crawled into my DNA, slipped under the skin and become a part of me. I adore everything about it. For example, the cover art on Angel Bones by Ilyse Kusnetz is from a painting by Remedios Varo, one of my all time favorite painters. The poems inside attest to a life well lived. They sing with a praise for this world even in the poet's leave taking. Clear from the first poem, "Blessing for Beauty," is the indisputable truth that the speaker is living with cancer.

Maybe the universe wants to spare me the apocalypse,
maybe it wants me to counsel the dead,
maybe the cancer finds me so delicious
it wants to eat me from the inside out...

Oh trees, flowers, small animals at the bird feeder---

And so the poems unspool, sometimes in high lyric and sometimes in plain truth. Many of the poems are also love poems to Kusnetz's husband, poet and writer, Brian Turner. One of my (many) favorites comes late in the book and is not technically a love poem at all, "Meditation on "Cottage Window, St. Remy de Provence."

And so perhaps we cannot furl the lit hours
inside ourselves, relive their sinuous grace

The poems range from the philosophical to science fiction, to nature, to a love of ginormous proportions. In my copy the pages are folded back, marked and reread again. I promise Angel Bones will make a difference in your life. It has in mine.

Announcing a Forthcoming Miracle from Salmon Press: GALLERY OF POSTCARDS AND MAPS

Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems 2000-2020
So I have some news. It's kind of stellar and I just can't stop smiling. It's been almost a week and the effect hasn't worn off yet. I am beyond thrilled and mega excited to announce that my book,GALLERY of POSTCARDS and MAPS: NEW and SELECTED, will be published by Salmon Press of Ireland (with US distribution). This makes this getting older thing not so hard to take. 
Over the past 20 years I've published four books of poetry starting with THE CARTOGRAPHER'S TONGUE / POEMS of the WORLD which focused on my time in the Peace Corps in West Africa, my Fulbright in South Africa and the death of both my parents. This book won both the PEN USA Award and the Peace Corps Writers Award. Next was CURES INCLUDE TRAVEL and then THE ALCHEMIST's KITCHEN and CLOUD PHARMACY, all published by White Pine Press. You might notice they all seem to be on sale at the moment!
There are so many people to thank for helping make this book and its publication a reality (well, it's not going to be out for a little while) but let me start with the main inspirations: Ilya Kaminsky, Geraldine Mills, Sandy Yaonne, and of course, the amazing Jessie Lendennie.  Sometimes the stars really do align. Or as my dear friend, the poet Kelli Russell Agodon says, maybe it was the chipmunk that came out of nowhere to stare at me for a good long while on a summer morning. 
Or to coin a phrase --- that you will know if you are over 60, "I get by with a little help from my friends..."

The Magic of Nine: Poets on the Coast, Sept 6-8, 2019 - Nine Years Old, Grade 9---

I like the number 9. 

I vividly remember being 9 years old and being in the 4th grade at the Michael Driscoll School. My teacher, Miss Smith (rumored to have been a runway model in the Barbados) was my teacher and I still remember our classroom: the Reading Train made from colored construction paper taped to the lower walls. Whenever we read a new book, we slipped a piece of paper in our train car. 

At least I think that's what we did, mostly I just remember the train. Then there were sugar cube cities and the study of countries and flags. This all happened in Brookline, Massachusetts ---- now famous for being the first municipality in the country to supply bathrooms (city hall, libraries, schools) with free feminine hygiene products. No more "menstrual shaming" said 18 year old (that's 9 x 2) Sarah Groustra, a Brookline High School graduate.  Kind of a cool thing for a town to become famous for.

But I digress.

9th grade is more of a blur --- but it was a big deal. In Brookline, it's the first year of high school. First boyfriend, first freedoms, first poetry class. My 8th grade teacher, Jerry Katz, had taken me up to the high school and convinced someone at Brookline High School to let me take an "advanced" poetry class. What I remember is my first exposure to Emily Dickinson --- thank you Dr. Katz!

And flash forward too many years to count and I'm on the brink of the 9th year of Poets on the Coast: A Writing Retreat for Women. It was over 10 years ago that one December evening, Kelli Russell Agodon and I sat in a cottage on San Juan Island and came up with the idea of running our own retreat. We'd both worked as guest faculty at several writers conferences -- sometimes having to teach in unheated rooms and once underneath a modest staircase.

The first year of Poets on the Coast took place at the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon Coast. On the way down I5, the interstate was closed due to a prairie fire (in Oregon) and Kelli and I arrived late to our own retreat! 1001 thanks to those first 16 women who trusted us with their poems and taught us so much.

Now nine (!) years later, Poets on the Coast has doubled in size and moved up to the beautiful town of La Conner, Washington, home to the Skagit River Poetry Festival, the Museum of Northwest Arts, and the epicenter for the artists of the Northwest School. 

A few of the things we've done in recent years to up the cool factor each year includes: a visiting poet in residence; this year we welcome Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, a visit (and if desired) publication at the Museum of Northwest Arts (MONA), an open mic for all (if desired) participants, and a one on one (free with registration) session with Kelli Russell Agodon, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, or me.

I know I might be biased but I think this is the best weekend residency for women poets ever! Each year we have true beginners who are at their first conference and just trying their hand at poetry to the poets who have published their own books. We have had educators, students, farmers, children's book authors, therapists, stay at home moms, poet laureates, and grandmothers join us.

Some women stay at the Country Inn or Channel Lodge; some women stay at Katy's Inn,  a VRBO, with friends, or live in the area. If you are free the weekend of September 6th - 8th and want to be part of a creative, supportive, and fun group of women --- we might be a match! To register you can click here! Or leave a message below if you have questions.

Mary Peelen's QUANTUM HERESIES is here and here is why you want to read it!

Quantum Heresies by Mary Peelen
I have returned to the poems in QUANTUM HERESIES many times in the last two months. How can a debut  collection of poems be so arresting, so superb?  One answer is that Mary Peelen has been hard at work on her craft for years; she is not a dilettante but rather a true poet. Also, she has lived a fascinating and hard-won life.

Take for example these lines from "String Theory,"

Here at the horizon of theoretical extinction,
we cut flowers for the table.

We sing the way weary mourners do,
praising geometry as if miracles could happen.

The environment, mathematics, love, and loss in two couplets. I am in awe of these lines and of lines from many other poems as well including: "x", "Unified Theory," and "Sunday Morning" to name but a few stellar examples of Peelen's deft and spare language.

Elizabeth Bishop once said that what she liked best in a poem was "to see a mind in motion." And she then added that this was of course an impossibility. That the poems that did their best to mirror the mind's movement were working hard to display such ease. Take for instance these lines from Peelen's, "Sunday Morning,"

I put my faith in Algebra.
And Wallace Stevens, of course,

his quantum heresies, his dominion,
coffee and oranges

I wondered a bit at this beautiful title that also appears in this poem, Quantum Heresies, and although roughly defined it means the amount of energy it takes to adhere to spiritual beliefs, there is also the wonderful HER in heresies. Perhaps the energy to believe in the self, in the female body, in the body of the world? Well, now I am going out on a limb. I think you will just have to read it yourself to see.

If you are a fan of the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, or the novels of Jane Austen --- you really want to check out Quantum Heresies.


Mary Peelen, author of QUANTUM HERESIESIf you live in the greater Seattle area, Mary Peelen will be reading with Kelli Russell Agodon and myself THIS Friday, 7 pm, Open Books, May 10th. This will be her only Seattle appearance. We would love to see you there~

Five Questions and Answers with Poet On the Coast Alumna Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Poet Extraordinaire Lena Khalaf Tuffaha at Poets on the Coast this September

What a pleasure to watch Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's poetry as it takes off and travels around the world. From our first meeting at an ekphrastic workshop I taught at the Seattle Art Museum for Hedgebrook, to her participation at Poets on the Coast: Writing Retreat for Women to seeing her accept the Washington State Book Award for her first full length collection, Water and Salt, Lena has been impressing audiences around Washington and around the world.

This September, Lena joins the faculty of Poets on the Coast to teach an afternoon workshop:

Self-Portraits, Selfies,  and 
 Self-Portraits, in visual art and in poetry are abundant and offer a rich landscape to explore, question, subvert, and re/define the self. “Selfie” was officially added to the Merriam Webster dictionary in 2013 and the Selfie is  now considered an art form in itself, with its own museum!  What can  these visual art forms offer us as poets? What does it mean to write a self-portrait, selfie, or snap poem? We’ll explore the blurry boundaries between these forms and use them to generate thrilling and revelatory poem drafts.



SR:  Who are the poets (or other writers) that you recommend? Who do you return to over and over?

LKT: I recommend reading everything. Classics, newly-published works, what you friends are reading, what your favorite indie bookseller recommends. If a writer you admire raves about a book, check it out. And don’t just read; listen. Go to a poetry reading. Watch a video of a spoken word performance if you can’t attend one. If you know another language, even if you’re not proficient, give yourself permission to muddle through poems in that language. I’m always reading in Arabic, in French, and stumbling through original Neruda poems (in the privacy of my own reading spaces). Nourish the sources of sound and prayer in your poetry.
I’m currently obsessed with several hybrid works: Marwa Helal’s Invasive species (Nigthboat, 2019), and a book of essays, All The Fierce Tethers (Sarabande, 2019), by poet Lia Purpura. Books that have awed and thrilled and taught me in recent years include Solmaz Sharif’s Look, and Ada Limon’s The Carrying. I’ve spent this poetry month tweeting a poem a day by an Arab American poet, a love letter to my community, and in the process I’ve revisited so many treasures. Books across centuries, from Khalil Gibran to Suheir Hammad to Fady Joudah to Nathalie Handal. In my writing practice, I often return to June Jordan, to Sharon Olds. So many loves, too many to list!



SR: You have (and still are) traveling all over the world bringing your poems to diverse audiences. What have you learned from this experience?

LKT: I’m so grateful for the places Water & Salt has taken me. Next on my agenda is Toronto, where I’ve been invited by Cahoots Theater and playwright Suvendrini Lena to participate in a workshop of her play, Rubble, which is in conversation with my poems and Fady Joudah’s exquisite translations of Mahmoud Darwish. 
This feels like a kind of miracle to me; that from the completely solitary act of writing a poem, I can connect with readers and other artists and that our work can create more spaces of resilient beauty in the world. I’ve also learned that you never know who is waiting to hear your poems, when you’ll meet the reader whose heart needed that poem. If there’s any advice I have, it is to dream wildly and follow your poems wherever they want to take you.


SR: In the years since you first published, WATER AND SALT (Red Hen Press) how would you say your writing has changed?

LKT: Water & Salt was published in my final year at Rainier Writing Workshop, the MFA program at PLU. I think that in many ways, my newer work reflects the conversations I’ve been having inside and outside poetry, the wider and deeper ranges I’ve covered in my reading and maybe (I hope) my willingness to take even more risks in my poems.


SR:  As an alumna of Poets on the Coast, is there anything from the experience that you carry with you? Can you say how it manifests (or womanifests)?

LKT: Absolutely YES! POTC was the first place where I really believed it was possible for me to be a poet. It is a testament to the nurturing woman-focused environment that you and Kelli create every year—the invitation to arrive at the retreat fully as we are, that our art and our lives matter, and that a combination of working at our craft and finding a nurturing tribe matters more than any accolades. I think the way in which this womanifests (<3) in my writing life is my eagerness to create and celebrate all the communities I love and need. It reminds me to reach out when I feel isolated and to cherish the writing life as its own reward.

SR: Who is a poet (dead or alive) that you would wish to meet? Where would you go? What would you ask?
LKT: Mahmoud Darwish, eternal poetry love. I kept missing him, everywhere  I lived. I was never in the right country at the right time to hear him read his poems. And his reading are legendary. I came so close in the summer of 2008 when I moved to Amman with my family, but only a few days after we arrived, he had travelled to Houston for heart surgery and passed away. There aren’t words for the magnitude of the loss

SR: Do you have any advice to women writers who are just beginning their journey? 
LKT:  Your life matters, your words matter, and we’re all here writing with you, waiting for your poems.
Poets on the Coast: A Weekend Writing Retreat for Women still has a few spaces left. To register and join Lena, Kelli Russell Agodon, Lia Miranda, and me or to find out more, go to Poets on the Coast. This year we meet September 6th - 8th in La Conner, Washington.

Remembering W.S. Merwin (1927-2019)

I don't remember the first time I read W. S. Merwin's work. I feel as if his words and spirit have always been with me. I do remember the first time I met him in person. Another student poet I knew, Andie, from Pamela Alexander's weekly poetry class (held in Pam's living room outside Central Square) had heard that Merwin would be at Harvard for a reading and reception. This very quiet poet and total rule follower asked me if I would attend the reading with her --- and then crash the reception.

My friend and I (young, awkward, and brave) sidled up to the very small group where Merwin was chatting and joined in. Was it a Harvard Review event? The fancy pants people (dresses and heels and perfect make-up) stared at us. We did not fit in. My friend addressed Merwin telling him in a flash flood of words how important his poems had been to her, how they allowed her to believe she had permission to write her own. Andie went on for awhile. I had never heard her talk so much.  And when she was finished, perhaps believing that we were both about to be ejected from the premises, she stepped back. And then I remember --- as if it was not 34 years ago though it was --- Merwin smiled broadly and said, "Thank you. That makes me feel useful."

And there was no doubt that he meant this. Andie's effusiveness, her awkward praise, visibly filled him with a humble gratitude. There were so many ways the conversation could have gone but this gentle thanks from Merwin altered the universe of poetry for me. This poetry god had just ambled down the mountain and spoken to us as if we were his trusted friends. He was the only one in that stuffy room who welcomed us in and made us feel as if we had a right to inhabit the poetry world. Or at least try.



Fast forward 10 years or more and I had just moved to Seattle. And here was Merwin reading at the Elliott Bay Book Company in remembrance  of Denise Levertov. Levertov lived her last decade in Seattle and had been reading Merwin in the last weeks before she died. However, Merwin had only met Levertov once and he recalled their meeting at a friend's farm. Copper Canyon was also announcing that they would be publishing all of Merwin's books and keeping them in print --- forever. This was my introduction to Seattle --- I had definitely landed in a magical place.

And then just about six months ago, Kelli Agodon and I approached Copper Canyon to seek permission to use this poem of Merwin's in our upcoming book. It's unclear whether Merwin himself would have been involved in the decision but I like to think someone told him about two women who fell in love with this poem and desperately needed it to be the front piece of their book.



To the Book

Go on then
in your own time
this is as far
as I will take you
I am leaving your words with you
as though they had been yours
all the time

of course you are not finished
how can you be finished
when the morning begins again
or the moon cries
even the words are not finished
though they may claim to be

never mind
I will not be
listening when they say
how you should be
different in some way
you will be able to tell them
that the fault was all mine

whoever I was
when I made you up

---W.S. Merwin

Hot Off the Press: Happy 50th Birthday to Crannog

A few weeks ago I had an email from Crannog Editor Ger Burke accepting my poem "Every Clock is Made of Foxes" and inviting me to read it in Galway for the journal's launch. I wrote back to her, grateful for the invitation, wishing that Seattle was a bit closer to Ireland. Sadly, I declined.

And then 5 minutes later I wondered to myself, and why not? I have a very dear friend, poet and fiction writer, Geraldine Mills, who lives just outside the city. Perhaps she wouldn't mind a visitor for a few days? I wrote Geraldine immediately to see if she'd heard of this journal and might be in town at the time of the launch.


Geraldine wrote back to let me know she was a huge supporter of Crannog and that in fact, she had a poem in the same issue and would be reading for the launch. I was very welcome to come and stay. The final note mentioned that her husband, Peter, had looked at Seattle to Dublin flights and the prices were exceptionally low for a direct flight. There was nothing else to do but come.

And so after teaching on Tuesday afternoon, I boarded a plane for Dublin and from there, a three hour bus ride to Galway Bus Station. As I stepped onto the curb, Geraldine and Peter, drove up and I felt everything was going to be okay. Better than okay.


Last Friday night, at least 50 people came along to The Crane on the Sea Road, Galway, to hear writers celebrate the 50th issue of a journal that features both local and international writers. James C. Harrold, the City Arts Officer, began the evening with an appreciation of the journal and inviting us to return for the 100th anniversary. I think I just might be back.

(All photos courtesey of Peter Moore.)

My Personal Favorite Poem Is ...

I am super thankful for this interview with Kelly Fordon on the topic of my personal favorite poem. I used the occasion to think about what makes a poem work. Here is a little bit of what I wrote:

"I believe that a good poem needs to surprise its writer and also to risk something aesthetically or emotionally, preferably both. “Shadowbox” is a poem with origins in a writing prompt that my friend, the poet Elizabeth Austen, introduced me to one Friday morning.

Once a month we meet, drink coffee, share what we’re reading and then write together. When life becomes overwhelming our meetings ensure that we will still have some poetry drafts started. Now as we begin our fourth year of meeting together, we have seen several of our Friday morning poems grow-up to be revised, polished, and eventually published. For this poem, I began with a random set of words that would become the end-words for each line of the poem (horses, something, decisions, coming, dark, aftermath…)."

Kelly hosts a blog that features poets and fiction writers from across the country. You can click here to take a look.

Poetry Wishes for a Community --- Mary Oliver, Poets on the Coast, and Groundhog Day Writing Retreat.

I sometimes wonder if I would still be writing poetry if I hadn't moved to Seattle. I live in a city proud of its convivial literary community. There are over a dozen regular reading series across the city, including WordsWest which I cofounded and now co-curate with Katy Ellis and Harold Taw. Over the past five years we have hosted such poets as Terrance Hayes, Rick Barot, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and this year, Mark Doty and Ilya Kaminsky. I think this only could have happened in Seattle. In this case, we are in West Seattle.


Nine years ago I cofounded Poets on the Coast with Kelli Russell Agodon. Each September we organize a long weekend of writing, craft talks, and community in the poetry loving town of La Conner, Washington. Many women join us annually and others dip in every second or third year. Every year we welcome new poets. There are always several published authors with books and other women who are on their first poetry retreat ever. Then there is everyone in-between from ages 21 to 82. We still have 4 spots left.

I just finished listening to the podcast "On Being with Krista Tippet" where Tippet interviews Mary Oliver. I am still in the glow of Ms. Oliver's voice, her words, her generosity. It originally aired in October 2015 and so was conducted in the last years of her life when she had left Provincetown, Massachusetts after the death of her longterm partner, Molly Malone Cook.

One of the many things that I jotted down while listening to Oliver is:  "Poetry wishes for a community." She also spoke about "the writer's courtship" and the importance of creating time and space in one's life to write --- preferably while being outdoors.



Abracadabrah! (which in Arabic means, I will create as I write) On February 2nd, Groundhog's Day, Kelli and I will lead a one-day writing retreat.  In the morning we will lead a Generating New Poems workshop and in the afternoon, Thinking About the Next Book. Descriptions for both are on the website; you can sign-up for one or both workshops.

Here is what I know: poetry needs community; it thrives when poets come together to write, to share ideas, to acknowledge the poetic voice in one another. These retreats always leave me feeling nourished. I do not know what I would do alone in a garret unless I had my poetry community to gather with in early autumn and late winter. Groundhog Day is only two weeks away. We would love to have you join us. I know of no other more welcoming group of women poets --- and yes, an occasional male poet, too. If you would like to register on-line or by check just scroll down past the class descriptions --- here's the link.

I want to keep Mary Oliver's gorgeous words in the world; I believe she will be remembered long into the next generation. Here is a favorite poem --- out of so many. This one seems to get a bit less airtime. It is called "Spring" but so are other poems, I believe. Here are the first few lines.

SpringSomewhere
    a black bear
      has just risen from sleep
         and is staring

down the mountain.
    All night
      in the brisk and shallow restlessness
         of early spring

I think of her,
    her four black fists
      flicking the gravel,
         her tongue

like a red fire
    touching the grass,
      the cold water.
         There is only one question: