The Mill of Publishing: “POEtry . . . without apologies” On Its Way Back

October 8, 2012 in Fantasy, Horror, Poetry, Science Fiction, Writing
Tags: Speculative Poetry

Another example of the mill of publishing sometimes grinding slowly:  Today I okayed a proof of a poem, “Blood Fog,” for POETRY . . . WITHOUT APOLOGIES (or “POEtry . . . without apologies” to give the name its official form), billed in its original guidelines as “an anthology that pastiches classic poetry.”  But the thing is, the poem was actually accepted several years back, except that life then intervened in a number of very serious ways which forced the editor, Stephen M. Wilson, to put the book on hold.  But last week the call came for those still interested  to report in, and the beat goes on.

Editor Wilson was Poetry Editor of DOORWAYS magazine way back then — and in fact its demise was one of the lesser things that subsequently happened — but has bounced back as the founder of the “twitterzine” MICROCOSM as well as Poetry Editor of ABYSS & APEX (re. the latter, cf. December 18, 26 2011, et al.).  And now POETRY . . . WITHOUT APOLOGIES is back on track too with, if a majority of its original contributors are still on board, a number of well-known speculative poets giving their sf/f/h etc. variants of time-tested poems of the past.

Mine is a pretty modest addition, a take on Carl Sandburg’s “Fog,” but the project as a whole (and I’ve seen a partial contents page way back when, although I don’t know if all poems will still be there) is one I’m very much looking forward to seeing.   I don’t have a website to cite right now either, but as more information becomes available I’ll be quick report it here.