Posts Tagged ‘Explosions’
So it’d been the one of the small patch of poems I’d sent that THE RYDER had accepted for its 2024 Special Poetry Issue (cf. May 9, February 20). But due to the untimely death of RYDER editor/publisher Peter LoPilato, the issue has since been put in limbo: maybe to still be published as a revival issue, maybe not.
But poems, as life, go on.
Enter Jimmy Broccoli, earlier this month: Beginning today, I will be accepting poetry submissions for my 4th (and final) poetry anthology, FALLEN. Guidelines and all details are below. And the details were many, and complicated, including that the book might be divided in two parts in a sort of strange way. Also that there would be no pay (but then THE RYDER wasn’t going to pay poets either), but the book’s profits would go to charity, notably for the care of the animals and upkeep of the facility at Full Circle Farm Sanctuary. So why not send three poems (the limit allowed for a submission, though generally only one would be chosen) and, on the theory that a publication in hand is worth two in the bush, include as one of them the poem that had been accepted for THE RYDER?
The poem: “Scientific Method,” an elaboration on a class of poems from late Victorian times (cf., again, February 20) about a naughty boy named Little Willie and disasters that he suffers, to the utter indifference (or citation of a clichéd moral principle) of the poem’s narrator. And, as some may be guessing by now, it is both the poem that had been to be in THE RYDER, and that was chosen yesterday evening to be published in FALLEN instead: Your poem SCIENTIFIC METHOD has been accepted into the “Fallen Angel” version of “Fallen.”
Originally, the two versions were going to be identical (contain the same poems) — but I’ve decided they will contain different poems (completely).
The anthology is scheduled to be released in late August 2024.
Due to the untimely passing of RYDER founder and director Peter LoPilato, the time for a planned April Poetry Issue had come and gone, though there still is some hope for a near-future revival. But poetry is an impatient mistress, and so the May Bloomington Writers Guild “Second Thursday Spoken Word” (cf. April 11, et al.), dedicated to Peter LoPilato’s memory, was set to be a festival of the poems that were to have appeared in that issue.
Thus deviating from the usual pattern, after opening music by neighboring Brown County singer/guitarist Chris Barth, MC Tony Brewer read an introducing piece about Peter LoPilato, then, explaining that perhaps a better event description would be “a sampling of pieces that were to be in THE RYDER,” several poets being from out of town or otherwise unavailable to read that night, we heard the first of two groupings of poets. Then came another musical interlude/intermission, after which those of the second group read for a total of about twenty presentations in all, to an audience of around the same number, followed by a final musical selection.
For myself, I was in the second grouping, third poet from the end, with a single poem (as was the case for a majority of the other poets as well). Starting with a brief explanation of the nature of what I’d be reading, a poem informed by an at the time popular group of early twentieth century poems called “Little Willies” (see also February 20), I concluded with an 18-line entry about the Christmas gift of a chemistry set, “Scientific Method,” “hopefully informed by the spirit” of the example I’d just read.
I thought the two shadormas were fun, though perhaps in context a little didactic. Eg., “What’s a Shadorma?” And “Pas De Dead” was a nice little poem, but zombies are so passé in these modern days.
The one that shone, though, was a lengthened variation on a “Little Willie,” poems introduced in the early 1900s about a naughty Victorian boy and how he comes to grief — a moral message thus delivered but nobody else in the poem much cares (at least about such things as death or maimings). Example:
Willie on the railroad track
didn’t hear the whistle’s squeal,
now the engine’s coming back,
they’re scraping Willie off the wheel.
And so this, a Christmas poem actually and at a whopping 18 lines, “Scientific Method,” about Willie’s adventures with a just received chemistry set. And today the reply from the Writers Guild’s Tony Brewer wearing his RYDER guest-editor’s hat: Hi, James, thanks so much once again for submitting. I would like to include “Scientific Method” in the issue. Could you send me a bio when you have a minute?
The street date for the issue will be around April 19 and it will be available online shortly after that. There will be a showcase reading of poets published in the issue on Thur May 9 here in Bloomington. Let me know if you think you can make it. Thanks again.
The magazine in question, THE BLOOMINGTON RYDER and its annual Poetry Issue, in which I had some poems last year as well (cf. May 3 2023, et al. — although more recently in the news here too with their fiction edition in December). And so once again, while with only one poem, but one I think people may especially enjoy.
jamesdorrwriter 