Poetry

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Three Opportunities to Publish: AWP, National Poetry Series, and Four Way Books

a detail from “Illustrations of Ventilation” (1869), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

 

As a small press that understands the writer’s most constant struggle, we’d like to highlight three contests that will soon be closing submissions. We recognize them as distinguished prizes from equally distinguished organizations, and we hope they’ll be helpful in your pursuit of publication.

The National Poetry Series’ Open Competition‘s deadline has been extended to February 23rd, 2015. Five manuscripts will be selected by five distinguished poets, and each winner, in addition to a $1,000 cash prize, will receive the opportunity to be published by a participating publishing company. These include HarperCollins Publishers, Fence Books, University of Georgia Press, Penguin Books, and Milkweed Editions.

Four Way Books’ Levis Prize in Poetry will be judged by Martha Collins this year, and it is open to any poet writing in the English language. One winner will receive a book-length publication, a reading sponsored by Four Way Books in New York City, and a $1,000 award. Their deadline for submission is March 31st (postmarked, if mailed), or April 1st, by 3 AM EST (if submitting online).

The AWP Award Series includes a slew of prizes for creative nonfiction, poetry, short fiction, and the novel, offering publication from University of Georgia Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, University of Massachusetts Press, and New Issues Press of Western Michigan University, respectively, with cash awards ranging from $2,5000 to $5,500. Details about each prize, as well as their submission guidelines, can be found here.

Happy submitting.

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Joe Pan Publishes Pamphlet with Greying Ghost Press

a detail from A System of Elocution, with Special Reference to Gesture, to the Treatment of Stammering, and Defective Articulation (1846) by Andrew Comstock, courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Brooklyn-based publisher and poet Joe Pan has recently released a pamphlet, entitled The Poem, through Massachusetts-based Greying Ghost Press. The Poem, as described by Pan, is a “reminder to myself that a poem can not only be about anything, but literally be anything–a list, a lampoon, a lamp post–with language & ‘poetic intent’ as its dual engine.” His most recent collection of poetry, Hiccups, or Autobiomythography II, is forthcoming from Augury in 2015.

Greying Ghost, an independent press established in 2007, publishes letterpress and laserprinted chapbooks, broadsides, and pamphlets. Though Greying Ghost’s pamphlets are available for the low price of one dollar on their own, a copy of any pamphlet is included free with the purchase of a chapbook.

 

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Frances Justine Post Reads for Poison Pen Series

Taken at the Poison Pen poetry reading, courtesy of Writespace Houston

Augury Books’ Frances Justine Post recently read for the Poison Pen Reading Series, hosted in Houston, Texas on the 29th of January. Several poets were featured, including Scott Blackwood and Tony Hoagland. Post presented pieces from her most recent collection of poems, BEAST. As Tony was her professor and dissertation director, Justine felt the experience of reading together was “extra special.”

Writespace Houston wrote of Justine’s reading:

Taking us backwards through the book, Post began with the darkest poems and worked her way into the light. Poems like “Hannibal,” seethe with both emotion and devastation. Imagery of a body broken into pieces for eating is juxtaposed with lines like “How does it feel to be an object?” The self-portrait series, of which there are twelve in the book, feature titles like “Self Portrait in the Shadow of a Volcano,” “Self Portrait in the Body of the Whale,” and the poem which features the title of her book, “Self Portrait as Beast.”

Read the full article on January’s Poison Pen Reading Series here.

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More on BEAST

 

 

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Randall Horton Featured in OF NOTE magazine

From Robert Thornton’s Temple of Flora courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Randall Horton has been featured in The Imprisoned Issue of OF NOTE magazine. OF NOTE magazine is an online journal that features individuals using the arts to promote social activism. Sally-Ann Hard, in reviewing Horton’s work, discusses the importance of spreading awareness about life in prison.

Randall Horton’s poems are the work of a knowing, compassionate witness. He lays out reasons why we should care, why we should be moved to action and why our treatment of people who are imprisoned is an indictment against our moral, ethical and societal values. Writing, in part to relieve the guilt of the choices he made in his own past, his poems ask us to question what kind of justice we have.

We need these poems.”

Read the full review here.

Randall Horton’s book is forthcoming from Augury Books in 2015. Read more on Horton.

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Alicia Jo Rabins Wins 2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize

Alicia Jo Rabins, friend of Augury Books and reader at our 2014 offsite AWP event, has won the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize for 2015.

The winning manuscript, Divinity School, will be published in September with distribution by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium. Read “Chute” from Divinity School, which has previously appeared on our site.

Find out more about Rabins and the Book Prize.

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Maureen Alsop’s ‘Mantic’ Featured in Sundress Publications’ ‘Wardrobe’

A detail from ‘The Celestial Atlas of Flamsteed’ (1795), courtesy of the Public Domain Review

Maureen Alsop’s Mantic (Augury Books, 2013) is being featured in Sundress Publications‘ The Wardrobe this month.

Sundress Publications is a nonprofit publishing collective and host of several online journals. The Wardrobe is Sundress’ monthly feature that highlights the work of female-identified authors and their publishers. Each week the series features the work of a single author from an existing or forthcoming publication. Check out three poems by Alsop on this month’s The Wardrobe.

Learn more about Sundress and their ongoing work in the literary community.

More on MANTIC

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A Poem from Ruth Danon

A photo from “Landscape and marine views of Norway,” courtesy of the Public Domain Review

 

Craters of ash,
Lost nouns naming and
Renaming themselves,
Unwinding the black ribbon
Around your lonely neck.
You had one finger to the wind.
You had shoes without laces.
You boiled away tea water
Until the pot scorched
Craters into unfathomable
Ash. You stuck your hand
In it. You stuck your fist in.
You scooped something out,
Something hollowed out now,
And unfathomable.

Ruth Danon lives and writes in New York City where she directs Creative and Expository Writing for NYU’s McGhee Division, the undergraduate college for non-traditional students. She is the author of Living With the Fireman (a chapbook), Triangulation from a Known Point (published by Barney Rosset’s North Star Line), and Work in the English Novel. She has published in numerous magazines in the US and abroad, including Mead, Versal, Grey Sparrow Journal, BOMB, Fence, 3rd Bed, The Paris Review, Spazio Humana, and others. A new chapbook, The Echoes, will be published by Traffic Street Press in 2015. Her work appeared in Best American Poetry 2002, edited by Robert Creeley.

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Maureen Alsop’s MANTIC Reviewed in Poetry Salzburg No. 26

Image from Shin-Bijutsukai, courtesy of The Public Domain Review

Maureen Alsop’s Mantic (Augury Books, 2013) has recently been reviewed in the University of Salzburg’s biannual Poetry Salzburg Review, based in Austria. British-American poet Robert Peake calls Alsop’s collection a “bewitching book of divinations.” Though the magazine is only available in print, subscriptions and individual issues, including issue 26, are available for purchase over at PSR’s site.

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Sabotage Review on Frances Justine Post’s BEAST

An image from “Flowers and Pictures of the Holy Land” by Boulos Meo, courtesy of The Public Domain Review

We are excited to acknowledge the recent review of Frances Justine Post (BEAST, Augury Books, 2014) on Sabotage Review. The review, written by Cecelia Bennet, discusses the ‘multifaceted self,’ focusing on the sense of danger and power struggles within BEAST.

“These features are integral to the collection as a whole, and serve only to emphasise the wildly fragmented self that it portrays. In Beast, Frances Justine Post’s poems tell a story from every conceivable angle. To do this, she presents us with a series of surprising self-portraits: ‘Self-Portrait as a Witch’ exists alongside ‘Self-Portrait as Maelstorm’, ‘Self-Portrait in the Shadow of a Volcano’, ‘Self-Portrait in the Body of a Whale’, and even ‘Self-Portrait as the Crumbs You Dropped’. The face of the narrative changes constantly. Read together the poems create a sense of a wider story of torn hearts, conflicting reactions, bitter struggle. In this sense, the collection is very well put together: by encouraging us to fill in the gaps and interact with the book as a whole, Post draws her readers through an intensely intimate journey.”
Read the whole review here.
More on BEAST

Find it new from seller Augury Books

 

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A Poem from Finalist Marina Blitshteyn’s "A Miss"

marina blitshteyn is the author of Russian for Lovers (Argos Books) and the chapbook $kill$, forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She works as an adjunct instructor and occasionally curates the la perruque performance series.

This poem, “Gender is Body,” has previously appeared in El Aleph Magazine Volume One, published by El Aleph Press.