News Around the Net

The new head of the NEA has big plans

Take a look at some of the most anticipated fall releases

Students writing their own reading lists

Dominick Dunne dies at the age of 83.

Has sex in literature lost its edge?

Sorry about the lateness, guys! We'll have a longer section for you this Friday!

Job Postings

The English Department of Willamette University invites applications for the tenure-track Hallie Brown Ford Chair in Writing. We seek a fiction writer of distinguished achievement who is dedicated to the teaching of writing and prepared to work with the department on developing the curriculum in creative writing. Substantial publication and an MFA or equivalent are required. The Ford Chair will customarily teach four courses per year and organize a series of readings and other events. Salary is competitive. For more information about the Department of English, please visit www.willamette.edu/cla/english. How to Apply: Applicants should submit the following materials electronically in MS Word or PDF formats to HFCsearch(at)willamette.edu (replace (at) with @): * Cover letter of interest/ * Curriculum Vitae/ * Contact information for three references / * A short essay (1000 words maximum) on your approaches to teaching and your expected contributions to a department that is committed to diversity and inclusivity. Application Deadline: Review begins November 9, 2009. Please submit complete application packet, incomplete packets will NOT be reviewed. Online App. Form:http://www.willamette.edu/go/jobs

The Department of English at Brooklyn College invites applications for a tenure track position in the teaching of the craft of poetry, both in the Master of Fine Arts in Poetry program and in the undergraduate English program. The candidate should be conversant with late 20th and early 21st century poetry -- postmodern and post-colonial poetic communities and practices such as ethnopoetics, language-based poetry, performance poetry, e-poetry, gender- and culturally-based poetry -- as well as with the canon and prosody. QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: Doctorate or equivalent terminal degree required. Appointment may be subject to Bylaw waiver. A record of publication commensurate with the rank of assistant or associate professor, and at least three years of teaching experience. TO APPLY: Please send curriculum vitae, three (3) letters of recommendation and writing sample(s) as one package to: Application Information. Postal Address: Michael T. Hewitt/ AVP for Human Resource Services/ Brooklyn College/ 900 Bedford Avenue/ Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889. E-mail: bcjobs(at)brooklyn.cuny.edu. Phone: 718-951-5131. Web Site: www.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Notice Number: FY16479.

Shippensburg University. Assistant Professor of Creative Writing—Fiction. Tenure-track assistant professor in Creative Writing, Fiction, full-time appointment beginning August 2010. MFA or PhD from an accredited institution required by time of appointment. Candidates must have a demonstrated commitment to undergraduate education, a strong record of publications in fiction, & evidence of academic service. Twelve-hour course load each semester may include creative writing, general education (writing & literature), & literature courses in the major, with course reduction available for advising the student literary magazine. The committee will request writing samples from selected candidates & may meet with these candidates at MLA. On-campus interviews for finalists will include a demonstration of teaching effectiveness & a brief fiction reading. Submit letter of interest, curriculum vitae, undergraduate & graduate transcripts (unofficial for application, official prior to interview), & contact information for three references to: Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, Chair, Creative Writing Search Committee, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, 1871 Old Main Drive, DHC 113, Shippensburg, PA 17257. Review of applications begins November 2, 2009. For more information about the Department of English & Shippensburg University, see www.ship.edu/~english.

George Mason University. Tenure-track assistant professor of creative writing, poetry needed to begin Fall 2010. Substantial publications (two books or equivalent) required, along with proven teaching record. The successful candidate will teach graduate & undergraduate courses & workshops (2-2 load), & also direct theses in the MFA program. Teaching of undergraduate creative writing is a normal part of the teaching rotation; some undergrad literature may be included. Academic & university service required. Review of applications begins October 1, & selection to be made about December 1. Apply online & upload cover letter & c.v. for Position F5240Z at: https://jobs.gmu.edu. Send writing sample & three recommendation letters to: William Miller, Chair/Search Committee, George Mason University, English Department MS 3E4, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030.

Contributor Spotlight - Daneen Wardrop

White Guitar

I started out this summer with a resolution not to begin any new writing projects. For the first time in some couple decades, I wanted to do nothing. My kind friend, Ayuko, called it my “discipline” of not starting a project, and that made it feel okay. “Discipline”--almost noble.

So I was going to make more dinners, bicycle with my daughter, garden, read. Meanwhile, I happened upon a book, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen LaBarge and Howard Rheingold. Lucid dreaming, the act of “waking up within the dream,” interjects conscious life into the unconscious life. I’d only had one lucid dream, many years ago, but I still remember its visceral clarity. I was walking across a street, in tints of brushed gray and pink, with a man I’d never seen before. I liked him very much for his beautiful calm and gentleness. He held my hand, and on his other side held the hand of his young daughter to whom he was devoted. He strode unhurriedly, with assurance. We tightened hands and walked in that electric chain of being that Hawthorne proposed (though we were without a trace of Hawthornian Gothicism).

In the middle of our walk, he turned, looked at me. It was like brushing electricity out of one’s hair. It was like we were taken in a gaze so rife and erotic we would never have to change again--and then, as we were about to step to the far side of the curb, I discovered something. I had a remote in my hand--solid, dense. I could reverse and play again our walk across the street, relive the choate, requited look. Then I could reverse and do it again. As much as I wanted. Needless to say, I pressed it a lot. I might have felt a touch of guilt, punching that endless replay button to what was essentially a spiritual, or at least demi-spiritual, experience, as the button relegated the moment to commodity. But that didn’t stop me.

I was aware that the remote and the man were from different--conscious and unconscious--worlds.

Now that I’ve read about lucid dreaming, I wish I could have known to do something different, use the remote to make the scene hover and ask the man a question: Who are you? or What do you mean? maybe. Asking the right question--important.

I think of lucid dreaming as somewhat like an early Joan Miró painting—the two worlds of realism and chaos curlicued together, the staid table and ataxic ear shapes scattered about, the recognizable animals figures in topsy-turvy settings.

I want to frame a question that will bring the different worlds together.

One of the ways you’re supposed to learn to lucid dream is to ask yourself at several points during the day, “Am I dreaming?” Of course, most of us when we’re awake, know we’re not dreaming, but asking the question is part of the training. After I told my daughter about this, we started testing each other over the weeks, asking occasionally, as when we saw boughs down in the street after a storm, “Am I dreaming?” and eventually teasing while we were doing utterly ordinary things like sitting on the deck eating sherbet-- “Am I dreaming?”--until maybe we freaked each other out a little.

The goal is to be able to ask yourself if you’re dreaming while in your dream; when you can, then you have the conscious and unconscious minds in one field. Asking within the dream came to me rather quickly, within the first couple days of practice. I read a June newpaper forecasting snow, realized that was unlikely (even in Michigan!), identified it as a dream. I watched a bowl of neon-colored fruit stream into neon balloons and float away and thought, how unusual, then realized it was not only unusual but impossible. I was dreaming. The result of asking if I was dreaming, though, was unfortunate: “Yes,” I answered, and woke up. Instead, I wanted to use my new awareness to ride those balloons like horses. To drift between June snowflakes, a sixpointer myself.

At the start of the summer, I had a wonderful dream (just before reading about lucid dreaming) about a white guitar. It came the night after doing a reading at Kalamazoo’s downtown art hop with two women, a musician I used to perform with and a visual artist, both good friends. In the dream I played an electric white guitar that was altogether unlike the Les Paul I actually played for years in rock and roll bands. That real Les Paul, a tobacco sunburst warhorse, could sing like an angel, but felt heavy as a log. (These days I still marvel, when I strap it on once in a blue moon, that I could hold that thing, good friend that it was, for a whole night, five or six nights a week.) The white guitar in the dream, though, levitated. I almost had to keep it down. I thought, “This is easy!” The floating white guitar did all the work for me.

What I fall asleep thinking about now is not that I need to remember to ask myself if I’m dreaming, but that I want to relocate the luminous guitar. I want to ask it something, though I have yet to formulate the question.

I suspect the white guitar is at least partially about, as my friend Anne suggested, undeserved happiness (something I don’t understand but support, at least for others--and would like, despite attendant guilt at the thought of receiving anything undeserved, for myself). I’m experimenting with asking the guitar, “How do you do it?” or possibly, “Can I go with you?” Or maybe just, “What’s up?”

But now that I have gone pretty far into lucid dreaming I have to admit I’ve broken my resolution not to start a new summer project. Lucid dreaming has become the project. I’d so wanted to keep a rigorous regimen of doing nothing, but I’ve failed. And have to admit, alas, that I have no discipline.

Daneen Wardrop is the author of a book of poems, The Odds of Being, and two books of literary criticism, including Emily Dickinson’s Gothic (University of Iowa Press) and Emily Dickinson and the Labor of Clothing. Wardrop has received the 2005 Bentley Prize for Poetry from Seattle Review, the 2006 Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Award, the 2007 Gerald Cable Book Award, and two Pushcart prize nominations. Her poetry has appeared in AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, Field, Southern Review, Diagram, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. Her poem, "Caesura 6" will appear in the upcoming issue of HFR. (To preorder your copy, email HFR@asu.edu!)

Unusual Calls for Submissions

Looking for original soccer poetry for a reading in connection with the Kicking and Screening Soccer Film Festival in Washington, D.C. in October. Submission Guidelines: 2-4 poems on the subject of the game of soccer. No jingles or limericks. If your poem it chosen, it is not necessary to be present for the reading, but you will be properly credited at the reading. If any of your poems have been published, be sure to include the pertinent information. If you know of soccer poems by others, please let us know. Send poems as a Word attachment to: sweeper905(at)aol.com (replace (at) with @). Deadline: September 25.

Wait a Minute, I Have to Take Off My Bra
InkSpotter Publishing is looking for submissions for an anthology celebrating the most female of body parts, the breasts. From light-hearted memories of the first buds of puberty to heart wrenching accounts of breast cancer, these stories will run the gamut of experiences and emotions. Unpublished submissions are welcome from both women and men. Maximum 3,000 words for both fiction and non-fiction. Poems are also welcome, though a limited number will be used (no specific length requirements, but please, no epics). We are NOT looking for salacious material. Please keep your submissions tasteful. Think in terms of what you would want your young daughter (or niece) to be able to read. Send your submissions in the body of an email (absolutely no attachments) to submissions(at)inkspotter(dot)com with "Submission for Wait a Minute" in the subject line. You may also submit via postal mail to: InkSpotter Publishing/ 163 Main Avenue/ Halifax, Nova Scotia/ Canada B3M 1B3. Deadline for submissions is October 31, 2009.

Alimentum Poetry Contest is seeking fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry all around the subject of food. Alimentum is the only literary journal all about food. Submissions open September 1, 2009 and closes December 1, 2009. Submit up to 3 unpublished poems related to the subject of food or drink. Five-poem limit on poetry submissions. Do not consider previously published work. $15 entry fee which includes a one-year subscription. Snail mail only. First prize $500 and publication for a single poem. Send to: Alimentum Poetry Contest/ PO Box 210028/ Nashville, TN 37221. Deadline: December, 1, 2009. More here.

A Cup of Comfort® for a Better World: Stories that celebrate generosity, compassion, and volunteerism
Stories must be submitted online at here. To coin a phrase of President Barack Obama, Yes, we can! make a positive difference in the world. And this Cup of Comfort anthology will feature living examples of good Samaritans whose good deeds inspire others to do their part to make the world a better place or to just make life a little bit easier—for loved ones, neighbors, strangers, future generations, or any of God's creatures, great and small. Potential themes include (but are not limited to) charitable work, random acts of kindness, paying it forward, or lending a helping hand, a port in a storm, or a shoulder to lean on. Stories must be uplifting and personal, preferably narrative essays; we are not interested in journalistic articles or thinly disguised PR pieces for charitable organizations. Story length: 1000–2000 words. Submission Deadline: August 31, 2009. Finalist Notification: September 05, 2009.

Special Issue: Land of Lincoln ~ Writing from and about Illinois
CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW is seeking work for our Summer/Fall 2010 issue focusing on writing by Illinois writers and writing from writers outside Illinois about the people, places, past and present of Illinois. All submissions should be original, unpublished poetry, fiction, or literary nonfiction in English or unpublished translations in English (we do run bilingual, facing-page translations whenever possible). Please query before submitting any interview. For our general submission guidelines, check our Web site. The submission period for this issue is August 1, 2009 through October 31, 2009. We will be reading submissions throughout this period and hope to complete the editorial work on the issue by the end of February 2010. Writers whose work is selected will receive $25 (US) per magazine page ($50 minimum for poetry; $100 minimum for prose) and two copies of the issue. Include SASE for reply or for manuscript return.

People Are Talking...

HFR is getting some high praise around the internet this week. This (totally unsolicited!) from Kate Gale, Managing Editor of Red Hen Press:

Hayden’s Ferry Review is my favorite literary magazine right now and has been for a while. It’s beautiful, but it isn’t over the top expensive like Black Clock, it publishes great work, but it isn’t exclusive like Hudson Review or Zyzzva which are exclusive on opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s just a great variety of discoveries of all kinds of good writing which is what you read a lit mag for, you want to be surprised. That’s part of the reason I like Hayden’s, it’s edited by the brilliant MFA students at ASU’s creative writing program and they pick cool edgy stuff. When you read the work, you are surprised, pleased, amazed.

Read more on Kate's blog here.

And Caitlin Horrocks - former HFR editor, amazing writer, and all around wonderful person - answers some questions about her reading habits at the "Recommended Reading" blog. HFR wins for the one literary journal she would subscribe to if she only had one. Check out answers from Matt Bell, Sean Lovelace (both appearing in our next issue) and lots of other great writers, too.

Contributor Spotlight: Pia Tafdrup

The following is an interview with Danish writer Pia Tafdrup, conducted by K.E. Semmel. Semmel's translation of Tafdrup's essay, "Sleepless Hope" appeared in issue #44.

You’ve traveled all over the globe representing Denmark—and poetry—as a kind of ambassador. What have you learned about your own Danish culture from so much traveling?

Interesting question. What have I learned about my own culture, not the foreign…I travel first and foremost in order to meet foreign cultures head on, because it provides me with significant knowledge about people. This knowledge is found in sedimentary form both in the poetry and fiction I write. But on the opposite side of the globe, I actually do have my eyes opened to what is “my” culture: what it means to have a mother tongue that I know the deepest layers of, the possibility of an immediate mental reading of other people, a shared cultural background, being understood by likeminded people, the climate, the weather, the light I’ve known, the sounds that are part of my city, the smells, etc.

Even though Danes have vast differences among them, at a distance there is something that binds us together. Fundamentally, this is about understanding and shared reference points. But I don’t just think about what it means to be Danish, but also what it means to be Scandinavian, and what is European—both of which I feel strongly connected to.

I often hear the term “ambassador” used about poets who read in other countries, but I don’t see myself as an ambassador for others. I’m only myself…If I’m invited to appear in another country, I always read one or more poems in Danish, and then follow up with the translated poems—preferably read by a poet with the translated language as a mother tongue. It’s important for me that people in the world hear examples of how my poems sound in the language they were written—and in that way I represent Danish. But I can’t represent more than myself; I can’t represent other poets, just as they can’t represent me.

Every poet has his or her specific universe, and this is where I make my “spiritual signature” when I write. It’s this special stamp that can be so difficult to reproduce. But when it’s successfully translated, I’m thankful. I’ve experienced powerful emotional responses from audiences in South America. In Scandinavia you can easily thank a poet for the reading, tell her the reading made an impression, or make a comment on a particular poem. But in more excitable countries, the audiences come to me afterwards and show me the gooseflesh on their arms, or they kiss me—giddy with joy—before I realize what’s happening. When I get that kind of reaction from an audience on the other side of the globe, it’s probably because my poems deal in large part with human existence; they try to articulate states that are often wordless, but are understood across races, social classes, different cultural backgrounds, etc. It’s nothing short of miraculous that a good translation can touch and move people I’d never known I’d ever be able to reach when I wrote the poems. For me, it’s more important that poetry possess powers that bind people across continents than that it is Danish poetry.

In “Sleepless Hope,” the essay published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, you describe your experiences while attending a festival in Nicaragua. You also provide an outsider’s view of life in that country—which for many is a very difficult life. In spite of all the troubles in Nicaragua, however, poetry remains a vital part of life there. What responsibility, if any, does a poet or artist have in shaping culture?

Poetry was once held in high esteem in Scandinavia, but in recent years, there have been far fewer poetry books offered by the established publishers than earlier. Nor do poets have the same significance as before. In our culture, it’s rare that people are interested in what a poet has to say. Poetry is still being written by the young generation, but young poets aren’t just fighting to break through to the public: they must be increasingly innovative. Even though poetry is a wonderful genre, the large publishers no longer feel any responsibility toward it. Seldom is it a publisher’s flagship publication.

When you’re used to these conditions, it’s a real treat to land in, for instance, Nicaragua. Thirty or fifty or one hundred audience members are not unusual for us in Denmark—on special occasions you may even get 500—but in Nicaragua and that part of the world, it’s not unusual to have 1000 or more. The massive audiences that attend poetry readings night after night in Latin American countries are nothing less than overwhelming to a Scandinavian poet. And yes, it’s exactly where need and poverty are at their worst that poetry apparently enjoys a different meaning than with us. We would rather be entertained by an event culture where everything is forgotten two seconds after it’s past. In other words, when you’re not pushed to the brink, you don’t have the same need for reflection and depth. In Denmark most everyone does all right without poetry; it has virtually no significance in the lives of Danes. But poetry in Nicaragua is woven into daily life.

Whether there's one reader or listener or a thousand readers or listeners, poets are held accountable. For me, it’s important to answer for what I write: poems, poetics, novels, articles, etc. I write to the individual, not to a group…I write in the hopes of reaching and moving the person who reads my words. But clearly, it’s a strong response if a shudder goes through the crowd when a poet reads—I won’t deny that. But the person listening or reading should get the feeling that the poems are addressed to him or to her. Huge audiences can also be merciless on the poet who doesn’t move them. When you’re reading in front of an audience, you’ve got to have your antennae up in countries where such enormous expectations are placed on poets. A wonderful challenge!

Here in the United States, poetry seems to be marginalized in an academic setting. A great many of its practitioners teach in writing programs and publish for a narrow band of followers within that setting. How is the state of poetry in Denmark today? And how do we as part of western culture instill a love of poetry into our everyday lives?

Poetry is just as marginalized in Denmark today as it in the United States, but it’s been slightly delayed compared to other parts of the world, where this has been going on for many years.

I myself debuted in 1981. I wasn’t alone. Suddenly, there was this whole generation of poets (whose poems I’ve included, incidentally, in the anthology Transformationer. Poesi 1980-1985). Today, when you look back to the early 1980s, you see that poetry was in a better position than prose. You’ve got to go all the way back to the time right after WWII to find a corresponding “poetry boom” in Denmark—even if it wasn’t called that back then. “The Golden Rush” was an appellation the poet and the critic Poul Borum came up with when he introduced our generation to Sweden and Norway, where we were watched closely already then.

But there hasn’t been a similarly strong generation of poets since. Some very fine poets have emerged, but they don’t make up an actual generation. And there’s not the same attention paid to poetry any longer. It doesn’t fill university reading lists like it did 10 or 20 years ago. Similarly, it occupies less and less of the media’s attention. A poetry collection with a specific theme can suddenly clear out the front page of the culture section, of course, as when Lone Hørslev published her divorce poems, or when Christel Wiinblad published a collection about her schizophrenic brother’s suicide attempt. But with these publications it’s not poetry as such that attracts notice; first and foremost, it is the alarming subjects and the gripping way they are told, that captures the media’s attention.

Poetry must be kept alive by publishers, and by different media: newspapers, radio, TV, etc. Room should be given to readings at key locations in cities. Poetry won’t die completely when given short shrift, but it’ll have the character—as it once had—of an underground phenomenon. If poetry is cultivated, it’ll fill more of our lives. The most impressive use of poetry that I’ve ever seen was at a Mexican school. Each year, the school arranges a poetry day and invites not just one or two poets, but all of ten from different countries. This would be unthinkable in Denmark.

One year, I was one out of ten poets invited to sit at a long table set up in the school courtyard, where all the students were assembled. We were welcomed like a long-awaited rock band with cheers and whistles and foot-stomps, yet all we were supposed to do was read a small sampling of our work. Through the years, the students had developed an intense relationship to poetry. Many of them wrote poetry themselves, and after we’d read, a handful of the best students were plucked from the audience to recite their poetry for us. Very moving! I’d never been involved in anything like it. But it wasn’t hard to see just what it means for poetry—that it’s supported. We poets from Scandinavia or Europe have much to learn of visits such as these and, hopefully, can help give poetry a lift at home.
*

Pia Tafdrup was born in Copenhagen in 1952. She has published 13 collections of poetry, including: When an Angel Breaks Her Silence(1981); The Crystal Forest(1992), Queen´s Gate(1998, published by Bloodaxe2001), The Whales in Paris(2004), Tarkovsky´s Horses (2006) and Boomerang(2008). The Whales in Paris and Tarkovsky´s Horses will be published by Bloodaxe 2009. She has also published a statement of her poetics, Walking over the Water (1991), two novels, Surrender (2004) and Star Without Land (2008) and two plays, Death in the Mountains (1988) and The Earth Is Blue (1991). Poems of Pia Tafdrup has been translated into 30 languages. English translations of her poems have been published in more than 50 literary journals in the U.K., U.S., Canada, and Australia. Tafdrup has received the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1999 and the Nordic Prize in 2006 from The Swedish Academy. Click here to see readings with Pia, Don Delillo, Steve Martin, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, and others in NYC at PEN.

K.E. Semmel is a writer and translator whose work has appeared in Ontario Review, the Washington Post, The Brooklyn Review, Redivider, Hayden’s Ferry Review, A River and Sound Review, and elsewhere. He is the Publications & Communications Manager of The Writer’s Center in Betheseda, MD. In addition to his Tafdrup essay translations, he has translated two of novelist and short story writer Simon Fruelund's books (and is now searching for a publisher), and has received a translation grant from the Danish Arts Council.

New Open Competition Announced for The Rona Jaffe Foundation/Vermont Studio Center Fellowship

The Vermont Studio Center is pleased to announce the continuation of The Rona Jaffe Foundation/Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. Now in its second year, this fellowship is intended to support the month-long residency of an emergent woman writer who will be a first-time resident at VSC. The fellowship covers full VSC residency fee and offers an additional stipend of $1,250 to help cover expenses associated with taking the residency, including but not limited to travel, rent, childcare or to replace lost income.

For the purposes of this Fellowship, emergent writers are defined as those who are as yet unpublished, or have begun publishing in literary journals, or who are just completing their first book. (Women writers who have published a standard trade edition of their work do not qualify for this fellowship.) All eligible writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction who are citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. will be considered for this Fellowship, which pays tribute to the memory of celebrated author Rona Jaffe.

The application deadline for The Rona Jaffe Foundation/Vermont Studio Center Fellowship is 10/1/09. To apply, download and fill out the Vermont Studio Center’s regular application form, check the “I am applying for a Special Fellowship Award” box on the first page, and write Rona Jaffe Fellowship on the “Award Name” line. Follow the application instructions and be sure all materials are RECEIVED at VSC by October 1, 2009.

The winner of the first Rona Jaffe Foundation/Vermont Studio Center Fellowship was Rose Nash, of Wolcott, Vermont, who spent the month of June 2009 at the Studio Center. Rose received her B.A. and M.A. from Middlebury College. After graduating, she taught on a kibbutz in Israel for two years and then took a position teaching middle and high school English in Vermont. She is currently a writing specialist in the Learning Resource Center at Johnson State College. She is working on her first novel.

News Around the Net

Dave Eggers explains the Wild Things.

Nobel Laureate William Golding admits to attempted rape in his unpublished memoir.

The founder of Library of America, Richard Poirior, dies at 83.

Does it matter if publishers re-furbish the Bronte classic Wuthering Heights to match the Twilight schema?

The so-called "niceness" so women's poetry.

There's an unexpected closeness between the science, physics, and literature.

The Brooklyn Library restricts a book with controversial, racial depictions.

NaNoWriMo is for chumps. Try this on for size!

Are marriage and literary production mutually exlusive?

Female authors and the male point of view.

Featherproof Books launches short story iPhone app.

More Happy Contributor News!

Jennifer K. Sweeney’s collection How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press) received the 2009 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, which gives $5,000 to the most outstanding second book by an American poet each year. The book was chosen by poets Robin Becker, Bob Hicok, and Afaa Michael Weaver.

About the selection, Weaver says, “Jennifer K. Sweeney’s How to Live on Bread and Music is a remarkable achievement from the hand of a poet with a subtle and compassionate mindfulness. These poems tell us we move forward in moments when motion seems all too risky and stillness all too intolerable. Adept at the delicate project of inventiveness in the line, she shows us time and again that language is the matter of the poet and that there is surprise in the gift, as this book is sure evidence of the gift.”

The James Laughlin Award is the only second-book award for poetry in the United States. Offered since 1954, the award was endowed in 1995 by a gift to the Academy from the Drue Heinz Trust. It is named for the poet and publisher James Laughlin, who founded New Directions Publishing Corp.

Read more about the James Laughlin Award here. Read about Perugia Press and order the book here.

Perugia Press Prize: accepting submissions NOW! for a First or Second Book of Poetry by a Woman A prize of $1000 and publication by Perugia Press is given annually for a first or second unpublished poetry collection by a woman. Submit 48 to 72 pages with a $22 entry fee between August 1 and November 15. Send an e-mail, SASE, or visit the Web site for complete guidelines.

How Some People Like Their Eggs released!

Rose Metal Press (and HFR!) are pleased to announce the publication of the winning chapbook from their Third Annual Short Short Fiction Chapbook Contest.

Written by Sean Lovelace and selected by contest judge Sherrie Flick, HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS is a collection of 10 flash fictions about things falling apart, wrung out wrong, raveling and unraveling, from missing woodchucks to train-struck ferrets, from Bonnie and Clyde to Charlie Brown (a notorious fatalist and depressive), from meteorites to bear attacks to gunplay in the bait shop. And so on to flash fiction worlds of talking crows, percolating trees, Che Guevara’s omelets, and Ingrid Bergman’s sex life. These stories are light and yet succulent like a Cornish hen, whatever that means. How does an amphibian know the moment it’s OK to unfold the lungs? Wait. These stories are small but so is a hydrogen atom. Open these pages, split them apart, and BOOM. There you go. Enjoy.

HOW SOME PEOPLE LIKE THEIR EGGS features two-color letterpressed covers, printed on a Vandercook press at The Museum of Printing in North Andover, MA. The chapbook has been produced in a limited run of 300 copies, so be sure to get your copy soon! Today, even, right here. You can also add it to your Goodreads. And you can watch for announcements on the Rose Metal Press site about Sean reading around the Midwest!

The title story will appear in the next issue of HFR. To hear more from Sean, check out his Contributor Spotlight post here.

The Edsel of Readers?

The honeymoon is over. The Kindle and the Kindle 2, hated by luddite page-turners and loved by techo-savvy readers everywhere, might now be joining another larger group--that of mediocre techno-junk that didn’t work right or alienated its users until it became abandoned. The Kindle might be 8-Track, or it might be Betamax, depending on who you talk to. But the view of the machine as the new way to read for better or worse has changed.

First there was George Orwell debacle, when Kindle recalled the electronic editions of Animal Farm and 1984. People were surprised and shocked both that Amazon could do that and that Amazon do that with their e-content. The choice of titles was unfortunate as well, giving rise to comparisons of Big Brother and the 'memory hole,' the incinerator that censored documents were shunted to in 1984.

Then the issue was resurrected in the news cycle despite Jeff Bezos's apology with a suit against Amazon by a 17-year old student. Justin Gawronski is suing because when Amazon recalled the copy of 1984, the removal rendered Gawronski's copious electronic annotations -basically his entire summer’s worth of homework- useless. The suit is currently seeking class action status.

Then there is the Nicholson Baker review of the Kindle in the New Yorker. Mr. Lumber would seem to be the ideal candidate to love the Kindle, judging from the gushing over his iPhone that occurs repeatedly throughout the article. When it comes to the Kindle, however, Baker only has about 500 synonyms for "Meh." Its screen is a "four by five window onto an overcast afternoon." Its outside design is "90's." Baker also uses his review as a bully pulpit to list every other e-reader and reading app out there, so the article ends up showcasing the competition as much as the Amazon device.

Finally, there are the "Book vs. Kindle" videos from Green Apple books. In them, the Kindle is subjected to hilariously humilating defeats from traditional books in such categories as booksigning, durability, and storytime. The most telling of them for me was number 6 in the 10 part series: Finding the Right Book. One of the things that appeals to me about e-reading is the idea that a limitless supply of titles is out there to be carried around in your pocket. But sadly, this is not the case. Also in this video: One of the hosts interviews himself in a hilarious splitscreen.

What does all this negative press mean? The Kindle still works fine, done what Amazon says it does, but the aura of coolness around it seems to be vaporizing. When Kindle debuted, it was seen as the savior of the book. Bezos made the cover of Newsweek under the headline: “Books aren’t dead.” They never really were dead, but the paranoia surrounding the crash of the publishing business and the rise of New Media had us all thinking so for a little while. And so when Kindle came along, it seemed like we had a solution.

But that solution is not the Kindle in particular, it is in reality a responsive and innovative approach to E-reading for customer and publisher alike. The future of publishing is not in a box from Amazon. It might partially exist there, but it’s also in the Sony Reader (a press conference, possibly to announce a Wi-Fi model is scheduled for August 20) or even the wild and improbable rumors surrounding the Mac Tablet or the iPad or whatever it is.

I’m a little more comfortable with this future than I was with a Kindle-dominated one. Not only will the competition be good for people who want to explore E-reading, I don’t want to make Bezos happy enough to laugh like this again.

Literary Death Match Live Online!

If you still haven't managed to attend a Literary Death Match, now's your chance. Thursday, actually. Thursday's your chance. The latest installment of the raucous reading and comedy challenge will be broadcasted online - live! - from the Bowery Poetry Club.

You can of course also go in person, if you live in New York. Here are the details:

An end of the summer masterpiece is in the make, as LDM NYC Ep. 17 brings a stand-up comedy intro by four-time Emmy winner Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show) before he settles into his judges chair, alongside Tony Arcabascio (Alife founder) and Ethan Nosowsky (Graywolf Press) as they judge Elisa Albert (The Book of Dahlia), Janice Erlbaum (GIRLBOMB), Elna Baker (writer of the forthcoming The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance) and Blaise Allysen Kearsley (How I Learned reading series). Plus, maybe the wackiness finale in LDM history!

Hosted and produced by Todd Zuniga & Erin Hosier.

When: Thursday, August 20; Doors at 7:30, show at 8:05 p.m. (sharp)
Where: Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery, (212) 614-0505
Cost: $10
All proceeds support Opium Magazine.

News Around the Net

Vote for the winner of the Not-the-Booker-Prize Prize.

Neil Gaiman and E.L. Doctorow discuss the virtues of free stuff.

Thomas Pynchon makes a vocal appearance in the trailer to his book Inherent Vice.

Philip K. Dick's Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep is in line for a graphic interpretation through Boom! Studios.

The Hugos have been announced!

Ever wonder how Amazon's best-seller list is put together? Here's how.

Learn more about Writers Beware, an organization meant to make new writers aware of publishing scams.

An indie publisher explains how he likes e-books but not Amazon.

A closer look into the antics of one of Mexico's defining new voices, Mario Bellatin.

"Chick lit" authors are having to economize even in their stories these days.

Why we love stories of homecomoing.

Though the books were flops, the website detailing the worst books in libraries has done very well.

In defense and praise of the hack.

Bloomsbury swaps a black face for a white one on Justine Larbalestier's book Liar to much chagrin.

Philippa Gregory is twitterizing her book The White Queen.

Does publishing get it?

Tenure Track Creative Writing Job

Tenure-track position in Creative Writing. We seek candidates with expertise in one or more of the following: playwriting and screenwriting, fiction, poetry, nonfiction. Publication in area of specialization and competence in teaching of creative writing at undergraduate and graduate levels required.

Successful candidate will be able to contribute to our two-year MA program with concentrations in Creative Writing, Literary Studies, and Professional Writing and to our undergraduate major and General Education curricula. We seek excellent teachers with wide interests and creative promise. PhD by date of appointment.

Fall 2010 start. Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, and dossier (letters of recommendation and official or unofficial transcripts) by November 6, 2009, to Dana Ringuette, Chair, Department of English, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, IL 61920-3099. We will interview at the MLA conference. Postal Address: Dr. Dana Ringuette/ English Department/ Eastern Illinois University/ 600 Lincoln Avenue/ Charleston, IL 61920.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

CONTEST: End of Life Stories
postmark deadline Dec. 31, 2009. We're seeking new essays that explore death, dying, and end of life care, for a collection to be published by Southern Methodist University Press. We’re looking for stories that transcend the “I” and find universal meaning in personal experiences. We hope to include stories representing a wide variety of perspectives—from physicians, nurses, hospice workers, social workers, counselors, clergy, funeral directors, family members, and others. We want narratives that capture, illustrate and/or explain the best way to approach the end of life, as well as stories that highlight current features, flaws, and advances in the healthcare system and their impact on professionals, patients, and families. Creative Nonfiction editors will award one $1500 prize for Best Essay, and two $500 prizes for runners-up. Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by December 31, 2009, and clearly marked “End of Life” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription); multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. More here.

Chicagoland Poetry Anthology: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Nirala Publications (New Delhi/Kathmandu) has announced the forthcoming publication of Chicagoland Poets, the latest poetry anthology in a distinguished series that includes the poets of London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. The 300-page anthology, edited by Illinois poets Robin Metz and Nina Corwin, will be launched in Chicago, New York, London, New Delhi, and Kathmandu for worldwide distribution. The series editor is Yuyutsu R.D. Sharma. Poets born or currently living in and around Chicago may submit up to five poems of any length on any subject (including, especially, poems about Chicago and environs or southeast Asia). A brief biographical statement (100 words) including the poet’s ties to Chicago area should also accompany the submission as well as complete contact info. Poets not born or currently living in Chicago may also submit up to five poems (as above, with accompanying rights/biographical statement(s)) on any subject related to Chicago. Deadline for submissions is August 31, 2009 and should be emailed to: Nina at treehouse523(at)sbcglobal.net (replace (at) with @) in a SINGLE .doc or .rtf file or sent snail-mail addressed to: Chicagoland Poets c/o Nina Corwin 523 S Plymouth Ct. Chicago, IL 60605. Please include SASE for reply only. MSS will not be returned. Poets included in the anthology will receive a complimentary copy.

GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Deadline: 1 september 2009. GenDer outlaws: tHe neXt Generation (seal Press) will collect and contextualize the work of this generation’s most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices—new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world’s most respected mainstream news sources. edited by that ol’ original Gender outlaw herself, Kate bornstein and writer, raconteur, and theater artists. bear bergman, GenDer outlaws: tHe neXt Generation will include essays, commentary, comic art and conversation from a diverse a group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives. send your submission as an attachment to genderoutlawsnextgeneration(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @). More here.

SEVENTH ANNUAL FICTION COMPETITION
LILITH Magazine is looking for unpublished original stories with heart, soul and chutzpah illuminating issues in the lives of Jewish women. FIRST PRIZE: $250 and publication of story in LILITH Magazine. Submission instructions: --Manuscripts should be double spaced and should not exceed 3000 words. --Manuscripts should be mailed in. We will NOT accept electronic submissions. --Enclose sealed and stamped envelope for return of manuscript. --Deadline: November 1, 2009. Please mail to: LILITH MAGAZINE/250 West 57th Street, Suite 2432/New York, NY 10107. More here.

Rainbow Poets is sponsoring a Michael Jackson poetry contest with a $1,000 grand prize and 25 prizes in all totaling $5,000. All 25 winning poems will be published in We Are the World and sent free to all entrants. To enter, send one poem of 21 lines or less to Free Poetry Contest, 1600 31st St. SE, Rio Rancho, NM 87124; or go online to www.rainbowpoets.com. Deadline is Aug. 31.

Have a Book? Do This With It.

To continue our "interesting trends in publishing marketing" started by the post below, I wanted to mention what The Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott has been up to with his new book, The Adderall Diaries: he's started a lending library. If you'd like to read the book, all you have to do is send him your name, address and a little bit about yourself (he wants proof that you're real) . Then he'll send you the book, under the conditions that you read it in a week or less and then mail it along to the next person on his list. I think this is such a great idea! Go here to get yourself in on the action.

Check out LAUNCH at Flatmancrooked!

Flatmancrooked's got something new and really interesting going on. The idea behind LAUNCH is this: Flatmancrooked chooses a writer whom they've published, but who, given the current circumstances of publishing, hasn’t received due attention. They set up a profile page with whatever work they've previously published by this author along with an excerpt of a new piece they'd like to print as a stand-alone book. If you (yes, you) like what you read, you can “invest” in the author and help “launch” his or her career by purchasing any number of the available shares. Each $5 share will go towards turning the excerpted story into a little book.

Last Thursday, they set up the LAUNCH page of their first author, Emma Straub. (You can also read an interview with Emma on their blog, here.) I couldn't quite figure out how far along they are in the fundraising now, but according to Twitter two days ago, Emma had only 43 shares left.

It's a novel idea (ugh, I know) and I'm curious to see how it plays out. I love to see the ways literary journals try to connect with their audience, and try to create an invested and interactive readership. Now go check it out.

Meteor Shower Coming, A Poem!

In honor of the annual Perseid meteor shower approaching (best viewed in the wee hours of the morning, if you can stay up or drag yourself out of bed!), we are posting a poem. This one appeared in our issue #34. Enjoy: poetry and meteors!

Finding God in the Stars, Not Finding God in the Stars
by Mike Dockins

Cygnus points east, swoons backwards.
Did our ancestors in Ireland and Greece
hear it wail at that place where the sun

drops into its little dark pail? Meteors
streak the Northern Cross. Asteroid dust
is falling on us, but you're busy looking

for God, something nebulous at the end
of a telescope. Neutrinos swim through us
constantly, nearly massless. Billions of suns

burst and contract, a spray of atoms we'll
never see. "I can't get over God," you say.
Sprawled on wet grass, we look not up,

but out. I wish I could be amazed all the time.
We stand - into streetlamps, parked cars,
metal fences, silent beehives, the familiar

shelf of horizon, all the jarrings of the world
I know. I'm bent now away from the stars.
I don't know how it happens for you.

Review of I, NE: Iterations of the Junco

I, NE: Iterations of the Junco is a collaboration between John Chavez, Megan Gannon, Rachel May, and Joshua Ware. Illustrations by Meaghan Perry. Letterpress-printed on 18 file cards in a handmade paper slipcase. Edition of 100.
Review by Elizabyth Hiscox

Straight out of the gate this book from Small Fires Press is a captivating package. Printed on a series of unbound file cards peeking from the slipcase, the poems are punctuated by Meaghan Perry’s avian etchings that vaguely illustrate the content: tender juncos, gloried juncos, juncos in distress. The use of the recurring central image of these prints echoes the method of the text, although it should be noted the poems explore a variety of subjects. The individual poems, eleven in all, are assigned to the poets as a group: John Chavez, Megan Gannon, Rachel May, and Joshua Ware.

Granted, I am the target audience for a limited edition art book. Letterpress fonts can make me giddy and handmade paper (in this case, cotton with unbleached abaca & banana added) can enchant me. While the Kindle and similar next-gen technologies are cutting a wide literary path, there is an equal and opposite reaction in printmaking. Whether to deckle an edge is appropriate conversation again. But, don’t mistake it: I don’t like it all. You can’t judge a book by its paper.

Granted, I am also the target audience for the collaborative poem. I admire and defend its production and am especially inclined to the approach this text takes: allowing each poem to move past individual poet to become an un-assignable work that transcends a particular style or voice.

Granted, I, NE: Iterations of the Junco is my kind of book, but I was prepared for it to be otherwise. It could have been a gimmicky catalyst cast-off. It could have been a by-product of a concept. It could have been better suited to the vapid ranks of art object. It could have been other than it was.

The poem “Yet Limned in Watercolor” admits “Of course, the story, as with the junco’s stutter is contrived.” By extension: the poems. But contrivance is good in this case, as with the song of the bird. It is artfully devised. An implication that wild things play in structures too.

After the initial title card, and prior to the first poem, is an image of a songbird with an eruption of [light?] [sound?] lines skyward. Titled “Report” it carries the call and its response and suitably, subtly pulls us into a work of revelation mixed with repetition. There’s an earnest intelligence here, but there is also a sense that this is a bit of a romp with language. The sincere smile if not the sly wink in its pages. For example, the cards which open and close the collection are tabbed “hello” and “goodbye.” It’s as though you, the reader, have been allowed in on a space, a conversation. At times, a heated discussion. And this is, perhaps, the paramount appeal of these poems: that strange tug of shared process – the resonance becoming different each time a word is revisited – heard again and against the tenor of another.

Here’s a taster; these lines pulled from “The Word You Cannot Erase [Part One],” “Cotton-Glass & Parrot-Bells,” and “The Autonomy of Air,” respectively.

Come back to the junco call, stuttered white noise, drops of some- / thing from my body: coin, tooth, horizon. Even the airplane hears / the frog’s sigh, the radio white noise that swallows every sound,[…]

Kestrels hollow white noise as hovering ice limbs erase / the scrim of an early waver-light.[…]

[…] Another sentence descends & the junco alphabetizes the similes of its own syntax: kestrels, / moonlight, a newly leafed tree, and thistle-burrs. […]

There are moments of greater similarity than these in the book: moments where almost punctuation alone offers alteration. But to extract an emblematic set of lines would be to ignore that the poetry is un-extractable at the same moment that many of the phrasings and combinations produce immediate beauty [“We must’ve been invited into the aperture / of the morning just then,”].

In the end, to write a review of this book is to try to contextualize a project that already exists in a context that is at once fixed and fluid. The reader picks up on what is happening, gets the basic rules of the game and to a point that feels situated, and then finds the iterations informing themselves [in image, in space, in verse] and opening up again.

In the end, to write a review of this book is to try and contextualize my betters. “A Note on the Process” that accompanies the poems situates the project eloquently and as accurately as possible with poems driven by erasure and self-professed nonce form:

“Externally, these iterations may appear similar. Internally, these iterations produce difference: an irreducible and dynamic concept vibrating through temporal, spatial, and linguistic contexts. As such, each poem works to alter the conceptual freight of the entire series, or the ‘passing and repassing [of] decentered centers of the eternal return.’”

Yep. That sounds about right.

To see more pictures from the chapbook, go here. Or, go here to get yourself a copy. A series of Joshua Ware's poems appeared in HFR #44.

If You Get Lost Between the Moon and New York City...

On Tuesday, August 25th Diane Goettel, Executive Editor of Black Lawrence Press, will give a talk about how to get published in literary magazines and journals and how to get the attention of small presses.

Where: The Perch Cafe in Park Slope, Brooklyn
When: Tuesday, August 25th at 7:30 PM

Raymond Carver Revealed

On August 20, the Library of America will release Raymond Carver's Collected Stories. If you've been following the story of Raymond Carver and his editor, Gordon Lish, for the last two years like I have, there will be some things in the volume that you won't want to miss. For the first time the original manuscript of the book of stories What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which Carver had titled Beginners, will be printed in its entirety.

A literary rumor that had been growing suddenly blossomed in December 2007 when Carver's widow, Tess Gallagher, wrote an article in the New Yorker about Carver's relationship with Lish to accompany one of Carver's stories as he had originally written it. Reading the article is an astonishment. An editor's job is to help the writer find the story, but Lish's cuts were deep, he wrote lines in himself, and he cut Carver's part down by more than half the original word count in some places. The style of Raymond Carver that towered high in the 1980's - "dirty realism" or "minimalism" - was now revealed to be at least in some part the work of Lish.

I’ve struggled to come to terms with these facts since I’ve read the article. Raymond Carver was alive and publishing when I was moving into young adulthood and just becoming interested in the short story in a big way. His stories affected me deeply and are on any list I care to make of significant short stories. But now it appears that aspects of his style, especially the part of it that we call “minimalism” were not all from Carver.

When interviewed, Carver’s distaste for the term 'minimalism' was evident, but he accepted it. He also accepted the Lish edits, but after no small amount of agonizing. Later, as he grew more confident, he came out from under Lish’s thumb and stood his ground about his work. I have found refuge in the collection titled Cathedral (with its masterpiece ‘A Small, Good Thing’) which has come to be seen as most representing the non-Lish Carver. But now we will have some new words to add to it.

While I don't expect to find masterpieces in the Beginners material since it has little or no editorial hand in it, I am looking forward to reading it. I am looking forward to the writer distilled, undiluted by his mentor’s opinions (and additions!). What he wrote about is as important as the style in which he wrote. He wrote about people who had origins like himself: blue-collar and acquainted with despair. These people and what happened to them are what informed part of my life, and now I’m going to know just a bit more about them. And that is a small, good thing.

News Around the Net

I'm sure we've all wondered at one time or another, "How do you write a sex scene?"

Literary tattoo anthology looking for entries.

A new list of the 100 greatest writers of all time.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is in consideration for a movie re-make. It makes one wonder - which of your favorite childhood stories would you like to see as movies?

Spain is set to have its first e-book fair.

CEOs Jane Friedman and Larry Kirshbaum discuss the future of publishing.

Publishers may be cracking down on author deadlines.

Accusations of plagiarism have been leveled at the Twilight titan authoress, Stephanie Meyer.

The theme for this year's World Fantasy Award is "controversial."

According to Neil Gaiman, you might want to put that vampire story away for another 20 years or so.

Most Wanted: A Gamble in Verse

During the spring and summer of 2004, Jeff Encke wrote, designed, and printed a book of poetry on a deck of stylized, casino-quality playing cards, two of which appear here. The project is so cool - and the cards so beautiful! - that we had to tell you about it. You can preview the deck for sale here and follow the link to the homepage to read more about the project.

Bart Eeckhout, author of Wallace Stevens and the Limits of Reading and Writing, comments “Most Wanted plays an inspired, surprising set of riffs on the bromide 'Make Love, Not War.' Jeff Encke dares us to see the war of the human heart as darker and more disjointed than the war of nations, the love of war as simpler and safer than the love of people, and the power of words as more intricate and uncertain than any military policy. The changing script of love that emerges every time his pack of elliptic fragments is shuffled and a new game of poetic poker is played helps to restore human individuality, vulnerability, and contingency to a world in which we can never wish to imprison whatever it is we most want.”

Buy a deck before they’ve disappeared forever! The discount price is $5.

Review of Sagittarius Agitprop by Matthew Gavin Frank

A review of Matthew Gavin Frank’s Sagittarius Agitprop, Black Lawrence Press, 2009.
by Sarah Vap

This collection is a partaking of the brain of Matthew Gavin Frank, and it’s not a run-of-the-mill brain. It’s a big-joyful-strange brain. It’s a brain that jumps from here to there and I don’t know how. It’s a brain that puts this together with, are you kidding me? That! It’s a brain that thinks it can do anything. When I read Matthew Gavin Frank’s first collection, Sagittarius Agitprop, the question he seems to be asking throughout is: Can I do this? Can I do that? Can I say this? And the answer is, Yes!

Throughout this collection Frank puts together unlikely ideas or objects and explodes meaning into or out of them. Starting with the dedication, he writes “For Louisa Johanna: Clean up your room.” Right away, I’m into Frank’s method and madness.

Next page, he has quotations from Apollinaire and… would you have guessed it?, Mick Jagger. Apollinaire says “Love like a ponderous trained bear/ Danced upright at our slightest will”-- emblematic of the spirit that I found throughout this collection. But the serious-- Yes, I think, serious-- quotation of Mick Jagger that he has paired with the Apollinaire adds the surprising and exploding meaning behind that spirit of these poems. Jagger says: “Oh daddy, be proud of your planet/ Oh mommy, be proud of your son.” It’s the unlikely or wild couplings like this that explode Frank’s poems into a meaning that I delight in, intellectually and bodily.

It’s a meaning that I can’t just tell you about. It’s a meaning that is, itself, the exact process of arriving at the end of each of his poems.

Halfway through the book, to further insist on my point of view, I looked up “Agitprop”: a combination of the words “agitation” and “propaganda,” Wikipedia reports, stemming from Bolshevist communist Russia’s Department for Agitation and Propoganda (later the Ideological Department), a phrase which now has connotations of an extreme leftist propaganda type of art. Well, excellent!

I am a Sagittarius-- and very, very briefly will share that Sagittarius is considered to be a masculine, extroverted, mutable fire-sign of western astrology.

Sagittarius Agitprop: This is the most rigorous pairing of the book. I can’t really pull it together at first. Not in words-- but maybe in words…. like when Wilbur is trying to say his first word in the movie Charlotte’s Web….Wwwww… Wwwwwuuuuh….Wwwwwiiiii….. Wwwwwiiiiiillllllbuuuurrrr: I can kind of pull it together like that. And as I read the collection with these two huge and separate concepts in my mind-- and then, more particularly, as I try to hold them in my mind as a pair-- and then, even more particularly, as I try to hold them together in my mind as the pair that is the title of this particular collection of poems-- I start to move into a kind of an understanding of what this collection plans for itself, and enacts: Frank wants to blow your mind with what happens when he smashes, at high speeds, unlikely things together.

I found myself laughing aloud, not with humor, but with astonishment, at nearly every single title, and every single ending of Frank’s poems. It’s as if his title says: I’m going to add one and one together. Then you read the poem, thinking you might perhaps arrive at two. But you arrive at, say, a word “rubbing salve on its cock,” or a breath, or parents dying…. and it’s astonishing, because he really did add one and one, and the answer, I swear, really is a word rubbing salve on its cock, or him wishing that his parents will never die.

Sharing what I think may have been (some of, at least) the method behind the poems, I want to assure you, I didn’t find these to be exercises. I never found them to be flippant, or clever, or less than earnest. I found these poems to be brilliant inquiries into his own perceptions of the world. I found the poems to be quite joyful, and tender, and sensuous, and rich, and lush, and vibrant, and life-affirming in their endless possibility, and at times deeply dark and disturbing, and always profoundly intelligent.

I’m going to close with the words that Frank uses to close this collection, and then wait for you to read the book yourself, to absolutely delight in, and probably fucking cuss about a little bit-- because he found a way to say this in his poem, and we didn’t. I end, as Frank ends, “in the assholes of the mythical zebra.”

Enjoy!

MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK was born and raised in Illinois. He has previously published in The New Republic, Field, The Best Food Writing 2006, The Best Travel Writing 2008, Tampa Review, Epoch, Crazyhorse, Indiana Review, North American Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Creative Nonfiction, Willow Springs, Bellingham Review, Pleiades, The Florida Review, Ninth Letter, Rosebud, 6x6, Bat City Review, Gastronomica, The Madison Review, Cimarron Review, The Literary Review, The Journal and others. His work has been featured online at The Tupelo Press Poetry Project and Verse Daily. He received the 2005 Summer Fellowship from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, a 2006 Artist's Grant from the Vermont Studio Center, and a 2008 Fellowship in Prose from the Illinois Arts Council. He is the author of the chapbook Aardvark(West Town Press), BAROLO (forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press) the chapbook Four Hours to Mpumalanga (Pudding House Publications), and Sagittarius Agitprop, available from Black Lawrence Press.

Adjunct Fiction Instructor Sought

Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University is seeking an adjunct instructor in Fiction Writing to teach one course in Spring 2010, with the possibility of renewal for the following spring. Preference will be given to candidates with an MA or MFA in Creative Writing, publications in fiction, & experience in college level teaching. Teaching duties include leading an introductory fiction writing workshop, advising students, & assisting in the reading & assessment of final portfolios.

Please send application letter describing experience, CV, writing sample up to 35 pp, a statement of teaching philosophy, & 3 letters of recommendation to:FictionSternYU(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @) or to: Prof. Linda Shires, Chair, Dept. of English, Stern College for Women, 245 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Digital submissions preferred. Deadline for application is August 26. EOE. (CHE).

Unusual Calls for Submissions

The Best of Mormonism seeks submissions of published work written by, for, or about Mormons for inclusion in its 2009 edition. Deadline: August 31, 2009. The collection is designed to highlight the diversity and breadth of the Mormon literary community, thus we are interested in poetry, fiction, essays, comics, and plays that have been published in magazines, journals, and Web publications that do not have Mormon connections as well as those that do. Works need not have explicit Mormon references. All submissions must have been published in 2007 or 2008, with reprint rights still in the author’s hands. Please submit work either as a PDF document or as text in the body of the email to: bestofmormonism(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @). Include original publication information and a URL for the Internet version of the work if applicable.

Hint Fiction
hint fiction (n) : a story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story. Anthology Guidelines: Tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2010, W.W. Norton will publish an anthology of Hint Fiction. What is Hint Fiction? It’s a story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story. The thesis of the anthology is to prove that a story 25 words or less can have as much impact as a story 2,500 words or longer. The anthology will include between 100 and 150 stories. We want your best work. It’s possible to write a complete story in 25 words or less — a beginning, middle, end — but that’s not Hint Fiction. The very best Hint Fiction stories can be read many different ways. We want stories we can read again and again and never tire of. Stories that don’t pull any punches. Stories that make us think, that evoke some kind of emotional response. Take a look at the winners and honorable mentions of the Hint Fiction Contest for examples. Payment is $25 per story for World and Audio rights. For formatting purposes, you must include a title (which actually works in your benefit, as the title helps give a better “hint” of the overall story). Writers can only submit up to two stories, both embedded in the same e-mail. Don’t worry about a cover letter. We don’t care where you’ve been published or what graduate program you’ve attended — all author identification will be stripped by a third party so we will only see the stories and nothing but the stories. Submissions will open August 1 and close at midnight Eastern time August 31. Submit only to this address: hint.fiction(at)gmail.com. More here.

Charles Dickens short story contest
The “Scare the Dickens Out of Us” Ghost Story Contest is in conjunction with the annual “A Dickens Christmas In Lockhart” festival, which is held on the first weekend in December (Friday night, Saturday) in Lockhart, Texas. We want ghost stories. Here are the contest rules: 1. The contest is open to published and unpublished writers alike. All publication rights remain with the author. Contest judges and their immediate families are ineligible. 2. The ghost story must include a character from any of Charles Dickens’ works as part of your original story. 3. The story must be set in the month of December and around any of the December holidays. 4. The story must be 4,000 words or less, in English, typed double-spaced. 5. Entries must be original and unpublished. Only one entry per writer. 6. With your manuscript you must submit a completed contest entry form and $20 entry fee (check or money order). Download entry form at website http://clarklibraryfriends.com/ 7. You must mail your manuscript, completed contest entry form, and $20 entry fee to us at this address: Ghost Story Contest, co/Friends of the Library, P.O. Box 821, Lockhart, TX 78644. 8. Contest deadline is October 1, 2009. Your entry must be postmarked no later than October 1, 2009. Make your check or money order payable to Friends of the Dr. Eugene Clark Library. Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) if you want your manuscript returned to you. More here.

CONSEQUENCE magazine announces The Consequence Prize in Poetry
The prize will be awarded for the best poem addressing current war or armed conflict. It will be presented at a poetry event sponsored by CONSEQUENCE magazine at the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival on October 17, 2009. The winner will receive $100, have the selected poem published in both print and online editions of Consequence, be invited to read at the launch of Consequence Magazine's next print edition, and receive a three years subscription to the magazine. All poems submitted will be considered for publication in both print and online editions. Our Judge this year is poet and translator Kevin Bowen who will also present the award. More here.

ANDERBO SEEKS NOVELIST:
Anderbo.com is seeking to post ONE unpublished entire novel on its website by December 1, 2009 for at least the following six months. We will look at the FIRST 30 PAGES (up to 10,000 words) of your e-manuscript and decide within 60 days if we want to see more. THERE IS NO READING FEE and all literary rights will remain with the author. No novel submissions will be accepted after September 1st. We guarantee to choose and use one manuscript, and to pay an honorarium of $300 to the chosen author upon publication. For technical guidelines and address see the website.

Best New Poets Anthology Announces Winners

Best New Poets has announced the fifty poets selected by Kim Addonizio for their 2009 anthology. HFR congratulates all of the winners, particularly our past contributors: Danielle Deulen, Katy Didden and Brian Leary!

Contributor Spotlight - Sean Lovelace

What I Recall

I think I remember the day I wrote this flash fiction piece, entitled "How Some People like Their Eggs," forthcoming in HFR's issue #45. The wind was a wounded llama. I leaned in. I leaned. I started running toward the only hill in Muncie, Indiana. The hill is located in McCulloch Park and all of Muncie uses it for sledding, riding bikes down, disc golf (Hole # 14, a 400 + foot laser shot to a basket guarded by a copse of tulip poplars. I should know; I helped install the course.), Soap Box Derby contests (talk about Americana!), and one night some drunk teenager raced his car up the hill, jumped the top, shredded away the fencing (still missing even today. The city is broke so said fuck it), and crashed into a giant oak tree. Now you see why insurance for teens costs two arms, a leg, and a spleen. The teen lived, BTW. He came away from that incident (I refuse the term accident, since he meant to jump the hill. He longed to leap that hill in a car ever since he was an impressionable seven year old addicted to Dukes of Hazzard.) with a six-inch angry gash on his ankle, a fractured clavicle, a concussion, six months probation, and a bill from the city for five thousand dollars. (I can say for a fact he has not and will not pay the bill.) I play disc golf with the teen. His name is Nate and he drinks these little bottles of Shiraz while we play. One day he got so drunk he emptied out all the Frisbees from his bag and tried to poleaxe a Canada goose. I told him to stop. I told him, “Nathan, that goose is an animal just like us. Life’s tough enough without going out and making love to bad karma.” Nate stopped. I like that about Nate: he will reconsider things, if you catch him in time. I don’t even eat eggs, BTW. I think eating eggs is Spam milkshake crazy. Which means really crazy, I guess, with a glossy residue of regret.

That day I used the only peak in Muncie to do hill work. My quads went all guillotined photograph. My lungs folded, unfolded sweet. Running Tip for you! When running hills (and you should run hills regularly, if you are ferocious about running like me): take small steps, roll your shoulders to relax, drive your arms, lift your knees, and when really knackered, go for your inspirational mantra. You have a mantra, right? Mine is Let the festivities begin! Let the festivities begin! But that’s just me.

Writing tip for you! The physical is connected to the intellectual the way a potato is connected to crying. Or something. [I just looked out my kitchen window, into my backyard, and a squirrel leapt from a tree branch, for a telephone wire, missed the wire, fell to the ground, hunched there stunned for a second, then ran off and scrambled up a nearby walnut tree. So animals make mistakes, just like us. For some reason, it made me feel good, a little spark right now, a little crackle and glow like Cher, though I’m sure the squirrel is sulking somewhere embarrassed.] What I mean to say is that every writer should exercise at least once a day, even if it’s something simple, like chair-tossing, or push-up bets. You do know about push-up bets, right? You phone your friend. You say, “I bet you 1000 push-ups that Oprah Winfrey gives something shiny away on her show tomorrow.”

Then you watch the show. Etc. The winner of the bet calls the loser whenever they want and demands, “Do 50 push-ups right now” and the loser has to drop down—wherever, whenever, whatever—and do the push-ups, until the 1000 bet is paid.

Push-ups are basically awesome, just in general.

But I digress.

I ran back home, checked my mail (two lit mags, two bills, a magazine from an online gambling site [they wrapped this in black plastic, which made me feel creepy], a letter asking me to attend a nearby Catholic church, a flyer from a dentist, a magazine selling knives wholesale), petted my hyper dog, flipped the oven onto pre-heat 400, grabbed a cold can of beer, drank the beer in the shower (I find it annoying when the shower spray gets in the can, thus diluting my excellence), dried off, put on a T-shirt (this one read: D.H. LAWRENCE IS A WHORE) and boxers, and made Nacho Recipe # 49. I am obsessed with nachos, as anyone who knows me can verify. I once ate nachos for 41 straight days. I currently have 285 recipes for nachos in my synapses. # 49 is Tequila Surprise Nachos. You do this:

1.) Broil corn tortilla chips.
2.) Add a layer of Wisconsin cheese, shredded.
3.) Add pickled jalapeno slices.
4.) Add one mound Lemon-Pepper cole slaw.
5.) Drink three shots of tequila.

After the nachos I thought about napping but I have never taken a nap in my adult life, so changed the channel of my thought TV. I read a book by Deb Olin Unferth. In the book she had a flash fiction about composers and their lives and language playing around, jumping swimsuits into large spaces, empty pockets waking up alone in Kansas, all of that. So I immediately ripped off the structure (to the best of my ability) and wrote the draft of, “How Some People like Their Eggs.”

Writing Tip! The entire world is a structure, a scaffolding. Grab onto everything. Write to it! Rip something off the walls. John Mcphee once wrote an essay about oranges and the structure of the essay was an orange slowly unpeeling. Like that, I guess. There’s this one French dude (Perec, look it up) who wrote an entire novel without once using the letter e. If I met this man, I would either slap or pray to him, or both.

But I digress.

I don’t remember much else about that particular day. So. Off to my Treadmill Room to run on my treadmill until my knees sing the song of the taffy-haired girl I once met in North Carolina at a Cape Hatteras KOA campground. I’d give up five years of my life now to return to that storm-gusty day (salty lips, words, water, alive and tugging real like a dynamo, or maybe riptide). Then a shower, a beer (Yes, I am a man of routine), a lazy drive downtown to a Mexican place for nachos. Fact: I will drink one Dos Equis draft the size of my head. Which is the size of a rainstorm in Lincoln, Nebraska. Or the small hope of a salamander sighing. Something.

Writing Tip! Attack everything from a slant! Like a flashlight in the hands of a gospel singer during a thunderstorm, or the way a sailboat tacks into the wind (it goes sideways to get forward, no?).

[The squirrel is back. He’s eyeing my birdfeeder the way I want you to eye the blank, white, rumpled, stooped highway shoulders and sheets of the page.

But I do indeed digress.]

Sean Lovelace blogs at seanlovelace.com. He has a new flash fiction collection coming out soon by Rose Metal Press. The title story is "How Some People like Their Eggs," which you will read in the next issue of HFR. If you like/dislike his writing, maybe pick up the flash collection. [If you'd like to pre-order HFR's next issue, send an email to HFR@asu.edu]