the Prairie Schooner blog

New Poetry 2009

An amazing poet and contributor to Prairie Schooner, it’s nice to see that Stephen Dunn’s What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009 has recently come out in January from W.W. Norton. Even though being both a senior poetry reader and student can prove busy, Dunn’s newest is sure not to be passed up by this poet.

Also out this year is Jean Valentine’s Lucy: A Poem. Years ago Jean Valentine visited a workshop I was in and she was an astounding reader of poetry and humble poet. This book surely shouldn’t be missed.

Lastly, Delivered by Sarah Gambito is out, and if it’s as giving a book as Matadora, this one will certainly find a home on my bookshelf as well. Only five weeks has passed since the New Year but already it’s shaping up to be a good one for poetry.

                                -John Chavez

Crowing

Sometimes a fellow poet admires a poet’s work from a distance. This is the case with Mary Crow. As a student at Colorado State University, in creative writing in poetry, I never had the chance to work with her. She must have been on leave. Even so, I was introduced to her work in a journal a friend lent to me, and I was an immediate fan of her work, despite our differences in writing style.

It’s lines like these in “The Most Beautiful Man,” published in the Winter 2008 issue of Prairie Schooner, that take any poet by surprise:

     You were the most beautiful man in Herzliya.
     Dried figs and pears, a modernist view of the sea—

     After rain the trees looked silken.

Instantly, the reader is provided a sense of the man, that he’s beautiful, of course, and a sense of place, but the second line adds so much mileage with so few words: with “a modernist view of the sea—.” How gorgeous are these lines. And how telling are they of the man: complex, observant.

Well, I often wonder what working with such a talented poet might’ve done for my work. I will never know, but what I do know is that I still love to see Mary Crow’s poetry in print and admire and learn from her from a distance. 

                                -John Chavez

The Band and Their Solo Projects

One of our two senior fiction readers, Dave Madden, is too professional to point out in this space that his side project, The Cupboard, received an approving nod from Luna Park, an interesting online quarterly (and, they say, occasional) review of lit journals. Such as ourselves. And The Cupboard. It’s an interesting site, so head over there to learn more. You’ll see that they liked the story Madden and his co-editor, Adam Peterson, selected.

It’s a movable feast around here, people, and it’s just a whole damn lot of fun to work with writers like Dave. But don’t tell him I said that, OK? He’ll try to kill me.

Top Ten Topics for Writers, According to Poets & Writers

In the recent “Tools for Writers” section provided by Poets & Writers online, the Top Ten Topics for Writers column pulls together some sage advice, from “Publishing a Book,” to finding and submitting to “Writing Contests,” to the pitfalls of some “Vanity Presses,” to choosing an “MFA Program,” among others. In the “Literary Magazines” subsection, for example, P&W covers such topics as submission guidelines, simultaneous submissions, cover letters, and determining which magazines are right for you.

As a late-bloomer of a poet at 26, I blanketed the review & journal world with as many submissions as I could, hoping to find a home for at least one poem. Later, I refined my search and started to think about the magazine’s mission, the writers published (if I knew and loved their work), and the editorial voice and viewpoint of the review or journal. These, as we all know, are the questions that best help us find the right home for our poetry.

Now, back to the manuscripts bins here at Prairie Schooner. As always, here’s to finding a home for your best loved poems.

          -John Chavez