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Anne Stewart’s poetry p f … good resource for poets and poetry lovers

annephotoAnne Stewart’s poetry p f is a wonderful go-to place when you want to expand your reading to include accomplished contemporary (mostly UK) poets. Assuming you meet the membership requirements, it can also be the means to making your own collection/s more visible on the Internet.

“Membership requirements” might seem to imply a certain elitism, but the standard is in my opinion not onerous but reasonable enough to ensure that the poets represented have refined their craft and have a serious interest in and commitment to poetry.

As I write this post, there are some 300 top-notch poets on poetry p f  and their collections might be difficult to find without this resource. I’m not a member, but I do like to make purchases from poetry p f. It’s convenient and, unlike Amazon, the poet pages are uniform and you can count on them to be there. They offer you a sample poem, a photograph and contact information as well as information about the publisher.

There’s an event page, largely London and surrounding areas, with a schedule of readings, workshops and courses. Included is a useful “Favorite” sites page offering resources that will help you connect with other poets. A convenient listing of competitions and calls for submissions makes it easier to target potential markets for your work. The home page features one poet and the poet featured is rotated.

poetry p f offers a rich collection of feature articles and Anne also has poetry cards available for purchase.  Anne welcomes commissions to produce tailor-made Poem Cards for purchases of 100 or more cards.

Since Anne is affiliated with Second Light Network of Women Poets (SLN), I find it convenient to pay my SLN member fees through her site. When I wanted to gift a membership (a great gift for the women poets in your life), I just emailed Anne to let her know I purchased an SLN membership and to whom it was supposed to go.  No dealing with nameless service representatives and policy inconsistencies.

In the May 2010 issue of acumen, a literary journal, Anne was interviewed by William Oxley and explained the “p f'” in the name.

The p f was Monty Python inspired – I thought we poets needed to rage a bit and the People’s Front, Popular or otherwise, seemed to fit the bill.”

Opportunity knocks:  16 November 2016 is the deadline for the Barnet poetry competition for adults & juniors and Anne Stewart is the judge for the adult category.  Details HERE.

the-janus-hour-fullANNE STEWART is a poet, reviewer, and provider of services to poets and poetry organisations. In 2000, she began working towards a life with poetry at the centre of it, joining the Post-graduate Creative Writing programme at Sheffield Hallam University. In 2003, she was awarded an MA with Distinction and in 2005, was selected as one of the “Ten Hallam Poets” represented in the anthology published by Mews Press (eds. Sean O’Brien, Steven Earnshaw and EA Markham). The anthology attracted high praise from top-calibre poets (Don Paterson, Julia Darling, Helen Dunmore).

In 2008, she won the Bridport Prize for her sonnet, Still Water, Orange, Apple, Tea. Judge, David Harsent, said of it “…what marks it out is the way this emotional commonplace is adapted to language … no line lacked a surprise … I liked its briskness – celebratory, but never cloying – and liked too, the fine-tuning: … a tone of voice that promotes brevity … where the notes in question sing and tease and intrigue … ”

Her first collection, The Janus Hour (Oversteps Books, 2010), “is characterised by a view of the world that is quizzical, appraising, unflinching yet non-judgemental: this is how things look from here, it says; take it or leave it. Her poems address, with the same deft lightness of touch, both uncomfortable truths about our time and the surreal in the everyday, achieving a rare consistency of expression without ever being predictable.” – Jeremy Page, editor, The Frogmore Papers.

© Anne’s photo and book cover art belong to her; the bio is from her site and is also under her copyright

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THE SUNDAY POESY: Opportunities, Events and Other Information and News

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CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS

Opportunity Knocks

CARBON CULTURE, The Intersection of Technology + Literature + Art “advocates a creative, thoughtful and visually appealing dialogue about our complex relationship to technology. We strive to promote the work of those who employ technology and utilize technological designs and terms in art and literature. Our collection of voices and artistic work explore who we are as human beings in a technological world to create a lasting impression at the intersection of technology, art and literature.” It publishes poetry as well as other literature and art.  Submission guidelines HERE.

THE BAKERY  “is  an online literary journal that features a new poem every morning, publishing the work of emerging and established voices. The Bakery is interested in representing a wide range of voices and is open to all styles. Send poetry that we want to eat, that we want to put on a cake or between two slices of other poems. Make us want to make poem sandwiches, poem brownies, and donuts that we would like to see filled with your poems.” Submission guidelines are HERE.

THE EMMA PRESS (charming!) has two calls-for-submissions open: One  is for poems about British and Irish kings and queens.  Tight deadline –  November 13 – but shared here on the odd chance that some reader has something ready to go. The other is for poems about animals and the deadline December 4th. Details HERE.

WHITE PINE PRESS  is not accepting new submissions except for the possibility of Poetry in Translation.  Send a query letter and a representative sample.  Details HERE.

THE MARIE ALEXANDER POETRY SERIES , an imprint of White Pine Press (above), publishes one or two books a year – single author collections of “prose poetry, flash fiction, short lyric essays and hybrid forms.” Details HERE.

THE BeZINE, a publication of The Bardo Group Begins in the process of pulling together the October issue and will continue to consider submissions until midnight (PDT) on October 12. Submit poetry, essay, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, photography, music videos and art or photography.  The theme for October is Rituals for Peace, Healing, Unity. The Rev. Terri Stewart (Beguine Again and The BeZine) hosts the October issue. Submission guidelines HERE.  Submit to bardogroup@gmail.com

The November issue’s theme is Caritas/Chesed/Metta (in other words, loving kindness). Deadline is the 10th. 

The December issue’s theme is The Healing Power of the Arts.

CONTESTS

Opportunity Knocks

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF STATE POETRY SOCIETIES sponsors fifty poetry contests a year. Details HERE.

CALIFORNIA STATE POETRY SOCIETY sponsors monthly theme poetry contests.  Details HERE. Membership information is HERE.

WHITE PINE PRESS POETRY PRIZE COMPETITION opens for submission of collections on July 1, 2017.  Cash award: $1,000 and publication. There’s a $20 free for entry, reading and processing. Details HERE.

EVENT

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Details on this event (the poets and the sponsoring organizations and topics) are HERE.

Reviews of two of Hélène Cardona’s books , poetry samples and an interview with Hélène are scheduled for November 24 in the Poet by Day’s popular series Celebrating American She-Poets, which will resume then.

KUDOS TO

TIDBITS

FROM WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY: a comprehensive listing of Poetry Terms: Brief Definitions

HEALING STORY ALLIANCE (HSA) “explores and promotes the use of storytelling in healing. Our goal as a special interest group of the National Storytelling Network (NSN) is to build a resource for the use of story in the healing arts and professions.

“We share experiences and skills to increase our own knowledge of stories and how best to use them to inform, nurture, inspire and heal, both organizations and individuals. We strive to reach beyond our storytelling community to engage all those in other service professions who can see the benefit of story as a vehicle for healing.”

Find “guidance and practical applications for storytelling, revealing and reflecting the many facets of healing story in the world today and in the past” on their website.  Thanks to our fave world-class storyteller, Naomi Baltuck (Writing Between the Lines, Life from a Writer’s POV and The BeZine).

THE POET BY DAY SUNDAY POESY

Submit your event, book launch and other announcements at least fourteen days in advance to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. Publication is subject to editorial discretion.

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HEADS-UP ROCHESTER, NY … “READING THE WORLD” With Hélène Cardona & Dennis Maloney

rtwcs_2016_cardona_handbill-bigThe French Embassy in the United States and Open Letter, the publishing arm (literature in translation) of University of Rochester in New York that sponsors “Reading the World,” announce their invitation to listen to renowned poet, translator, actress, and recent PEN USA translation prize judge Hélène Cardona (Life in Suspension, Salmon Poetry, 2016 and Beyond Elsewhere, White Pine Press, 2016).  Poet and publisher Dennis Maloney (White Pine Press) will also present.  The poets will read from their work and discuss the process of bringing international poetry to readers.

This event, free and open to the public, is scheduled for November 7 at 7 p.m. at ButaPub, 315 Gregory St, Rochester, New York 14620. Food and refreshments will be available. 

Hélène Cardona‘s recent books include the Award-Winning Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry, 2013) and the Hemingway Grant recipient Beyond Elsewhere (White Pine Press, 2016). She also translated Walt Whitman’s Civil War Writings for the Iowa International Writing Program’s WhitmanWeb. Her poetry collections have been translated into thirteen languages, including Romanian, Italian, Arabic, Macedonian, Serbian, Chinese, Spanish, Korean, and Hindi.  Hélène also co-edits Fulcrum: An Anthology of Poetry and Aesthetics, is Co-International Editor of Plume and contributes articles to numerous literary journals and magazines including The BeZine.

Book reviews, poetry samples and an interview with Hélène are scheduled for November 24 in the Poet by Day’s popular series Celebrating American She-Poets, which will resume then.

Dennis Maloney is a poet and translator. A number of volumes of his poetry collections have been published including The Map Is Not the Territory: Poems & Translations (Unicorn Press, 1990) and Just Enough (Palisade Press, 2009). His book Listening to Tao Yuan Ming was recently published by Glass Lyre Press. A bilingual German/English volume, Empty Cup will appear in Germany in 2017. His works of translation include: The Stones of Chile by Pablo Neruda, The Landscape of Castile by Antonio Machado, Between the Floating Mist:Poems of Ryokan, and the The Poet and the Sea by Juan Ramon Jimenez. He is also the editor and publisher of the widely respected White Pine Press in Buffalo, NY. Dennis divides his time between Buffalo, NY and Big Sur, CA

Making world literature available in English is crucial to opening our cultural borders, and its availability plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy and vibrant book culture. Open Letter strives to cultivate an audience for these works by helping readers discover imaginative, stunning works of fiction and poetry and by creating a constellation of international writing that is engaging, stimulating, and enduring.” Open Letter

Facebook Event

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BREATHLESS BETWEEN LANGUAGE & MYTH, a poem … and therein is your Wednesday writing prompt

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Here I am, suspended breathless
between language and myth.
Strands of undomesticated words
weave ladders to freedom, and

a dove in the stripy-barked birch
recites the works of Homer.
I found the rules of grammar
written on my tongue by the wind

and the alphabet strung like
seed-pearls around my willing neck.
Each day I take to the quarries,
hard mining for the sweetly lyrical,

blistered from digging in hot sands
and hard stone for parables.
The very walls that bound my heart
are fairly breached by the

gentle solace of poems spun
on a vision quest, on toiling
though the hill country of
my youthful and once indomitable

dreams: like dandelion fluff,
I blow them into history.
I write as though poetry is
the only real nourishment –
. . . . . .  .perhaps it is.

© 2016, poem, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved,  Photo ~ courtesy of morgueFile

WRITING PROMPT

Last month’s theme for The BeZine was: Rituals for Peace, Healing and Unity. Fittingly, Terri Stewart, our resident canoness, took the lead.

For some of us, our writing – whatever it may be – poetry, fiction, nonfiction, journaling – is our daily spiritual practice, a ritual of sorts, a way to heal and to connect with the best part of ourselves.

The inspiration for today’s writing prompt comes from my colleagues at the Zine:

Poet, essayist and vocalist, John Anstie, wrote “This poem represents the sentiment and spirit that is at the core of our mission here, Jamie, the Bardo/Beguine mission. ‘… as if poetry is the only real nourishment. Perhaps it is.’ Perhaps, at the same time, a call to the pen, rather than the sword, is also a source of nourishment that will yield, eventually, a harvest [of peace] for the world.”

Corina Ravenscraft, artist, poet, writer and activist, said “… poetry truly can be spiritual…”

Associate Pastor of Riverton United Methodist Church (Seattle, Washington), Rev. Terri Stewart, writer and founder of our sister site Beguine Again, wrote: “Digging for parables really echoes with what my experience is!”

How do you experience the practice of poetry or other art? Maybe you feel as our colleague – shamanic practitioner, psychotherapist, educator, and visual and theater artist – Michael Watson  does, that the “arts are the only real solace.”

In poem, story or creative nonfiction tell us about your personal creative rites and/or why you find consolation in them. Share your piece through Mister Linky … just click on the icon below and paste in the link to your piece so that I and other readers here might enjoy it.

Note: A link from one of my unrelated pieces might show up as the first post. It’s just left from another effort on a different site.  Tech challenged: I couldn’t remove it. Sigh! 😦