Behind the scenes people all over the world – including those of us at The BeZine – are getting ready to promote poetry and other arts as game changers. Words can have legs after all and 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change (100TPC) puts “act” into activism and community involvement. Under the direction of Cofounders Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, the focus for 2018 Global is on reading poetry to children. From all over the world 2,000 individuals and groups have committed to participate in this initiative from March 24 – 29.
Will you read a poem to a child on September 29 as part of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change Global initiative “Read A Poem To A Child?”
This seems to be an important year to highlight the significance of children in the world. We are increasingly aware of their fragility.It is time to take a moment in this busy, crazy life we live, and share something we cherish.
“My Aunt Yvonne and Uncle Larry gave me The Golden Book of Poetry, which was published in 1947. I kept it for years. Sometimes my aunt would read it to me. Absolute delight! (I can still hear her voice.) As I grew older I became aware that famous writers wrote the poems: Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter de la Mare and others. The poems were playful, relevant and stayed with me. There was one by Walter de la Mare, The Cupboard, in which a fat little grandmother rations out Banbury Cakes and lollipops.
“Of course my own small plump grandmother – called Sidto by us – wouldn’t have known Banbury Cake. Our “cake” would be baklava and our “lollipops” would be semsemiyeh (sesame candy) but, like the grandma in the poem, my grandmother was indeed the keeper of the cupboard and she was in charge of dishing up sweet and savory. So the poem was a joy and my first hint that poetry crosses borders.”
At the Zine, we’ll celebrate 100TPC with a focus on Social Justice for our upcoming issue, September 15. Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play) is heading our peaceful charge for that edition and also for our virtual 100TPC event on Saturday, September 29. This has become a tradition at the Zine and Michael is skilled in handling both these responsibilities. We hope you’ll join us on the 15th for the September issue of the Zine and for 100TPC on the 29th to help us support this global effort and its ideals.
– Jamie Dedes, Managing and Founding Editor, The BeZine
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“I am the poet of the poor, because I was poor when I loved; since I could not give gifts, I gave words.” Ovid
CALLS OR SUBMISSIONS
Opportunity Knocks
ABLE MUSE publishes two-to-three times a year and welcomes submission of humorous or light poetry, short fiction, interviews, book reviews, essays on metrical poetry, personal essays and memoir, photography and artwork on a rolling basis. Details HERE.
THE MASSACHUSETTS REVIEW, A Quarterly of Literature The Arts and Public Affairs will open for submissions on October 1 for articles, essays, fiction, poetry, and translation. $50 honorarium. $3 submission fee. Details HERE.
THE MISSOURI REVIEW publishes poetry, fiction, and general interest nonfiction. Payment: $40 per printed page. Details HERE.
NEW LETTERS REVIEW publishes fiction, nonfiction and poetry and the next deadline is May 31, 2019. Submission fee. Details HERE.
ODDBALL MAGAZINE – poetry, art, and entertainment for the masses – including performance pieces and music videos. Details HERE. “We are not your normal poetry magazine. We want to make poetry universal.”
RATTLE MAGAZINE publishes poetry and translation and submissions are accepted year-round. No submission fees. Paying market. Details HERE.
WORLD LITERATURE TODAY, University of Oklahoma publishes essays, book reviews, fiction, poetry, art, photography and audio. Editorial calendar for 2019 and submissions guidelines HERE.
THE BeZINE, Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be. Submissions for the December issue – themed A Life of the Spirit – closes on November 10 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific .
Please send text in the body of the email not as an attachment. Send photographs or illustrations as attachments. No google docs or Dropbox or other such. No rich text. Send submissions to bardogroup@gmail.com.
Publication is December 15th. Poetry, essays, fiction and creative nonfiction, art and photography, music (videos or essays), and whatever lends itself to online presentation is welcome for consideration.
No demographic restrictions.
Please read at least one issue. We DO NOT publish anything that promotes hate, divisiveness or violence or that is scornful or in any way dismissive of “other” peoples.
December 2018 issue, Deadline November 10th, Theme: A Life of the Spirit
The BeZine is an entirely volunteer effort, a mission. It is not a paying market but neither does it charge submission or subscription fees.
Previously published work may be submitted IF you hold the copyright. Submissions from beginning and emerging artists as well as pro are encouraged and we have a special interest in getting more submissions of short stores, feature articles, music videos and art for consideration.
The Poet by Day
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
Reminder:
Response deadline is Monday, September 10, at 8 p.m. Pacific. Poems are on theme are published on this site on Tuesday, the September 11. Details HERE.
Reminder:
ATTENTION EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS
BEST OF THE NET ANTHOLOGY
Open call for submissions of poems, stories, essays, creative nonfiction to be considered for a Best of the Net Anthology published by Sundress Publications. Submissions must come from editors of journal, chapbook, zine and so on. Deadline is September 30, 2018. Details HERE.
Paul Brookes
FYI: Paul Brookes, a stalwart participant in The Poet by Day Wednesday Writing Prompt, is running an ongoing series on poets, Wombwell Rainbow Interviews. Connect with Paul if you’d like to be considered for an interview. Visit him, enjoy the interviews, get introduced to some poets who may be new to you, and learn a few things.
CONTESTS
Opportunity Knocks
THE MISSOURI REVIEW Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry is open for entries through October 1, 2018. $5,000 award for each genre. Details HERE.
THE MISSOURI REVIEW Miller Audio Prize for recordings of prose, poetry, documentary, and humor is open for entries through January 2019. $1,000 award in each category. Details HERE.
NARRATIVE MAGAZINE Fall 2018 Story Contest is now open for submissions of short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, and graphic stories. Cash awards. Entry fee: $26. Entries are considered for publication and become eligible for the Narrative prize. Deadline: November 30, 2018. Details HERE.
NEW LETTERS & BkMk PRESS offers a publication award for fiction (entry open now and due by October 28, 2018). The Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction (due by May 20, 2019), The New Letters Prize for Fiction (due by May 20, 2019) and The New Letters Prize for Poetry (due by May 20, 2019). The last three competitions listed open for submissions on November 1, 2018. Details HERE.
DON’T FORGET ON SEPTEMBER 29 as part of 100,000 Poets (and friends) for Change Global 2018:
Accessible anytime from anywhere in the world:
The Poet by Day always available online with poems, poets and writers, news and information.
The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, online every week (except for vacation) and all are invited to take part no matter the stage of career or status. Poems related to the challenge of the week (always theme based not form based) will be published here on the following Tuesday.
The Poet by Day, Sunday Announcements. Every week (except for vacation) opportunity knocks for poets and writers. Due to other weekend commitments, this post will often go up late.
THE BeZINE, Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be – always online HERE.
Beguine Again, daily inspiration and spiritual practice – always online HERE. Beguine Again is the sister site to The BeZine.
YOUR SUNDAY ANNOUNCEMENTS may be emailed to thepoetbyday@gmail.com. Please do so at least a week in advance.
If you would like me to consider reviewing your book, chapbook, magazine or film, here are some general guidelines:
send PDF to jamiededes@gmail.com (Note: I have a backlog of six or seven months, so at this writing I suggest you wait until June 2018 to forward anything.Thank you!)
nothing that foments hate or misunderstanding
nothing violent or encouraging of violence
English only, though Spanish is okay if accompanied by translation
your book or other product should be easy for readers to find through your site or other venues.
TO CONTACT ME WITH ANNOUNCEMENTS AND OTHER INFORMATION FOR THE POET BY DAY: thepoetbyday@gmail.com
TO CONTACT ME REGARDING SUBMISSIONS FOR THE BeZINE: bardogroup@gmail.com
PLEASE do not mix the communications between the two emails.
Often information is just that–information– and not necessarily recommendation. I haven’t worked with all the publications or other organizations featured in my regular Sunday Announcements or other announcements shared on this site. Awards and contests are often (generally) a means to generate income, publicity and marketing mailing lists for the host organizations, some of which are more reputable than others. I rarely attend events anymore. Caveat Emptor: Please be sure to verify information for yourself before submitting work, buying products, paying fees or attending events et al.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. I currently run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read byNorthern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
“These verses believe; they love; they hope; that is all.” Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works
The house that does not exist
(Ah, Shiraz, the Nightingales sing
at night)
nothing but the whole
hope exists
(do not sell carpets with
patterns, Fatima).
There the river flows into
River. As a dream in
dreams
(he speaks nothing of sorrow
already, you with a veil ).
They quietly sing,
sing without being heard,
without having them.
Quietly, they quietly squeeze
the fingers of my hands
The poem above was Bozhidar Pangelov’s (a.k.a. bopan) response to my short story, The Damask Rose Garden, a fairytale meant to bring attention to the lives of refugees escaping areas of violent conflict.
I’m always held breathless by the lyric beauty of Bozhidar’s poems. English is not his first language, so he’s the more impressive for that.
According to one reviewer, he “has been present among contemporary Bulgarian poets for some time, a long time. He is a poet who manages to disorder the order of the usual in order to breach a material world for a more human world of ideas and feelings. Using dramatic tensions within the poetic and semantic, Pangelov’s spare yet verdant imagery evokes the sound of bamboo sticks and Zen Buddhist monks, poem after poem.”
Writer and poet Palmi Ranchev says, ‘Pangelov will enrich the palette of world poetry with new colors and nuances.’
Of what I’ve read to date of Bozhidar’s work I’d have to agree with these analyses. However spare his poems are, they are never stark. They are never rigid. There’s movement, color, feeling. The sharp edges of pain are all the more striking juxtaposed against the subtleties of his style. Lovely!
“There the river flows into
River. As a dream in
dreams”
Visit Bozhidar’s blog. He often shares poems there that he has written in English and – sometimes – we are fortunate to have Bozhidar participate in Wednesday Writing Prompt.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive.” Jorge Luis Borges in Boast of quietness
I am pleased and honored to introduce DEBASIS MUKHOPADHYAY (between ink and inkblot) here today, though I suspect there are many who already know his work.
Debasis isthe author of the chapbook “kyrie eleison or all robins taken out of context” (Finishing Line Press, 2017). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals & anthologies, including Posit, Words Dance, The Curly Mind (UK), Erbacce (UK), Strange Poetry (UK), Yellow Chair Review, I Am Not A Silent Poet (UK), The New Verse News, Rat’s Ass Review :Love & Ensuing Madness, Writers Against Prejudice (UK), Manneqüin.Haüs, Algebra of Owls (UK), The Skinny Poetry Journal, Of/With : Journal of Immanent Renditions, Anapest Journal, Communicators League (Nigeria), No Tribal Dance (UK), Quatrain.Fish, Duane’s Poe Tree, Walking Is Still Honest, Leaving My Shadow : A Tribute to Anna Akhmatova, Thirteen Myna Birds, Whale Road Review, The Apache Poetry Blog (Sweden), Scarlet Leaf Review, Silver Birch Press, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Foliate Oak, Eunoia Review, Revolution John, Fragments of Chiaroscuro, Down in the Dirt, With Painted Words (UK), The Wagon Magazine, Snapping Twig, Words Surfacing, Praxis, Apple Fruits of an Old Oak,and Voice of Monarch Butterflies. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net.
He was born in India & spent many years of his life in Kolkata (Calcutta), where he began writing poems. A fair number of poems in pora gach o megh oré, his debut collection of poetry in Bengali (Art Publishing, 2005), date back to this time of his life in India. Debasis holds a PhD in literary studies from Université Laval, Québec, Canada. His doctoral thesis constitutes an instance of multidisciplinary approach, exploring the linkage between two broad themes of social epistemology : travel and spatiality. The work is focused on the analysis of the Occidental subjectivity’s search for self and its perception of spatiality through Third World travel. The thesis can be found here :
Debases now lives in Montreal with his wife and his son. When his hand turns poetry, he just walks up to Monnet’s poppy field against the wall & bends down to swaying flowers thinking of the words gone in blood. When he is not writing, his best inspiration turns out to be what Xu Schen wrote (58 CE ̶ ca. 147 CE) : “Ink, whose semantic component is ‘earth‘, is black.”
Connect with Debasis at debmukhop@yahoo.ca or @dbasis_m on Twitter.
India journal
New Delhi : to get more than the dawn
a red tulle body flaring up.
the mosquito net
white & whooshing at times
& this foundry of wings of mosquitoes
now ready for the spilled over blood.
here sun.
somewhere birds crack the sky
dawn what I fear has never been so late
kid’s head buried in my chest.
do I know
what’s to cry like a bleating sheep
broken lines unfurls K’s poems in my thoughts
obliterating the bleeding sun dissolving into now a distant hum
very soon a cacophonous mix
what’s K to make of it in his poems
I think of the young poet of Kolkata.
somewhere the oblique overpasses ask for boundless love
slogging through memories
snuffing out the first azan of the day & the litanies of the stray dogs
kid’s skull rolls on my chest
his eyes waking to dawn
what’s that poet to make of it
kid’s eyes etched on his notebook page
which is perhaps whiter than the mosquito net now emptied like times
when I used to live in this land
& never had to step inside.
tomorrow I would be again in Kolkata
brushing dust from a palimpsest
today I would just pass the day
Kipling Sahib gazing hatefully on New Delhi
the breeze stirring a tattered liana of madhabilata
high up among the colonial columns
dust on dust
to creep through
Kolkata : the waterboarding
K’s poems are now bowing lower than this plane
bleeding off its speed
the cinnamon colored brick kilns look plastered by a green
that feels so unwanted in a blood brick telecast on BBC
years of rising smoke have gnawed the moulded bricks but the green
green green so green that I turn to Lorca’s ballad
& cry like a fool unheeded
for the girl of bitterness
until the touchdown when I hear K whispering
I leave you alone for the eve
now you would be too blind to trust my poems
begin me only when you end your quick days & nights in Kolkata
when you are left again to think that
you are still stuck like an albino bone in its craw made of loose scoria
these long years
these long years
were not so imminent in my mother’s dream of me becoming a Caliph one fine day
seven thousand miles away.
these long years were not a life book that rustles inside memories dying in the throat.
for a crown of light
she has been counting a thousand & one nights.
every morning
kneeling to the earth she tries to find me again amongst the sprouts.
ha the world has to pass
mutters my father
sparrows cluster in the back of his throat.
& here we are home, kid
hello hello
I say opening the gates of shadows of the crows
aloft & aground.
the long-spiked coconut tree leaves dance across K’s sun-blazed notebook page
capturing kid’s fingers making a ghost with a lump of earth
mine tearing the sword-shaped leaves only to reminisce all afternoon
upon a palm frond hat from my schooldays
maybe everything might have been…
everything like your face in my hands
dark eyes glistening in the folds
like malaria now & then
those love vomit & rum stained clothes moving under the coal iron in the neighborhood
coming back laundered the following afternoon
only to redeem truth
& to rehearse a hundred summers of solitude…
to think I’m going to see you again tonight
a conjurer had his time
on earth this is the place
where I can sing I am your man
a place that has no place in time
or maybe it’s always just half passed
like this late afternoon sun on water in K’s notebook page
like this fish put out to crawl through a hologram
never failing kid
fish eyes always give him thrills
processions pass
the foreheads of the deceased pressed against the cobwebbed evening
feel the reference point that had rattled so hard in life
now the queue in the burning ghats
souls reassured once oxidized flake after flake
& then beguiled by the creeping waters.
placid slumbers the Ganges like the night at the bottom of the root
this is the country
where cicadas chase every evening the crackling stars of each cast & class.
my friend sings taking my breath away
the dead to become boats floating downward the rim of the dark skies
drifting anew in the city alleys
in search of hearts that had no refuge from any versions of hearts.
processions pass
shouts drawling a tribute to dawn
poppy red flags
a street full of scars
you ask me how I feel now with my eyes peeled
K’s poems stopped to bleed into the evening
so wet & claiming
now again mouth into mouth
we keep frisking & gamboling round the night
we come & coming on
like a hemorrhage
like Fidel Castro floating belly up dying of his own death
O Sultan mine, I just read your poem Notice to recast where looking on your flowerpot sky you feel the smudge of my absence on your skin. You hear the train behind the fence, you hear the rain in the kitchen and you are reminded of the necessity of touch. Several lines down you say, “I heard it and I heard it again. A song that stayed unopened in my throat.” Honestly, I am never very sure how your poetry works on me. You could hear everything : the rainstorms behind the kites, the pantomime in the trammels, the trampoline behind the rampages, the songbirds in the pantechnicons… everything across your roughcast of solitude. And everything reminds you of everything, from windpipe sonata to wingspan of a pansy. I wish I could understand how you napalm me while I sleep. As if just like my body my mind also can’t shake you and always awaiting you in bed unopened. True that poetry never sucks and the blancmange sloughing in the overdone ruts between my thighs. Sultan dear one, my husband, my boyfriend, my needleman of tournament, my winger right to left, my slaloming tramline behind my fertility, my panegyric of fucking superintendent, why can’t I understand your poems? Or why can’t I just write a poem that is what when my handgun trades the simile of blankness? But that won’t make it all right. No point in blitzkrieging to unbalance the brain. Let’s think about honeyed baklavas and listen to balalaikas. If you are my bloody bastard, I remain your bloodied bitch.
Poet and writer, I was once columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers.
My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman.
Thank you for sharing your love of words. Comments will appear after moderation.
“My Aunt Yvonne and Uncle Larry gave me The Golden Book of Poetry, which was published in 1947. I kept it for years. Sometimes my aunt would read it to me. Absolute delight! (I can still hear her voice.) As I grew older I became aware that famous writers wrote the poems: Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter de la Mare and others. The poems were playful, relevant and stayed with me. There was one by Walter de la Mare, The Cupboard, in which a fat little grandmother rations out Banbury Cakes and lollipops.
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 