Publishing Chatter

I was leafing through Publisher's Weekly today, and they have one of their periodic poetry review sections this week. People snipe about "mainstream" poets getting all the attention, but I don't think the selection bears that out: Martha Ronk (Coffee House), X.J. Kennedy (BOA), Cate Marvin (Sarabande), A. Van Jordan (Norton), Translations of Paulo Henriques Britto (BOA), Fanny Howe (Graywolf), Translations of Laura Solorzano (Action Books), Juliana Spahr (Atelos Press), and Courtney Queeney (Random House).

I don't think that's a bad variety at all. Sure, Van Jordan is a "Norton poet" now, but he's not that many steps removed from being a D.C. poet who got his big break in 2001, when Tia Chucha published Rise.

That said, who is Courtney Queeney, and how did her first book get published by Random House? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm honestly curious. I've never run across her work in a journal; the biggest selection I find online is here, if that's even the same Courtney Queeney. PW says on one hand her "debut can sometimes sound more promising than achieved"; on the other, "there may be a following for this gifted and direct writer." I like how they take pains to specify that she's "direct"--it tells you something about the biases against poetry.

On another front, Tupelo is having its annual Open Reading Period again this July. After last year's ethical quagmire they didn't even broach the topic of offering comments...but they still left their fee at $35. Remember, that extra $10 was orginally justified by the promise of individual feedback.

Beautiful books. Talented authors. But $35? They should include a book from Tupelo backstock for that amount, don't you think?

...But I Still Need Quarters to Do Laundry

Woke up; reread the email; wasn't a dream. Checked several times.

Thanks to everyone for the outpouring of support and good wishes. If I can garner that same enthusiasm when Theories of Falling is actually in hand, I'll be a lucky woman. So many things happened right off the bat: withdrawing from book contests, editing my bio note, lining up blurbers, seeing a smidgen of Marie Howe's comments ("...the tough lyric voice that got under my skin"). The domino effect is both scary and gratifying.

This weekend, though, I went to the beach with old high school friends (and their kids), and that was a good reminder: a crying two year old is not amused by your big poetry news. I still need to do laundry. I still have to go to the DMV. My sister just won a big college scholarship ($10,000!), and for her application she produced 50 pages of prose. Single-spaced. She's way cooler than I am.

I was reading an article today about the increasing popularity of "midlevel careers"; lower pay, better hours. The biggest question I get from non-poets, in response to the book news, is "Does this mean you can be a full-time poet?" After I say "Um, not likely," they usually say "Well, does that mean you can teach, though?"

It's been several years since I thought of publishing as a stepping-stone to teaching. With many friends who are also college profsssors, I've come to believe that it is VERY difficult to strike the balance of doing justice to your student and nourishing your own creative impulse. I like editing; working at a quarterly magazine, the pace is never too frantic. It's a job I can love, but also leave at the office at the end of each day. If that means that I'll never have a salary in the triple digits...I'm okay with that.

C. Dale Young and Peter Pereira are both doctors and poets, and it figures prominently onto their blogs. Steve Schroeder periodically mentions his work as a resume-editor. Matthew Thorburn made a passing acknowledgement that he works at a law firm in his blog post the other day; I'd have never guessed. I'm curious, what are some of the other "day jobs" held by poet-bloggers? How high-stress is the job, and how does that figure into your creative life?

The View from Cloud 9

So this is me, in Switzerland, two weekends ago. I can now reveal that after getting off my nine-hour plane ride home, I checked messages and learned...

My manuscript, "Theories of Falling," won the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize selected by Marie Howe. The prize carries a $2,000 award and publication of the book in Spring 2008 by New Issues Poetry and Prose (at Western Michigan University).

I don't know quite what to say...other than I am extremely thrilled, and grateful, and so happy to share this news with all of you.