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Six and Rain Sestina
SIX by Charlotte Mandel
At six, my cheeks were apple red.
Relatives pinched me like fruit on a stand,
testing me. I longed to be pale,
glassy and flat like the people
reflected in black mirror windows
staring in the howl of subway tunnels.
Riding to Coney Island, the tunnels
blasted into daylight. Veiny red
blobs flooded my eyes. Sun melted the windows.
I jumped and slid off the wicker to stand,
squares imprinted on my thighs. I smelled people
and corned beef. I could hear the rattle of my pail.
Under my wet wool suit, sand rubbed the pale
hidden chinks of my body. I dug tunnels
with care, my fingers creeping like people,
sandhogs meeting, their torches red
fire boring through. I mixed mud to stand
firm, fit in bits of shell for windows—
white, like eyes of a fish. Windows
couldn't be trusted. Glass looked pale
but might be backed with silver, force you to stand,
rigid, planted in a screaming tunnel
watching faces staring in the dim red
narrow passage, the eyes of bodiless people.
In the movies, behind the screen, real people
ballooned like silhouettes in windows.
My mother sat beside me, offering a red
apple that felt cold and black in the pale
gigantic flickering talking tunnel.
A man was touching me—I didn't understand
why my mother looked away, letting me stand
it, letting me suffer eyes and hands of people—
the man's fingers groping for tunnels
under my dress. The wall in front was a window
framing a strange man's eyes magnified, pale—
a scream in my throat like sand, burning red—
"We'll go home, your skin is red." My mother made me stand,
pulled off my bathing suit. Pale bodiless eyes of people
stared through black mirror windows at my body screaming in tunnels.
Copyright 2010 by Charlotte Mandel
RAIN SESTINA by Chuck Levenstein
Patience is a virtue nurtured by endless rain:
Old forests are proud of their ability to wait
While lesser shrubs insist on irrigation ditches
And pipes of stolen water, streams diverted,
Dams inserted to pool and pump the skies
While the trees and I are dry or wet as Nature wills.
My tribe is not inclined to subdue weather with its will
Our rites include no prayer or sacred dance for rain
Or sun; legend tells that for forty years we had to wait
With backpacks and flat bread, trudge through desert ditches
And dunes behind old Moses, from refuge diverted
Because the fool struck a rock, impatient with the skies
A pity we were abandoned to sand and white skies,
And a jealous god insistent on his will,
When there were swimming deities who loved rain,
Imbibed heavenly nectar and were content to wait
While we stumbled away from digging Egyptian ditches
(Desire to escape from slavery, of course, not to be diverted.)
Suppose, just suppose, the fleeing caravan had been diverted
And dark Atlantic waters parted under Brazilian skies,
And we trailed the Amazon drenched as a wet god willed,
My ancestors might have learned the Portuguese for "rain",
And armed with arrow and bow we would wait
To ambush Herzog's Jesuits in soggy ditches!
Alas, we were not born with the britches to sit in ditches!
The fate of a destined stream cannot be diverted,
Exiled tribes may yet find their way to Himalayan skies
Where upstream Tzaddiks spin the wheel of no-one's will
And on Bhuddish heads snow falls, quiet as this summer's rain,
And Godot! There he is! Sits but doesn't wait.
These umbrella musings keep us dry while we wait
For slippery waters to cease slithering by in roadside ditches.
Our wetlands misery, malarial mold and all, must be diverted
Until clouds dissipate, as in memory did clear the skies
And they filled with radiant Apollo's will.
How long will our patience be tried by this damned rain!
Yes, even flowery patience will wilt if forced to wait
For an end to endless rain, the petals diverted
From terran skies end their short lives in a ditch.
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Levenstein
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
The sestina is scary. That's what I think most poets think, and I find that sad because the sestina is one of the most enjoyable ways I have ever found to write a poem.
But I think I know why they're scary (I have three reasons, actually) and this month in Critique Corner, with contributions from two highly accomplished poets, I'd like to see if I can allay some fears.
They are Charlotte Mandel with "Six", which was originally published in her collection A Disc of Clear Water (Saturday Press, 1982), and Chuck Levenstein, editor of the former online zine Poems Niederngasse, with "Rain Sestina".
Scary Thing #1: I Flunked Math
These charts one sees all over the Internet! They make the form appear like kabbalistic numerology comprehensible only to pattern-seeking savants. No! Remember this is a form invented by people who wove their own belts; the rules of the sestina are no more complicated than tying a macramé knot, each line of poem, a cord of twine. As a string of knots, the pattern doesn't refer back to the first knot but just to the previous. The stanzas spool off of one another: 6,1/5,2/4,3 of the previous stanza, 6 times—a simple braid.
Now to finish a row, some sort of edging stitch is needed. In sestinas, this is called the envoi. Although once there were traditional patterns for the envoi, they have long ago been abandoned to more general rules: all the end words appear somewhere in the last three lines, usually two per line, one at the end and one somewhere in the middle. Also, most sestinas end with the last word of the poem's first line. Not only does this not require any computer programs to remember, but it is a pleasure of the form to exploit it to expressive effect.
Notice how Charlotte Mandel does this in "Six". The end words correspond with the end words from the first stanza as 1,2,3,4,5,6—not just a clever reference to the title and form, but highly expressive as well: a childish counting up suiting the theme and adding an ominous touch.
Now, the evolution of variations on the envoi is an essay in itself, which brings us to...
Scary Thing #2: History is Long
It seems one can't enter a discussion of the sestina without first encountering its long history. To be fair, its history is quite interesting, in part because more details of it are known, at least more so than some of the other forms of its day. It makes a good story that no one can resist. Unfortunately though, all this ado has the effect of casting the form as unapproachably venerable. No again. Sestina is not venerable; it is vernacular. (Allow me just one colorful factoid: its main proponent, Arnaut Daniel, was depicted in Dante's Purgatory as the vernacular poet.) More importantly, the sestina has had numerous revivals amongst poets since, clearly attesting to the pleasure they give one to write.
Why? Because the sestina is a prose form, built in sentences not phrases, unlike its more design-dependent contemporaries, the triolet and the villanelle. As opposed to these phrase-repetition forms in which the phrase drives the poem, the end words in a sestina serve more as destinations. Choosing how to get from one to the next is much of the fun.
As a prose form, the sestina is particularly suited for argument. In Levenstein's poem, for example, stanza four begins with "Suppose" and stanza five with "Alas." These are rhetorical terms, meant to propose new facets.
Most sestinas are written in the third-person form, often covering big sweeps of time as Levenstein has done. Elizabeth Bishop's famous "Sestina" offers an interesting contrast. This poem reads as if it were a screenplay—so many shifts in vantage point.
Bishop has chosen present tense for her narrative. It did occur to me to wonder how that might work for Mandel's poem, especially in the first line of the sixth stanza, if not all the way through.
In both cases, the guideposts of end words elicit surprising turns in the journey. In this sense, the sestina is a poetic form.
It is poetic in another sense as well, that is, in its music. The sestina has a way of generating riffs. Scan the left-hand column of "Rain Sestina," and you will detect a pattern of "and"s resolved in the envoi as "an end".
Now a form that shifts and riffs lends itself to humor. (Though the all-humor-all-the-time mode that dominates the form's latest revival, the postmodern sestina, is admittedly amusing—all right, often very amusing—it limits the expressive range of the form to glib to outrageous.) Levenstein made me laugh twice in stanza five, just the right time to vary the tone and keep the poem lively.
A second characteristic of the postmodern sestina, obviously, is to be self-referential, or perhaps more apt in this case, form-referential. Charlotte Mandel accomplishes this nicely in her envoi as mentioned above. Her title is a hint as well.
But there is a problem with being too self-referential: it can be paralyzing.
Scary Thing #3: But, But...What If I Choose Wrong?
All the free advice out there about homonyms and words that can be used in multiple tenses and invisible words and words from the same family and so on, turn a form so relaxed it could easily be used by a child into an ordeal. Moreover, cute as the postmodern wink can be, too much self-consciousness about the end words puts an inordinate emphasis on something secondary to meaning.
In practical terms, you need about 45 words in your first stanza. You can get those words from anywhere, a diary entry, the back of a cereal box, one of the poems in your unfinished file. Now pick some words you think you might like to work with. Choose wisely: thematically, musically, sure, but don't fret it. You will discover that it is possible to make adjustments.
In fact, so adjustable is this form that you can begin with any stanza and the pattern will hold. Pin the cut stanzas back onto the end. Often the meaning will render this ridiculous and new lines will need to be composed, but sometimes they merely need a bit of reworking. At best, sometimes this is just the leap a poem needs to keep it energized.
Here's how this revision would work with using the poems of both of our guests as examples:
In Levenstein's "Rain Sestina" the last two stanzas and envoi would now be:
These umbrella musings keep us dry while we wait
For slippery waters to cease slithering by in roadside ditches.
Our wetlands misery, malarial mold and all, must be diverted
Until clouds dissipate, as in memory did clear the skies
And they filled with radiant Apollo's will.
How long will our patience be tried by this damned rain!
Patience is a virtue nurtured by endless rain:
Old forests are proud of their ability to wait
While lesser shrubs insist on irrigation ditches
And pipes of stolen water, streams diverted,
Dams inserted to pool and pump the skies
While the trees and I are dry or wet as Nature wills.
Yes, even flowery patience will wilt if forced to wait
For an end to endless rain, the petals diverted
From terran skies end their short lives in a ditch.
In Mandel's "Six" the last two stanzas and envoi would now be:
why my mother looked away, letting me stand
it, letting me suffer eyes and hands of people—
the man's fingers groping for tunnels
under my dress. The wall in front was a window
framing a strange man's eyes magnified, pale—
a scream in my throat like sand, burning red—
At six, my cheeks were apple red.
Relatives pinched me like fruit on a stand,
testing me. I longed to be pale,
glassy and flat like the people
reflected in black mirror windows
staring in the howl of subway tunnels.
"We'll go home, your skin is red." My mother made me stand,
pulled off my bathing suit. Pale bodiless eyes of people
stared through black mirror windows at my body screaming in tunnels.
In both cases, there is most certainly something to be said for the choice. As Levenstein's poem currently stands, the final stanza is sort of a summation, resounding themes that have been previously stated—another god brought in, a return to the theme of patience. This poem has just been something to do to kill time while it rained. But in the new arrangement, the thematic statement "Patience is a virtue nurtured by endless rains" is now offered as a wisdom discovered—way more worthwhile than a time killer (at least to me as a reader). The address shifts too, from "we" to "I," adding another level of cadence.
What is lost is the inviting first line. "My tribe..." is less generous, less inclusive, less obvious too—that is, it takes more parsing. The opposite effect is true for Mandel's "Six," where much is gained by beginning with the second stanza with its active, in-progress, "Riding to Coney Island, the tunnels/blasted into daylight."
Simply tagging on the first stanza with no revision would be risky in this case. Personally, I like it. I like the shift from the memory to the adult reflection upon it coming at this point in the poem. Reworked or not, what it definitely does demonstrate is how a digression of some sort at this point would heighten the drama of the mother's response in the envoi. This revision sacrifices the form-referential design of Mandel's envoi, but she might yet be able to save that idea.
The larger general point, though, is that the sestina is more flexible than one might think. So relax, pick a few words, and settle in for a long poem. There's nothing to be afraid of.
Where could poems like "Six" and "Rain Sestina" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Virginia Warbey Poetry Prize
Entries must be received by May 19
UK-based literary society offers prizes up to 800 pounds and possible anthology publication; no simultaneous submissions; fees in pounds sterling only
Connecticut Poetry Award
Postmark Deadline: May 31
Connecticut Poetry Society offers prizes up to $400 for unpublished poems, 80 lines maximum
New England Poetry Club Annual Contests
Postmark Deadline: May 31
Various themed contests, including a members-only category for poems in traditional forms, with prizes of $100-$1,000
Bridport Prize
Entries must be received by June 30
One of Britain's largest and most prestigious awards for unpublished poems, short stories, and flash fiction by authors aged 16+, with top prizes of 5,000 pounds in each genre; enter by mail or online
Margaret Reid Poetry Prize for Traditional Verse
Postmark Deadline: June 30
Prizes up to $3,000 and online publication for published or unpublished poems in traditional forms; Winning Writers assists with entry handling for this contest
These poems and critique appeared in the May 2010 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Six of Crows
By Leigh Bardugo. In this young adult fantasy novel, set in a cosmopolitan and mercenary city-state modeled on 19th-century Amsterdam, a crew of six thieves and underworld denizens must break into an impenetrable fortress to rescue the inventor of a magical weapon that could spark a devastating war. The world-building, social conscience, diversity of characters, and twist-filled plot are all outstanding. The story continues in the sequel Crooked Kingdom.
Six Video Poems at Poets & Writers
Multimedia presentations of poems by Anne Carson, Thylias Moss, and Aaron Fagan add new dimensions to the spoken word through interpretive dance, music, and graphics.
Sky Island Journal
Launched in 2017 in Luna County, New Mexico, Sky Island Journal is an online literary quarterly of poetry and flash prose (1,000 words maximum). Each piece opens in a read-only MS Word document, rather than a scroll-through webpage, to encourage readers to focus wholly on one thing at a time. The journal is free to read and has no advertising, but there is a $3 submission fee to keep this business model sustainable. Editors say, "The Florida Mountains Wilderness Study Area is our muse; its landscape is the source of our positive energy, our rugged independence, and our relentless tenacity."
Slam News Service
Keep track of upcoming poetry slams and bouts across the US and the world. Hosted by "teacher, poet and traveling man" Michael Brown.
SlashGear’s List of Best Websites to Find and Download eBooks for Free
SlashGear, a technology news site, compiled this list in 2023 of their favorite sites for free and low-cost e-books and audiobooks. These include OverDrive, an e-book lending library, and LibriVox, which offers free audio versions of public-domain books.
Slate Article: ‘Poems of War’
Six leading writers and editors - Robert Pinsky, Alice Quinn, Judith Shulevitz, Dan Chiasson, Anthony Swofford, and Robert Fagles - discuss the poems that they turn to in times of war. Includes audio clips of them reading the poems.
Slated
Slated is an online marketplace for film packaging, financing, and distribution. Writers can network with industry professionals and receive feedback on how to make their scripts more marketable.
Sleep
By Judy Kronenfeld
May you fall into it
groggy and disheveled as a baby
who lets go of his mother's
nipple with a thwuck—head lolling,
cowlicks sticking up,
lips open and glistening.
May you fall into it
like a drunk keeling
over onto his own stoop,
having staggered the last possible
step on his slog from the bar.
May you not stand alone
on the shore at 3 A.M.,
longing to extricate yourself
from the gritty sand
of consciousness, when everyone
you know has been swept out
by the sea of sleep.
May you reclaim once or twice
the gauze-fine sleep of childhood—
calmly gliding from flickering shadow
to light, from flickering light
to shadow, like a punt
on a tree-lined river.
And may your last be utterly
black and quiet,
and last forever.
Slingshot
By Cyrée Jarelle Johnson. The title of this ambitious debut collection by a black genderqueer poet-activist refers to the bikini costume they wore as a strip-club dancer, but also calls to mind the legendary weapon that young David employed against the giant Goliath. Like the Biblical youth, the narrator of these poems fights back, with brilliant style and ferocity, against seemingly insurmountable forces like racism, transphobic violence, familial abuse, and the floods that Hurricane Sandy unleashed on New York City. The propulsive force and fragmented and recombined syntax of these poems command so much attention that only at the end will you reflect, "Damn, was that a crown of sonnets?" and read it all over again.
Slippage: Previously Uncollected, Precariously Poised Stories
If there's hope for Harlan Ellison and his dark, existential science fiction, there's hope for us all. From the back cover, "When I told Houghton Mifflin that Jesus Christ had given me a quote to help promote Slippage, boy, did they go ballistic! It was a great quote, a real 'money quote'. Jesus said, 'I love Ellison's writing. I'd have a Second Coming, or even slouch toward Bethlehem, just to read this new collection!'"
Slouching Towards Guantanamo
In his second full-length collection from Main Street Rag, Ferris interrogates America's concept of "the normal" and finds it wanting. His own disability is the lens through which this prophetic poet brings every other shade of inequality into focus, asking us to shed the burden of our ego so that differences between ourselves and others can simply coexist without comparison or judgment. Notwithstanding the spiritual weight they carry, these poems are playful, musical, satirical and passionate.
Small Beer Press
This independent press based in Western Massachusetts was founded in 2000 by the husband-and-wife team of Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, award-winning authors and editors of The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror anthology series. The press publishes an eclectic mix of magical realist and literary fantasy and science fiction, as well as the Working Writer's Daily Planner, an attractive and useful datebook that includes contest announcements and writing advice.
Small Press Database at Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers Magazine offers this free online database featuring submission guidelines for over 100 small literary presses. The database is searchable by name, keyword, genre, openness to simultaneous and electronic submissions, geographic region and more. A very useful service.
Small Press Economies: A Dialogue
In this 2023 article in Chicago Review, CSU Poetry Center director Hilary Plum and poet Matvei Yankelevich (co-founder of Ugly Duckling Presse) examine the barriers to small press books being carried in bookstores or featured in major review outlets. Among other recommendations, they call on independent bookstores to do better at supporting small press titles.
Smashwords
This website helps authors, agents, and publishers convert their books into a variety of popular e-book formats and sell them on the Smashwords site. Membership is free; Smashwords takes a percentage of net sales proceeds.
Smith College Alumnae Poets
The Poetry Center at Smith College celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2008 with readings by alumnae from the past 60 years. Poems by the participants and other Smith graduates are featured on this web page, including Celia Gilbert, Jane Yolen, CB Follett, Gail Mazur, and Claire Nicholas White.
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
Author of the acclaimed Sandman graphic novels mashes up literary classics, myths famous and obscure, and the conventions of the fantasy genre, with effects that are sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, and always a witty tour de force. Some of the best selections derive their humor from the collision between the mythic and the mundane, as when an elderly British widow finds the Holy Grail in a thrift shop, or the inhabitants of H.P. Lovecraft's Innsmouth behave like characters in a Monty Python skit.
Smoke and Mold
Founded by Callum Angus (author of the story collection A Natural History of Transition), Smoke and Mold is a literary journal publishing transgender and Two-Spirit writers on themes of nature, the environment, and the climate crisis.
So You Wanna Write a Black Person
In this blog post from Queeromance Ink, a site for promoting LGBTQ fiction, romance and erotica author Sharita Lira gives advice on writing non-stereotypical African-American characters, from her own experience and that of the romance readers and writers she polled.
So You Want to Talk About Race
By Ijeoma Oluo. This manual on contemporary race relations by an up-and-coming black woman journalist should be required reading in high schools and colleges, and is also invaluable for writers to recognize prejudiced tropes in their characters and plots. Using personal anecdotes and examples from everyday life, Oluo liberates essential concepts like privilege, structural racism, and intersectionality from the academic jargon and toxic call-out culture where conversations about racism often get stuck. She neither condescends to, nor coddles the reader, showing vulnerability with stories about her family's experiences with poverty and racism, while maintaining strength and clarity in her demands for justice. Reading this book will make you feel like you've made a new friend who respects you enough to give you constructive criticism.
Social Media Hashtags for Book Authors
Web Design Relief is a site with articles on social media marketing, site design, and building your author platform online. This article from 2017 suggests 55 popular writing-related hashtags that can boost your profile on social media and give you entry into useful conversations and communities. The article includes examples of how to use them effectively.
Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators
The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators is one of the largest existing organizations for writers and illustrators. It is the only professional organization specifically for those individuals writing and illustrating for children and young adults in the fields of children’s literature, magazines, film, television, and multimedia. SCBWI offers advocacy, networking, and grants for members of the children's publishing community.
Solace at the P.O.
By Sandy Longley
So, it's my turn and I place an envelope
on the counter. The clerk asks:
"Does this package contain any hazardous liquid?"
Only a thousand tears, I reply.
"Is there anything flammable or breakable?"
Just my heart, I say.
"Would you like this sent express mail
for an additional $7.50?"
Actually, I'd prefer a slow delivery,
maybe in a canvas saddlebag, on a
dappled mare, rambling through mountains,
through valleys lush and deep, pausing
for long drinks in stony creeks.
"How about insurance?"
We both know there's no insurance,
no deductible, for matters like this;
I know what I have given,
what I have received.
He glances at the customer line lengthening—
impatience spreading like a virus.
I want him to close his window and ask me
to meet him out back. He'll be wearing cowboy
boots and smell like fresh cut locust burl.
He'll drape his tattooed arm (wild boar)
around me, offer a cigarette and say
"A dog walks into a bar..."
SOLRAD
A publication of Fieldmouse Press in California, SOLRAD is a nonprofit online literary magazine dedicated to the comics arts. SOLRAD publishes comics criticism, original comics, essays, interviews, and features new, underrepresented, and otherwise marginalized creative voices, in addition to the work of well-established cartoonists, critics, journalists, and authors.
Somewhere in Time
These amusing columns from Vulture.com music critic Dave Holmes are useful for writers researching popular culture of the 1980s and 1990s. They're also a humbling reminder of how quickly our favorite media seems dated. Trend-chasers beware.
Sonatina
This award-winning Israeli poet's new collection pairs themes of high art and nature's simple beauty. By turns political, pastoral and erotic, Simon uses musical metaphors to evoke compassion and nostalgia for his homeland and its people.
Songs and Metaphors
For Modupe
I know
There are tunes
My soul should hum
To you, but my throat
Is too sore to attempt them.
I know
There are words
My heart should say
To you, but my mouth
Is too dumb to let her.
I know
My love
You don't love me
But in you
Am too lost to turn back.
Yes
I know
Oh sable homeland
We practice democracy
But my heart
Is too hurt to believe it.
I know
My love
There are spots
My lips should touch
You, but my eyes
Are too blind to see them.
So I say
Oh poor soul sing
Sing of love
To warring homeland
Love too soft to touch
Love much quieter than a burial rite
Love that struck me dumb like thunderstorm
Love that punished my father's purse
But made us one
Love that we lack in Africa!
Open
Pray hungry mouth
Speak of love
Love that weaved webs to steal my sight
A woman too mighty for words to try
Love the silent sky of our earth
Once obsessed
With light like a palace court!
Ah!
Love the thunderous voice of our ancestors!
That blind Africa may regain her sight.
My love
Tell me
How it came to be
That we
To a fierce duet, tempt
The friendly spirits of the gods
By slaughtering ourselves.
Beware!
I say
Recoil from this draw with Liberty.
A portion poured out
To the gods
Isn't for us—poor mortals to sup
Yes
I know I hear
The break of day approaching
Though silently
A voice
Drowned in the chorus
Of tonight's wars
Hush,
Be calm
The sun is returning to her court!
The dews soon
Should descend upon
The slumbering field
Take my hand
Love
It is a sign of daybreak!
Copyright 2009 by Akpoteheri Godfrey Amromare
Critique by Jendi Reiter
Nigerian poet Akpoteheri Godfrey Amromare returns to these pages with "Songs and Metaphors", a stirring combination of the romantic lyric and the war poem. Read his August 2008 critique poem, "Whisper Without Words", here.
"Songs and Metaphors" reminded me of Wilfred Owen's famous World War I poem "Greater Love". Both poems interweave tenderness, tragedy, and prophetic hope, refusing to let the personal remain merely personal against a backdrop of large-scale atrocities, yet valuing that one-on-one intimacy as a possible cure for the desensitized attitudes that perpetuate violence.
The first three stanzas of Amromare's poem lead us to think that it is a traditional love poem. I welcomed the few touches of originality: "tunes/My soul should hum/To you" (rather than the expected "sing") and the personification of the heart as "her" instead of "it" in the second stanza, which gives the interaction a more protective, affectionate tone. But then, in the fourth stanza, an epic lament—"Oh sable homeland"—breaks into the potential narcissism of the lyric. Sentiments that could verge on banality are transfigured by their connection to relationships beyond the two lovers, such that the narrator's personal heartbreak does not distract him from his community's suffering but rather provides a means to empathize with and critique it.
Throughout the Bible, there is the recurring theme of the individual whose pains and triumphs are representative of his entire nation, for good or ill. I'm thinking particularly of the messianic "suffering servant" prophecies in the book of Isaiah, and St. Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive." In Amromare's poem, the fate of Africa seems similarly intertwined with the fate of his narrator. The collective wound has left him personally scarred. Like the scorched earth of a conquered village, he feels too damaged to produce the fruits of love. Yet if he can heal, if he can find stillness and tenderness amid the clamor of war, could that be the first green shoot that brings the "slumbering field" back to life?
So I say
Oh poor soul sing
Sing of love
To warring homeland
Love too soft to touch
Love much quieter than a burial rite
Normally I tell poets to be sparing with their exclamation points, but the ones that proliferate in the second half of this poem seem as essential as the crescendo at the end of a symphony, lifting us with the narrator to ever more sublime extremes of joy and grief. Perhaps this technique works because the poem starts out in a restrained, even numb, mood. When passion finally breaks through, we rejoice with the narrator that "The sun is returning to her court!"
I would change a few lines of this poem to make them clearer and correct some word usage. "Love that struck me dumb like thunderstorm" should be either "a thunderstorm" or "thunderstorms". To keep the characteristic rhythm of Amromare's voice, which is tight and assured throughout, I might opt for the plural, though the singular better captures the suddenness of the event.
In the lines "Love that weaved webs to steal my sight/A woman too mighty for words to try", the verb "weaved" should be "wove". I wasn't sure of the meaning of the next line. The woman is probably the beloved to whom the poem is addressed, but what are the "words trying" to do? He seems to be saying that his beloved is beyond words, in a good way. However, "steal my sight" has negative connotations—is his love a delusion? That would be contrary to the positive role that love plays everywhere else in the poem.
Further down, when he asks "How it came to be/That we/To a fierce duet, tempt/The friendly spirits of the gods", I feel like there is a missing verb after "we". It might be smoother to replace "To" with "In", since one doesn't generally speak of tempting someone to a duet, whereas one could conceive of the dance of seduction as a duet. Finally, in the lines "A portion poured out/To the gods/Isn't for us—poor mortals to sup", I would replace the dash with a line break, because I like the pause there but the dash seems out of place in the sentence structure.
These awkward spots aside, I love this poem's prophetic voice and the earthiness of its imagery. Its old-fashioned flavor might not appeal to some of the academic literary journals but it could do well in contests with a more populist aesthetic. Amromare is a poet to watch.
Where could a poem like "Songs and Metaphors" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Yeovil Literary Prizes
Entries must be received by May 31
British cultural center offers prizes up to 1,000 pounds for unpublished poems, stories and novel excerpts by authors aged 18+; online entries accepted
Keats-Shelley Prize
Entries must be received by June 30
British contest offers 5,000 pounds in total prizes for poetry on a Romantic theme (changes annually) and essays on any topic relating to Byron, Keats, or the Shelleys (Percy and Mary)
Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards
Postmark Deadline: July 1
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation offers prizes of $1,000 in adult category and $200 in youth categories for poems exploring positive visions of peace and the human spirit; 30 lines maximum
This poem and critique appeared in the May 2009 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Sonnet Central
An extensive archive of English-language sonnets with a discussion forum where poets can post their own work. Includes a selection of World War I poems by Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and other contemporaries.
Sonnets from Aesop
Witty sonnets by an award-winning poet retell 100 fables from Aesop, including many lesser-known tales worth rediscovering. Lively watercolor illustrations for each tale are sure to delight both adults and children. A great read-aloud book. Sonnets from Aesop received an IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Award) as one of the ten "Outstanding Books of the Year" published by an independent press in 2005. Acclaimed formalist Annie Finch says, "What more could Aesop have wished than to address the 21st century in these dry, whimsical sonnets complemented by a series of soft, edgy watercolors. This beautifully produced book is a rare treat."
Sontag Mag
Launched in 2023, Sontag Mag is a thrice-yearly online poetry journal that publishes both original English-language writing and translations. If submitting a translation, include the source poem and permission from the author. Submission periods are January to March, May to July, and September to November.
Soot
Plain-spoken and passionate narrative poetry in the tradition of Philip Levine seeks out moments of tenderness and joy amid the grit and grind of mass society. Co-winner of the 2009 Keystone Chapbook Prize from Seven Kitchens Press.
South of Presidio
From Presidio south, the land is like burnt bread.
The Chichimec's scavenged here, naked, mud-caked, moon-crazed;
Voluptuaries of the blood, ancestors of the Aztecs.
If you see a stovepipe cactus, it's a crucifix, nails and all.
By some law of rot, all weather has stopped;
It's hot, but, it's not—it's dead temperature.
It's got no color—that's what is not—no color at all.
Space, sky, nauseates the eye. The hue of elephant.
You're inside a boundless canvas tent, riding on canvas cement.
And if you break down, thousands of miles from the next town,
And suns and moons fade in and out beyond your count,
You won't die—never! Won't age. Here you remain the same—forever.
Firing across
The abyss
Between
The synapses
The neural messenger
Crackling silently
Through the branches
Of the nerve tree
Arrives
And speaks to the receptor
Soundlessly.
From where does the message come?
What is the message's origin?
What could the message be?
Spoken to the deep ear soundlessly?
And what if
The messenger slows
Stumbles and trips
Into the abyss
And the message doesn't arrive?
Could we survive—south of Presidio?
As I drive, the only thing I can think to do is whistle:
A fountain of melody
Sparkling and crystalline
Flying like glistening water
In arches of baroquean
Architecture
Yet fresh with the freedom
Of a jazz improvisation—
Charley, Antonio, Diz, Johann Sebastian...
Music is
The message
Of what
The message
Is!
South of Presidio
I pull the pick-up over,
Cut the motor,
Get down,
And all around is
Absoluteness
A wall-less
Invisible
Cathedral
Copyright 2005 by Ron Wertheim
Critique by Jendi Reiter
This month's critique poem, "South of Presidio", impressed me with its gripping depiction of the harsh yet sublime landscape of the desert Southwest. (Based on the references to the Aztecs and Chichimecs, I'm guessing that the author is referring to Presidio, Texas, a small town near the Mexican border.) Though the poem loses focus after the first four stanzas, the strong opening convinced me that the author has the talent to make this piece even better.
Poems that try to capture the spirit of a place are most effective when they make the place the central character. The author must find a delicate balance between too much and too little personal involvement in the story. Too much, and the poem becomes about the speaker's feelings about the place, not the place itself; the narrator acts as a barrier to the reader's direct experience of the location. Too little, and the poem falls apart into a collection of impersonal snapshots that exert no emotional pull on the reader.
The 20th-century poet Richard Hugo was a master of the poetry of place. He excelled at choosing the right details to reveal the souls of forgotten towns. Writers interested in exploring this genre should check out his work, as well as Philip Levine, a notable American bard of working-class people and settings.
In the first four stanzas of "South of Presidio", Wertheim's confrontational imagery draws the reader into the scene by implicitly challenging us to survive in the brutal environment he describes. The first line establishes the land as the main subject. The humans who passed through here, "naked, mud-caked, moon-crazed;/Voluptuaries of the blood," were only a moment in the history of the eternal desert, despite the terrible intensity of their animal lives.
The desert itself is the antithesis of life, where time is suspended and consciousness blurs for lack of any object to fix its attention upon. "Space, sky, nauseates the eye." This unnatural state calls forth a violent reaction from the living things that try to assert themselves against this void: "If you see a stovepipe cactus, it's a crucifix, nails and all." By contrast, those who "break down" and succumb to the desert's elemental power gain a mummified sort of immortality: "You won't die—never! Won't age. Here you remain the same—forever."
These four stanzas successfully capture the essentials of the landscape, using its distinctive physical features not only to make the scene recognizable but to illuminate the powerful emotions that the desert inspires in us. The long lines are well-paced and broken up by internal rhymes, particularly in the third and fourth stanzas. I would have been happier if the poem had ended with a fifth stanza similar to those four in style and tone, perhaps introducing a new feature of the landscape (birds, plants?) that brings in a different kind of energy or a tiny, fragile exception to the oppressive sameness.
Instead, the style and focus of the poem abruptly change, presenting a string of short lines that take place within the narrator's consciousness. For me, the second half of this poem lacked the originality and dramatic interest of the first part. The speaker's introspection did not add to my appreciation of the landscape, and the more simplistic style was a disappointment after the rich imagery and superior craftsmanship of the preceding stanzas. In the second half, the speaker is telling me how he feels about the music that he hears in his head. But in the first half, I heard the music myself—jagged, strange and compelling, like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring"—in the dance of the desert and its inhabitants.
I'm not a fan of the super-short line, popularized by poets like William Carlos Williams and Charles Bukowski. In the hands of less-experienced writers (and even in the work of these canonical authors), the technique can be exploited to make weak phrases sound more profound than they are. "Music is/The message/Of what/The message/Is!" Delivered with fortune-cookie solemnity, artificially intensified with an exclamation point, this pronouncement actually says very little, and says it without precision.
In writing the conclusion of this piece, Wertheim correctly intuited that the poem needed a change of emotional state to turn a mere description into a true narrative. The second half tries to move the poem toward a hopeful resolution, suggesting how humans can come to terms with the infinity of the desert. Our capacity to articulate and appreciate the transcendent, as manifested in music, helps us comprehend and even revere a natural phenomenon that is greater than ourselves. "Absoluteness/A wall-less/Invisible/Cathedral." Here, the short lines are more effective, letting us hear each word resonate in the slowness and spaciousness of the desert.
Altering the style can be a daring choice to highlight a change of subject and mood. However, in this poem, the shift feels jarring because there is no evident connection between the two halves of the poem until the line "Could we survive—south of Presidio?"
The imagery of the second section is also unrelated to the desert environment that the author so vividly created in the first four stanzas. The nerve tree, the abyss and the messenger are vaporous metaphorical constructs that pale in comparison to the reality of burnt, blood-soaked land and crucified cactus. The crystalline baroque fountain belongs to an entirely different time and place, as well as a more sentimental poetic tradition. Planted amid the desert's tumbleweeds and cow skulls, such a fountain would look more absurd than inspiring. The effect is of a jumble of inspirational images whose lack of connection to the original, vividly imagined setting makes them ineffective to provide narrative closure.
I've been blunt about my problems with the second half of this poem, because I love the first part so much that I want to liberate it from self-consciously poetic musings that it doesn't need. I would delete the lines from "Firing across" till "And all around is," and replace them with one or two stanzas in the same style as the first four, ending with "Absoluteness/A wall-less/Invisible/ Cathedral." Those last words do recover some of the power of the opening, and provide the key to the poem's dilemma: how we can learn to live with the desert's alien grandeur by letting reverence drive out terror.
Where could a revised version of this poem be submitted? These upcoming contests came to mind:
The MacGuffin Poet Hunt
Postmark Deadline: June 15
https://www.schoolcraft.edu/macguffin/poet-hunt-contest/
$500 and publication in this well-regarded literary magazine
Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award
Postmark Deadline: June 15
http://www.bitteroleander.com/contest.html
$1,000 and publication in The Bitter Oleander; editors are seeking "serious work that allows the language of your imagination to reveal in you a new perception of your life"
Guy Owen Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: June 15
http://www.southernpoetryreview.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=12
$1,000 and publication in Southern Poetry Review; well-established journal welcomes image-rich narrative poetry
Erskine J. Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: January 1
https://smartishpace.com/poetry-prizes/
$200 and publication in Smartish Pace; atmospheric narrative free verse predominates among the winning poems
This poem and critique appeared in the May 2005 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter.
Southern California Review
Send 1-3 unpublished poems or one story or essay, maximum 8,000 words. Editors say, "We do consider genre work (horror, mystery, romance, and sci-fi) if it transcends the boundaries of the genre." They also occasionally publish one-act or ten-page plays, scenes, and monologues, and scenes from screenplays.
Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry
The Southern Poverty Law Center has published this free online guide with suggested scripts for compassionate, appropriate conversations to interrupt prejudice and bullying in everyday social settings. Topics include becoming aware of our own biases, responding to prejudiced comments in the workplace or family gatherings, and ways to fight structural inequalities like racial profiling and discriminatory corporate policies. For writers, this guide will also be useful for correcting stereotypes in our own work, and writing dialogue for characters who are dealing with these issues.
Speaking of Marvels
Edited by award-winning poet William Woolfitt, Speaking of Marvels is a blog that features interviews with authors of chapbooks, novellas, singles, and other shorter forms. Past interviewees have included Allison Joseph, Karen An-hwei Lee, Rajiv Mohabir, Carl Phillips, Cecilia Woloch, and many other notables.
Speed (Sean)
by Gil Fagiani
When a three-day bender
costs me my bank clerk's job,
my mother makes the sign of the cross
and calls me Good-Time Charlie.
I'm her last-born and she dotes on me,
so I laugh, wave her words away
tell her not to worry
I'll lay off the lush
and find another nine-to-five.
But work's a grind.
I'm into fun, high times
and along with Nicky De Vito,
start messing with crystal meth.
Our veins hum like high-voltage wires
moonlight melts into sunshine,
motion becomes our devotion.
At home I clean the upstairs crapper
twenty times,
the bowl blazing
the pine soap and ammonia scalding my lungs.
My mother says enough already
and swats me with a toilet brush
after I scrub out the grout between the floor tile.
At his house, Nicky sits by a basement workbench
polishing a new pair of shoes
until he wears through the soles,
breaks off heels,
hiding the ruined footwear from his father,
who dishes out bare-knuckled discipline.
Once at Nicky's place,
we mainline two hype sticks of meth,
guzzle all the guinea booze in the liquor cabinet:
Strega, Compari, Frangelico, Anisette, Grappa.
Nicky flips on the new Motorola TV
complains about snowy reception
and begins taking the TV apart,
swearing he can fix and reassemble it
before his folks return home.
We spread all the screws, springs,
wires, tubes, and knobs across the carpet floor,
the first thing his parents see
when they open the front door.
Bricklayer by profession,
his father can haul a hod of cement
like it's a foam cushion.
He flattens Nicky with one blow,
knocking over a lamp,
killing the light.
I rush the front door
weave between cars
until I reach my house,
my ticker feeling like it's going
to tear through my rib cage,
my mother throwing holy water on me
as I run up the stairs.
Spider in a Tree
Set in Western Massachusetts in the 18th century, during the religious revival known as the First Great Awakening, this luminous novel re-creates the domestic life and spiritual development of the theologian Jonathan Edwards. Stinson allows the complexity of the Puritan worldview to speak for itself, setting Edwards's mystical delight in nature and his deep compassion alongside his severe views of God's judgment and his defense of slave-owning.
Spillway
Submissions of poetry, interviews, and articles should be made online only.
Spine Magazine
Spine is an online journal profiling contemporary authors, illustrators, and book designers. In-depth pieces on great cover designs will be useful to self-published authors in packaging their own work.
Spinning Silver
By Naomi Novik. This fantasy novel about the braided destinies of three resourceful young women draws on elements of Eastern European fairy tales to create a legend all its own. In a twist on the story of Rumpelstiltskin, a Jewish moneylender's daughter in an alternate-history 19th-century Lithuanian village is kidnapped by the king of the Staryk, sinister ice fairies who want her to turn their enchanted silver into gold. Meanwhile, her peasant housekeeper finds heroism thrust upon her as she strives to protect her young brothers from their abusive father. Their adventures intersect with a reluctant tsarina trying to save her people from the fae's perpetual winter spell. Multiple narrative viewpoints weave a complex tapestry of conflicting loyalties that are ingeniously resolved. Though the book ends, as a good fairy tale should, with some romantic happy-ever-after's, the primary narrative thread is how the three girls grow into their unchosen obligations and become brave leaders.
Spirit Captive
By Helen Bar-Lev
This is a city that does not let me go;
it accosts me in its alleyways,
nails me to its crossroads,
fixes me to its doorposts
Humanity pours through its gates
tainted honey and soured milk,
poets and priests, politicians and heretics,
kippah and kefiyah
it sings in harps and sirens and muezzins,
in the chanting of its many religions,
the holy now polluted, at battle with itself
Every street and corner
is inscribed in my genetic memory,
its stones are engraved in the shape of my face,
chiseled into my bones,
glow golden as clouds turn red at sunset
and a huge moon illuminates its night
I have lived here forever, a captive from the past,
since King David through Romans, Crusaders, Mamelukes,
I am buried in the tombs of prophets and messiahs,
in the rhetoric of their memories, sacred and blasphemed,
now corrupted by greed, zealots and bigotry
Yet each time I return I tumble back into a history
that has forfeited its right to claim me,
and emerge into a present not worthy of those ancient memories
How I long for the peace of the nomad,
unattached, not attracted to any land,
whose home is the world
but I cannot escape the magnetism of these mountains
where my blood flows best,
familiar forever, so compelling so repelling
I must obliterate Jerusalem from my chromosomes,
sever the silver cord that connects us,
to negate the forces drawing me here eon after eon,
to correct some flaw in my destiny
that causes my soul to resonate to its elevation,
its light, its sunsets, its stones and moon
until I am able to resist this repetition of fate,
escape the multiplicity of beliefs that stimulate and stifle
so that I may continue without the burden of its presence
invading my dreams
Thus I entreat as I hover over synagogues and mosques,
churches, museums, schools,
markets, over this city that flows through my veins
and into the soil in which I am embedded,
and from which I recoil
I need to be free, for Jerusalem to release me,
so I may replant myself in other places,
to find the peace that has never existed here,
but my roots...
What shall I do with my roots?
Spoonie Magazine
Spoonie Magazine was a weekly webzine that published creative writing and artwork by authors with physical or mental disabilities, neurodivergence, or chronic illness. There was also an annual print edition, Spoonie Journal.
Sport Literate
Personal essays, travelogues, first-person journalism, interviews, and humor are welcome. No fiction. See website for their annual contest.
Sporting Poems by Carol Ann Duffy and Others
In this July 2010 feature from The Guardian newspaper, UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has collected sports poems from such well-known authors as Billy Collins, Wendy Cope, Lavinia Greenlaw, and Paul Muldoon.
Spotify “Poetry: In Their Own Voices” Playlist
Created by the music streaming service Spotify for Women's History Month, this playlist features recordings of famous poets such as Marianne Moore, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Elizabeth Bishop, and Gwendolyn Brooks reading their own work. You will need a free or paid subscription to listen.
Spring Tide
By Sherri Felt Dratfield
A woman stands on a dune, orange vested.
Her eyes, green, command the sea, will it to stay calm.
Her wavy, sand-colored strands sway in synch with a harmless breeze.
Her heart beats with a rhythmic shoreline that has already forgotten
the ruin left in the wake of its recent
outburst.
The woman stands among a swarm of men in neon-yellow jackets.
They drill holes—
poking in pollen.
She nestles in dune brush,
leans like the patches of tall sea-grass surrounding
her. They are survivors of past storms.
The dune grassers
drill, hum, plant sticks in
slim cavities, dry but willing
to receive these straw bits—
will moisture come,
will roots dig in before more hurricanes arrive?
She bends and plants
on a barren crest,
bends and plants
small stalks,
bends and plants,
bends, plants.
The beach reclaimed, giant pipes are stacked.
The ocean revs, drowns out tractor growls;
the elephantine CAT army scoops up each rusty trunk
to lead the way, bob, sway,
mount, then cross the boardwalk bridge.
Soon all traces of beach-fill machinery will be
gone
to the next site,
down coast.
The woman removes her vest.
She darts a look at the
unrepentant sea.
spunk [arts] magazine
Spunk was started in New York City by Aaron Tilford in the fall of 2003.
Squircle Line Press
Founded by award-winning poet and artist Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde, Squircle Line Press is a boutique press that publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and whatever else strikes their fancy. Their catalog includes a series of illustrated broadsides with text by notable writers such as Dan Chiasson, Dean Young, Ilya Kaminsky, Amy Gerstler, Forrest Gander, Dan Beachy-Quick, Michael Ryan, Steven Cramer, Orlando Menes and John Wilkinson. Visit their website for submission guidelines for poetry prizes honoring Gertrude Stein and Octavio Paz, and anthologies on unique themes like "pincushion cupcake" and "sandwich wallism".
ST Literary Agency - writers’ break, or just crooked?
Firstwriter.com advises writers to think carefully before signing with ST Literary Agency. ST asks you to provide a $129 "Admin Fee" when you sign up. Other areas of concern: ST is not affiliated with an official industry association such as the Association of Authors' Representatives; few well-established agencies advertise much, since they already receive plenty of manuscripts. ST, however, advertises aggressively; most agencies cultivate a specialty, and reject manuscripts that fall outside it. ST, however, is willing to accept most any manuscript. This caution appeared in Firstwriter's August 2004 newsletter. Subscribe for free.
