J.P. Dancing Bear, Founder and Editor of Dream Horse Press
Jendi Reiter conducted this exclusive email interview with J.P. Dancing Bear, the founder and editor of Dream Horse Press. The press offers the National Poetry Chapbook Prize in May (formerly August) and two full-length manuscript contests, the Orphic Prize for Poetry in October (formerly May) and the American Poetry Journal Book Prize in February. Dream Horse Press has published a number of well-reviewed titles, including Ryan G. Van Cleave's The Florida Letters and the anthology And We the Creatures, a book of poems about animals and animal rights, edited by C.J. Sage.
J.P. Dancing Bear's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Atlanta Review, North American Review, Poetry East, Poetry International, Seattle Review, Verse Daily and many others. He is the editor of the American Poetry Journal, owner of Dream Horse Press, and the host of Out of Our Minds, a weekly poetry program on public radio station KKUP. His latest book of poems is Billy Last Crow (Turning Point, 2004).
Q: Tell me about the history of the press. Why did you decide to start it?
A: I'll try to make a long story short: I was the managing editor for a press and had made a deal with an author to publish a book. The press received a manuscript, we were starting to set some dates and commit resources when the press gained an additional "silent" partner. Upon review of projects currently under way or getting started, the "silent" partner started making noise about this particular book project, threatening to withdraw finances if we did not kill the project. I felt I was put into an awkward position since I had made promises to the author. So I contacted the author separately about what had happened and offered to start my own press and print his book if he'd be willing. The author later told me that he had only been interested in working with me and was happy to do so regardless. It was a good vote of confidence.
Q: How did Dream Horse Press get its name?
A: During that initial start-up period, my first author said that he had a dream in which a large white horse was behind us at our book launch. It seemed like the natural name for the press after that.
Q: How do you hope to make Dream Horse Press stand out among the dozens of small poetry presses?
A: First, DHP publications are gorgeous. A lot of time and effort goes into the design; we only do full color cover art, and pay sharp attention to attractive, professional text layout. Just because a collection is a chapbook doesn't mean it shouldn't look as good as a full-length book. Of course, the same standards of beautiful, professional-looking full-length books apply here.
Furthermore, I am very proud to say that DHP awards are completely unbiased. The only thing that matters is the quality of the poetry. I don't care if the author has a teaching job where she or he can sell extra books or not, and I don't make judgments based on the list of publication credits.
Q: What is your distinctive mission?
A: DHP is about discovering and/or supporting talented poets with fresh, unique work.
Q: Besides the craftsmanship of the individual poems, what broader criteria do you look for in reading submissions to the press?
A: I enjoy a manuscript that displays a poet's maturity of thought and sense. I also want a complete yet sleek manuscript; a shorter manuscript with only a poet's best poems is more likely to do well here than a longer manuscript with all of the poet's poems. Leave the reader wanting more rather than feeling tired.
Q: Any advice to help aspiring authors turn a bunch of poems into a coherent manuscript?
A: An author should stand back from her manuscript and look at it critically, as if she were a reviewer, and be very picky about what goes in, and very self-honest about what should come out. If an author can’t gain that kind of distance and objectivity, then he should have someone else do it for him.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of packaging one's work as a chapbook rather than a full-length book?
A: I think chapbooks have some advantages over books. One advantage is price. If an author is giving a reading, it is often easier for him to sell copies of an affordable chapbook rather than a book. Another advantage, as I alluded to before, is quality. Chapbooks are an excellent way for authors to showcase their very best work.
Q: Since chapbooks are rarely sold in bookstores, what can the author and the press do to promote them? What does Dream Horse do to promote its books and chapbooks, and what do you expect the author to do?
A: It costs a little extra for DHP, as a small press, to list the chapbooks as well as the books on Amazon.com, and it costs DHP significantly to sell them there, but I feel that it's important to do it so that there is at least one bookstore where you can find DHP titles. In addition to that, I always send review copies to Poetry Daily (although they've told me that they don’t run poems from chapbooks or anthologies) and Verse Daily, as well as to Small Poetry Press Review, New Pages and other reviewers. Several DHP titles have been featured in Verse Daily, and reviewed by Small Poetry Press reviewers. In case there are other places likely to review a title, I also ask the poet for a list of magazines or reviewers where they would like me to send extra review copies.
Q: Tell me about the publicity your titles have received (e.g. reviews, prizes).
A: Most reviewers will not bother with a chapbook, but I have found a few, and the reviews have been good. Rob Carney’s chapbook, New Fables, Old Songs, was reviewed in a couple of the newspapers in the Pacific Northwest. The anthology, And We the Creatures, has received the most reviews, however. It can be difficult to find reviewers who will take the time to read any poetry book, let alone one from a small press. Nevertheless, DHP does nominate work to the Pushcart Prize every year. I hope to be able to enter the Orphic Prize winner into some of the published book prizes. I think it's important to support the books that I take on.
Q: Are there particular topics and styles of poetry that you'd like to see more of, and others you'd like to see less of, in the contest submissions pool?
A: Quality is the only thing I consider. I don't care about the name on the manuscript or how famous is the list of magazines in the acknowledgements. I think it's important and helpful for an author to have submitted work and had it juried by different magazine and anthology editors, but at the end of the day, I believe in quality and would be happy to publish an impeccable manuscript from a virtual unknown. I don't like to impose a requirement for a particular style or type of poetry.
Q: Tell me about the structure of your judging process. Who are the final judges? Do they read every submission, or just finalists screened by someone else?
A: For the chapbook contest, I strip the manuscripts of any author identification, number the manuscripts and pass them over to the judge. My judge for the chapbook contests so far has been C.J. Sage, editor of The National Poetry Review. When judging the contest, she reads every manuscript and narrows the field to a handful of finalists. Then she decides the winner from that group.
With regards to the full-length collection, this year I am doing the judging. I read every manuscript that comes in. I take my time with each manuscript. I separate manuscripts according to strong candidates. Then when I have narrowed the field to a set of finalists, I read the manuscripts again. I am reading for faults and strengths. Things that weaken the manuscript may cause it to be removed from the finalists, and things that distinguish a manuscript will cause it to rise to the top of the pile. In the end I will have whittled down the candidates to a small group of finalists. Then I will read them again, looking for the poems that still engage me the most, that I enjoy for their technical adeptness and energy.
Q: What do you think of the "screeners" model that so many contests use?
A: I don't think it’s fair to poets to employ screeners. They are a filter, but not a unified or perfect filter. If a poet gets one screener, they may go through, yet not so with another. That's unfair. I can understand if an editor wants to screen manuscripts to narrow it down for the judge, but then it really should be the editor. A representative of the press should read all the manuscripts.
Q: Anything else you'd like to share about yourself, the press, the contests?
A: As a poet who has entered many contests and knows what it's like to send your work along with your money (I always keep this in mind), I try to be as fair as is humanly possible to every manuscript DHP receives. I hate picking up or buying the winner of a contest I've entered and feeling like I got taken. On the other hand, reading a winning book that really IS a superior manuscript always impresses me, and I will surely enter and support that contest again. I try very hard to make sure Dream Horse Press is the latter sort of publisher.
Summer 2004
