Comments for toadlily press

Comment on Career Day by Allen Strous

Allen Strous — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:59:56 +0000

Some thoughts on how the ways we earn our livings affect the poetry we write:

1) The fragmentary quality of so much poetry, the image as the language of poetry, long after Ezra Pound–we have these for better reasons, but I wonder if they are also still with us because we are thinking and writing in the cracks, on the run, and they’re a good fit for those working conditions.

2) There are problems within the paid work/writing conflict that are not simply the problem of finding enough time to write. For me, the kind of thinking that leads to poetry is a moving down and in, becoming still, a largely wordless brooding to get some words–it is certainly not like this for all poets, but I think many will recognize this description, see their own working at poetry in it. But this is the wrong state of mind for dealing with people, or even with batches of little chores in the course of a day. Not just a problem of turning your attention from one thing to another, but a demand for different kinds of attention for writing, for paid work.

#) So how does the poet’s other working life affect the poetry? What are the complexities of that? Something to reject is the simplistic argument that too much contemporary poetry is the creature of academia and that some emanation from “real-world work”–the Babbitt smugness of the so-common phrase!–would make for a simpler and more real, better poetry–All Babbittry. So much of the simple and “accessible” is hollow, or not long-lasting. And of course there is more difficult or merely pretentious work that is hollow. But hollowness is hollowness; it doesn’t necessarily come with simple or with difficult poetry, though it can happen with either.

Comment on Thank You, But No Thank You: Thoughts on Electronic Submissions by Allen Strous

Allen Strous — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:37:20 +0000

So there is (more of) a shortfall than before at the submitter’s end–
I tend to be a Luddite about computerization, usually wanting to intone Thoreau’s “improved means to unimproved ends.” But the problem here is that the ends suffer, or at least a valuable byproduct.
And I wonder now about the other end–how the speed-up that computerization makes possible, and nearly imposes by making possible–might mean that writing that should get another look is rejected as editors electronically clear their desks.

Comment on Thank You, But No Thank You: Thoughts on Electronic Submissions by Matthew Nienow

Matthew Nienow — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:12:02 +0000

Thanks for your thoughts Sarah! I’m glad to hear your perspective and to know of the good practices of Verse Wisconsin. I can’t speak for everyone, but I certainly don’t feel any antagonism for editors—something more like reverence for the hard and necessary work they provide. Editors ensure that work sent out into the world is ready to be sent out into the world (one of my main qualms with self-publishing—but that’s another topic). And good editors put their own names behind the authors they support, which can never happen enough. Keep up the good work!

Comment on Thank You, But No Thank You: Thoughts on Electronic Submissions by Sarah Busse

Sarah Busse — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:27:08 +0000

Some of us are still keeping it personal! At Verse Wisconsin, we encourage electronic submissions to help all of us streamline the process. But as an editor, I enjoy the personal contact with writers, and while not every rejection is personal, many, many are. The way I see it, too often poets feel like editors are on the opposite side of some antagonism — keeping them out, maybe? Not true–at least it shouldn’t be. We’re all on the same team.

Comment on Edge By Edge by Gloriosa « qarrtsiluni

Gloriosa « qarrtsiluni — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:28:14 +0000

[...] The Waking of a Woman’s Voice (University of Utah Press, 2004) and the four-poet collection Edge by Edge (Toadlily Press, 2007). She is a singer and voice teacher who also teaches creative writing at [...]

Comment on Thank You, But No Thank You: Thoughts on Electronic Submissions by Lisa Dolensky

Lisa Dolensky — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:26:03 +0000

I never thought I’d say it either, but I miss rejections. If I hear from an editor, it’s usually because of an acceptance. About 1/3 of what I submit receives a form or a brief, personal “Not quite what we’re looking for” response. Then there’s the other third that I refer to as the blackhole, no comment- rejections. However, if an editor is too busy to write a rejection…I wonder if that means it’s a loophole and I don’t have to technically count the lack of communication a rejection? So maybe I have less rejections than I thought I did. Maybe a more positive way to look at it. Thanks for bringing up this topic. I figure editors these days are swamped with e-mails and are just having trouble, like the rest of us, keeping up.

Comment on Edge By Edge by Materia Medica « qarrtsiluni

Materia Medica « qarrtsiluni — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:01:09 +0000

Comment on On the Periphery—Thoughts on Teaching and Poetry, and Teaching Poetry by Pamela Hart

Pamela Hart — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:04:40 +0000

Hi Matthew,
First, congrats and good luck! Eighth graders are — wow — such complex, wonderful, frustrating, endearing, annoying creatures. Will you be teaching primarily a writing class or a reading — or most likely a combination? The Poetry 180 anthology is great for teens, though some of the work is more appropriate for high schoolers. For me as both teacher and writer, poetry is about trying to making sense of the world, and I think kids yearn, for ways to learn how to do that. Get them out of themselves to be in themselves, if that makes sense. Be outside and inside. Read. Read the world. Let them learn to read their world. That the stuff of their world is material for poems. Ask them the question you’re trying to answer — what is a poem anyway? What is poetry? What a great time you’ll have with these embodied awkward beings. Keep us posted!

Comment on Emma Bolden On How Obsession Becomes a Book by Elizabeth Oakes

Elizabeth Oakes — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:37:25 +0000

I love this, especially “a ring I forged / for my own finger.” I did a lot of research on witches in relation to my dissertation on Shakespeare’s widows; once I did, I could never, ever look at the Halloween witch as anything but a desecration of women who experienced a holocaust.
Write on, Emma!

Comment on Emma Bolden On How Obsession Becomes a Book by Monday Shout-Outs « 58 Inches

Monday Shout-Outs « 58 Inches — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:30:50 +0000

[...] is one of my favorite emerging poets. I have all three of her chapbooks, including the one from Toadlily which is actually three chapbooks from different authors in one. Toadlily has started a blog and [...]