Written in Arlington is an anthology edited by Katherine E. Young that will be published in September 2020 that the Steiny Road Poet is part of due to her work with Arlington Public Schools and the Moving Words project which she won and later ran for multiple years.

Kate asked poets in the anthology to create videos to promote the anthology. So after fumbling around trying to use her smart phone, Steiny used Zoom to record herself reading "you can tell 'em I'll be there." Visit https://youtu.be/FgI5lG6PM70 to see the video.

Thanks to Henry Crawford for his suggestion to use Zoom and for the opening screen to the video. Henry is also part of this anthology.

Anthology Bonanza

The latest pending acceptances have been for anthologies. I just received Heron Clan VII which is a beautifully produced book with eye-catching art on the cover. So far I like these poems: Charlotte Mandel’s “Ancient Love,” a poem written in terza rima about the bones of two people found in tight embrace and Doug Stouber’s “Black Waters of Tarpon” a rather complicated language-y poem addressing guitar, music, Florida, mental institution. Kudos to all involved in producing such a book in just under five months’ time—must be a record.

I also had my Sherman Alexie style sonnet “the bell sonnet” accepted for publication in This Is What America Looks Like: the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Anthology (Washington, DC, early 2021).

The Heron Clan Congregates on Zoom

One of my longer poems “Cocks” was accepted this spring for an anthology called Heron Clan VII. The Heron Clan is a group headed by Doug Stuber of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Each anthology (this is the seventh) is about 300 pages. The expectation is that the printed book will appear in the fall of 2020 and will contain poems by 127 poets, including Valerie Nieman, Shelby Stephenson,  Andrena Zawinski, etc. What is impressive about the list of poets is that it is very diverse, including poets in Dublin, Ireland.

In May, Stuber set up a series of Zoom sessions to introduce with short readings those who will be in Heron Clan VII. On May 17, I presented three poems including the first section of “Cocks” which presents the story of a Jamaican youth and what happened to him when his father ran into trouble with the local police. I wanted to encourage curiosity and give the sale of the anthology a boost. Several of my friends attended the program.

Since the covid19 pandemic hit more readings of poetry have been popping up. One of the challenges of online readings, particularly on the Zoom platform, is making sure that the audience learn how to mute themselves or that the moderator does this for them. The listener is usually unaware of how low level noise is magnified on these platforms. I requested that everyone mute themselves before I started reading and when that didn’t happen I asked the moderator to do it and had to walk him through where to find the controls. As a consequence, I had a very successful reading.

The last session begins at 7pm EDT.

May 28^th.  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82610750045  

Zoom Meeting Identification: 826 1075 0045

More information about Heron Clan VII at https://dougstuber.wordpress.com/.

Instant Gratification

On Monday, April 13, 2020, I sent a single poem to Poetry Super Highway for their 22^nd annual issue of Holocaust Remembrance. By Saturday, April 18, 2020, my poem “what was hidden” was published. Granted the deadline for submitting was imminently close, but the editor/publisher Rick Lupert publisheda total of 59 poets, including three people I know Susana Case of New York, Judith Robinson of Pittsburgh, and Marianne Szlyk of Rockville, Maryland.

 

“what was hidden” is in Golden Shovel format, which means it uses a quote where each word of the quote is used as a writing prompt. The quote I use is “I know the dark delight of being strange, the penalty of difference in the crowd, the loneliness of wisdom among fools” by Claude McKay from his poem “My House.” These 21 words form the last word of the 21 lines of my poem about Anne Frank. Anne Frank, her family, and her diary are also mentioned by four other poets in this issue.

National Poetry Month off to a great start!

Someone upstairs loves me. On April 1, 2020, the start of National Poetry Month, I got notice, as promised maybe two months ago,  of my poem “Garden Sex” going live in Spank the Carp. 

Here is the link to the poem: http://www.spankthecarp.com/issue56_alenier.html

Not only is my poem published but I was featured in their “Mind of a Poet” series which you can see at the bottom of their table of contents page. On this 2^nd page, you will see a discussion of my poem which I wrote as well as my poem, bio and photo.

If you go back to the table of contents page and access the individual poems and short stories, you will see in the upper right hand corner a box that reads “Vote for your favorite work.”

The editor Ken Schweda likes to know from the audience what work is favored. I think it is a kind of beauty contest myself but it’s fun.

I also want to say that the month of March, despite its frightening news and restrictions coming at us/me, had some personal publishing bright spots.

I sent a sample of 12 poems from my unpublished manuscript when it drops you gonna feel it  to a publisher of the old school and he got back to me a few days and said please send me the entire manuscript. One of his reasons why he liked it was that anyone who loved opera and reggae has got to be an irresistible read.

I also got an acceptance from Katherine E. Young for her poetry anthology Written In Arlington. The poets in this collection (coming out she hopes by fall 2020 from Paycock Press) all have a connection to Arlington, Virginia. My connection is that for years I taught in the Pick-a-Poet program that sent poets into the Arlington county public schools to do poetry workshops. I also won a Moving Words contest that put  my poem “Neapolitan Love Song” https://www.arlingtontransit.com/about/programs/moving-words/2003-poems/ (OMG, in this time of Covid 19 this poem depicts being on a crowded bus!) and later I actually ran the Moving Words contest. Wisely, Katherine asked me for a poem set in Virginia if not Arlington.

On April 1, Katherine  starts promoting the anthology by featuring a poem from the collection on her website:  https://katherine-young-poet.com/written-in-arlington/   The anthology will showcase 150 poems from poets who are well accomplished as well as high schoolers, incarcerated, and speaking and writing in other languages. Do visit there frequently to see how this anthology is shaping up!