Submission & Other Poetry Stuff

I submitted some poems to The Quirk yesterday--a cool literary journal based out of West Lafayette, Indiana. I've totally been bad about submitting this year. While I have the discipline to write 2-3 pieces a day (on average), I don't have the discipline to submit even once a week.

Maybe this is because the writing is something I have little control over; I've just always been a person who notices things and starts writing them down paying little mind to whether I'm writing good or bad stuff. I just write, because I'll physically explode if I don't.

On the other hand, submitting is kind of like forcing myself to swallow 16 ounces of super yucky cough syrup. It doesn't come naturally for me, and I sure as heck don't wake up thinking, "Where can I submit today?"

But maybe I should treat submitting kind of like my running. My running thrives when I force myself to get into a routine of some sort--whether that means running 20 miles a week or 3-5 days each week. And once I get into a routine I find that it's a lot easier to keep making small contributions that pay big long-term dividends.

So I'm going to try to get into a routine...but we'll see; we'll see.

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I recently posted a new poem on my Faulty Mindbomb journal. Go to http://faultymindbomb.blogspot.com to check out Ray Succre's "The Detonation of Rabbits," as well as other previous poems and poets.

And definitely feel free to submit your work. I'm not tied to any specific style; I just want something that gets my attention, whether the poem is long or short, mean or nice, happy or sad, etc.

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Also, I've been reading The Best American Poetry 2006, edited by Billy Collins and David Lehman (Scribner Poetry). These "best of" anthologies are great for keeping an eye on what other poets are doing with their writing, as well as providing inspiration for your own work. One of the special tools of this particular anthology is that the poets often explain what they're trying to do in their poems in the back of the book. This is valuable for providing new ideas for how to attack your own poems.

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Have a great weekend!