Poetry Soup

Sophomore year I had lunch with Kurt and rambled to him about whether or not I should buy a book called Poet's Market. At the time it was the 2004 version. In the end (and in no way due to Kurt's thoughts - he was basically like, "Uh, I don't know...why the hell are you asking me?" which was totally legitimate so don't worry Kurt) I bought the book...and never used it.

Until now.

I guess I was busy then with school and didn't have time for poetry and cover letters and postage and all that nonsense. Now it's 2006 and the problem is this: Every year the creators of Poet's Market, Writer's Market and the other books of that family (my Writer's Market is the 2002 version I believe) update everything and punch out a new edition. So who in this book still exists and who does not? That's what I need to find out. I already went to the little library here to see if they had one I could compare with, but no such luck. I was expecting that though.

So I've been combing though the pages, picking out specific places to look into. First I went with themes, then openness to submissions (beginners, experienced, etc.). Right now I'm focusing on places that have websites as they are the easiest to determine whether or not they are still in business. Email submissions are good because they cut down on envelopes and postage.

I've sent off a lot of poems so far - why poems you ask? To be honest, I'm not really sure. I don't do well with short stories, as I think many of you are aware. I need to go with a different approach. But I figured it would be important to get my name in print somewhere so I don't look like some slug amateur. So I guess I'll tell you something interesting.

3 poems have been accepted by a little publication called 3 Cup Morning. The funny thing is that A.) it's Canadian (but who's complaining?) and B.) I got a response in roughly an hour. That's got to be record time. Are they legit you ask? Well, yeah. Poet's Market doesn't put bogus places in their book. Besides, I did a search on 3 Cup Morning because searching for a publication usually yields somebody's publication credits. Anyway, when putting this kind of thing in a cover letter, editors don't all know each other. There are (in this edition at least) over 1,800 places to send poetry. In short, it looks good.

I think now I'm going to hit the hay after a bit of entertainment. I should send some more stuff and then get to work on a query letter and send off a book or part of one. That's getting heavy duty, but hey, I'm not getting any younger, and how the hell am I ever going to get a book published if I just let them sit there?

Currently: Magical