Incendiary Lit

Yes, those composition books she writes all her wonderful words in are also decorated. Here’s one that she posted on her blog A Century of Nerve.

Robert Lee Brewer’s Writer’s Digest blog Poetic Asides, which is quite the title, has an interview with Denise Low up now.

I mean, I knew that there had to be a poet laureate in Kansas, or, there most likely was one unless the position had been dissolved like New Jersey’s, but it’s just kind of odd to think of Kansas, at first, as something other than pastoral. But there’s Wichita, Kansas City, Topeka all with at least over 100,000 people… there are metropolitan areas… maybe I’m just subconsciously area-ist against those from Kansas because I don’t know anyone from there. The only people I’ve known from Kansas City were from KFC, Kansas F*$%ing City… Missouri. Hmm. Very odd.

These cover letters are fairly similar to the cover letters in Poet’s Market, which are pretty simple templates but helpful for those just starting to submit to literary magazines.

Click here to see the post at Poetic Asides.

Here’s two takes on getting your short story collection published from the fantastic Practicing Writing.

Beware of this contest (perhaps as you’ve seen it on Craig’s List).

Teaching those guilty (in a court of law) of disrespecting American Poetry with lessons in American poetry? Ploughshares reports on the Case of the Vandalism of Robert Frost’s Home and the sentencing.

Even WW Norton’s Twittering now, courtesy of GalleyCat.

There’s a couple ways to do it, but the easiest is this: before each paragraph you want indented type<p style=”text-indent: 2em;”> before it, and </p> after it in the html, or code editor tab (as opposed to ‘visual’). Simple as that. I suggest typing everything up without it, then copy/pasting the longer string, and typing the </p> at the end of each paragraph.

So they’ll be indented. Huzzah!

OK, here’s what a heroic crown is: 15 sonnets, ordered with a repetition. Sonnet 1 begins with line A, and ends with line B. Sonnet 2 begins with line B and ends with line C. Sonnet 3 begins with line C and ends with line D and so on, until Sonnet 14 which begins with the last line of Sonnet 13, and ends with the first line of Sonnet 1. Then the kicker is Sonnet 15 which consists of all the first lines, though if you want them in order it’s up to you. I believe a classic Heroic Crown has the first lines in order, which is another rhyme scheme to keep in mind. We’ll begin on Wednesday, I’ll work on a heroic sonnet as you do, I’ll post helpful tidbits (I hope) that will help you keep on track for this highly organized series of poems. But it’s also a sequence that you can be proud of. How many people have had the discipline to organize a Heroic Crown, or any sequence of sonnets at all? Even if the results fluctuate poem by poem, why not give it a shot, it’ll be very similar to using an firestarter exercise or any other writing exercise, but instead, for a week you’ll focus on sonnets, and a repetition of certain lines. As I said, I’ll be posting various excercises to help maintain focus and organization for the long haul. As you probably noticed, 15 poems and 20 days means a few non poem days. These will be organization days and brainstorming days, because in order to interweave your poems even more, it’s nice to have an idea of what you’ll be writing about later, and perhaps mingle some imagery in the process… Wednesday will begin the Incendiary Lit Heroic Crown Affair.

Why not, right? Go to Poetry Blog Rankings and start up an account, then go here and vote for Incendiary Lit as the greatest, of allllllll time. Word to your mother. We’ve finally gotten relocated, so the posts should be picking up soon.

Poetic Asides. Check it out. Right now he’s posting a prompt/exercise each day and people write to it. Like the Firestarter Challenge, but there are over a hundred poems posted to his prompts, and he picks the ones he thinks are the best. The website’s really cool in general though. Word it up.