Questions For the Day
What font do you use when sending out submissions?
Do have special rituals?
Do send them out in batches, like threes or two?
and what do think was the best title for a poetry book ever?
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11 comments:
(1) I use Arial for submissions and everything else I do, pretty much.
(2) My practice is to leaf through my entire portfolio of "finished" poems prior to printing and sealing a submission, just in case a poem I've been neglecting wants to be part of the current effort. This usually doesn't change my mind about the poems I've selected, but I do it anyway.
(3) I try to keep two submissions open at all times. So if one comes back, I immediately send out another, but they do usually leave the desk one at a time.
(4) Best title: "Seventeen Love Poems with No Despair" by BJ Ward (with all due respect to Neruda).
For a new writer I adore Matthea Harvey’s title Sad Little Breathing Machine and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of Human Form. Two working titles I had for my manuscript have been stolen “Swallow” and “Sparrow”. I suppose that is what happens when it take five years to write a book. I also love the title “Tender Buttons” for older books and Bell Jar. I mean even if you subtract the authors they are damn good titles.
I write in Lydian and I send out in times roman, god forbid I should cause as stir at the editor’s desk. I always send out in threes. I write out submissions in three and send out in threes. Yes I know it sounds obsessive but for some reason it works for me.
Thanks Emily and David for your answers. I love Call Me Ishmael and David, I have never heard of that book, is it good?
"David, I have never heard of that book, is it good?"
I like it a lot. Ward is one of my favorite poets, and very well-known here in NJ. Here's the start of "Coffee" (it's not formatted properly):
Honey, I hate mornings
like a dead leg hates a polka.
I need a morning that brings back the word
glorious,
reinvents it
so that I can love breaking light again.
You can peek at page one on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1556432437/ref=sib_rdr_ex/103-5502366-3062219?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00A)
I like Garamond. I used to like Arial, but I've moved on. Before that, it was Palatino.
No, I don't think I have any special rituals that I can think of. Yes, I send them in batches, but again this varies, so nothing special about this, either.
And I guess my only ritual-like preference is using fine-point ballpoint disposable pens. I really like using these, much better than the medium-point ones.
I can't think of a really good title. Sorry.
Oh, wait. I just thought of The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter--a cool title for a cool book.
I was going to title my first book Call Me Ephemeral [which I didn't realise harkens to that Moby Dick line--how slow am I?], but then the tone changed, so it had to go. And then I see another fellow poet with whom I was on a poetry mentorship used the word ephemeral in his chapbook, which kinda chaps my butt, but you know, it was about five years ago, so maybe the statute of limitations ran out on that.
The end.
I kiss the envelopes before I put them in the mailbox. I can't believe I'm admitting this. I've probably just jinxed myself.
Ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one who kisses envelopes before mailing off submissions. Usually I only do it for submissions that are especially important to me, chapbook manuscripts or journals I really really want to be in or poems I especially love. Then I kiss the stamp. Except I usually mail them from the post office lobby so I have to make sure nobody is looking first.
Font, usually just Times New Roman, though for a while I always used Bookman Old Style. I figure TNR is inoffensive and readable and I'm too lazy to change it. How many packets I send out at once totally depends on how many poems I've got ready to go out -- when poems come back I try to send them back out again pretty quickly, so often I'm just sending one or two packets at a time.
Titles... I'll have to think about that one.
So, use Swallowed. Or Sparrowed. What about Wallow. Or Harrow? Or Gulp. Or Crow?
I'm reading Swallow right now. And liking it very much.
And, in answer to your questions:
1. invisible
2. I fold copies of my poems in half, lengthwise, and use them as bookmarkers
3. batches of zero
4. Your Name Here by John Ashbery Not the best title ever, but my current favorite. I like what the title implies. I don't know about you, but I become a part of every poem I'm reading while I'm reading it.
I know, I know. One of these days, I'll start submitting. Honestly, I will.
Laurel
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