On Sunday October 18th MMM had a reading at Big Blue Marble Bookstore, which is half an hour from center city Philadelphia. Surprisingly, we had a standing room only crowd overflowing around us and around the floor (sitting on cushions when chairs ran out), and they were standing almost all the way out the back door etc. It was a tiny room that holds maybe fifteen people comfortably, but there were perhaps 25-30 people trying to be there. It was a very diverse and interesting lineup: Minter Krotzer, Barb Daniels, me, Dave Moolten & Hal Sirowitz.
Minter read very, very briefly, being the MC/host. Barb did a great job. I read just 2 poems when I realized there were 7-8 small kids in the audience. So i couldn't read 98% of my material. but i did give a very brief history of mmm from the beginnings in CO with Naomi and its near-death and resurrection out of ashes etc. Dave Moolten did a very solid reading. Hal especially gave a terrific reading. He was very funny and warm.
People were very happy afterwards. A bunch of friendly people bought books from me, which was another surprise because I read less than anyone else. Sales were actually good (surprise), & a few MMM Vol IX issues sold.
I did give away about two dozen back issues to people who came to the reading. Perhaps that helped put the audience in a good mood.
Showing posts with label Many Mountains Moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Many Mountains Moving. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Thursday, June 19, 2008
why editors keep promises, part 3
{originally posted June 5, 2008}
The best reason an editor has to keep a promise to a writer is when the editor feels like the work is a great gift, and then the editor wants to share it.
Tonight I received a poetry submission by a very circuitous route. This delayed the reading and responding by a good long time– seven months. Now I had heard from this particular writer maybe a month ago via email and replied that I didn’t know where the submission was, but she had sent it to another editor, who was supposed to have responded. That person resigned recently, and I asked for the leftover work and papers etc. to be shipped to me. This writer was in that large shipment; her submission had never been opened till today.
I was really moved by two of the poems; in fact, I got that rare sensation of something like the world having a new dimension open up underneath of itself. Lyric depth. When a poem has somewhere to go to and it succeeds, that is exciting in a really deep way. The other one was even better though. I felt chills reading it. That is something that makes this whole editing job seem much more worthwhile– when you discover something great from someone you never heard of before.
I don’t want to reveal the name of this poet because I haven’t asked her about how she’d feel about being mentioned in a blog, and it may be that the poems have been taken by someone else already.
When I lived in Colorado for five years, five LONG years, I often looked at the mountains 50+ miles away and was reminded of the age of the earth and the mountains and the brevity of our hours here on earth. This was consoling. Maybe it was the idea that the earth abides (relatively) forever. We poor fools of nature fretting and strutting our seconds on stage, in spite of our transience, matter a great deal somehow, and we know this deep inside. In our own ways, the things we do, the poems we write, the breaths we take, resonate for more than just the instant in the wind that we can feel, here and now. We are a minuscule part of something far greater, and the mountains are somehow an analogue to this idea. Even the mountains are minuscule and passing wonders against the age of the earth. But this makes them even more beautiful to us.
The best reason an editor has to keep a promise to a writer is when the editor feels like the work is a great gift, and then the editor wants to share it.
Tonight I received a poetry submission by a very circuitous route. This delayed the reading and responding by a good long time– seven months. Now I had heard from this particular writer maybe a month ago via email and replied that I didn’t know where the submission was, but she had sent it to another editor, who was supposed to have responded. That person resigned recently, and I asked for the leftover work and papers etc. to be shipped to me. This writer was in that large shipment; her submission had never been opened till today.
I was really moved by two of the poems; in fact, I got that rare sensation of something like the world having a new dimension open up underneath of itself. Lyric depth. When a poem has somewhere to go to and it succeeds, that is exciting in a really deep way. The other one was even better though. I felt chills reading it. That is something that makes this whole editing job seem much more worthwhile– when you discover something great from someone you never heard of before.
I don’t want to reveal the name of this poet because I haven’t asked her about how she’d feel about being mentioned in a blog, and it may be that the poems have been taken by someone else already.
When I lived in Colorado for five years, five LONG years, I often looked at the mountains 50+ miles away and was reminded of the age of the earth and the mountains and the brevity of our hours here on earth. This was consoling. Maybe it was the idea that the earth abides (relatively) forever. We poor fools of nature fretting and strutting our seconds on stage, in spite of our transience, matter a great deal somehow, and we know this deep inside. In our own ways, the things we do, the poems we write, the breaths we take, resonate for more than just the instant in the wind that we can feel, here and now. We are a minuscule part of something far greater, and the mountains are somehow an analogue to this idea. Even the mountains are minuscule and passing wonders against the age of the earth. But this makes them even more beautiful to us.
why editors keep promises, part 2.
MMM Vol VI., 2006, ended up with 93 contributors—90% of them were people who had been promised publication by the previous editorial staff. There were very few new people that we added to that issue, which the staff called “the catch up issue” while we were working on it.
I think that this issue was a very strong and very eclectic mixture—a very diverse and unusual anthology of 288 pages. It was heavy. When it came out with its beautiful b/w cover photo by Joseph Sorrentino of a young girl in Oaxaca, I knew we had created something that would keep up the standards of the past issues.
Keeping the promises the past editors made meant an enormous amount of work for us, but it was a good experience, that year.
Sometimes, that year and more recently, there was disagreement on the staff when e.g. one editor disliked things previous editors made. Sometimes an editor vehemently disliked things CURRENT editors made!
(This is okay with me as long as the staff acts in a way that fosters mutual respect; people need to be free to make decisions as editors and to have their space.)
No matter what, though, I think that it is more important to keep our word, and keep our individual words, to people once promises have been made.
Occasionally, a new poet or writer finds out we are alive, still, and guess what? A previous editor—gone some years ago—promised this person that this or that story would appear.
I think that this issue was a very strong and very eclectic mixture—a very diverse and unusual anthology of 288 pages. It was heavy. When it came out with its beautiful b/w cover photo by Joseph Sorrentino of a young girl in Oaxaca, I knew we had created something that would keep up the standards of the past issues.
Keeping the promises the past editors made meant an enormous amount of work for us, but it was a good experience, that year.
Sometimes, that year and more recently, there was disagreement on the staff when e.g. one editor disliked things previous editors made. Sometimes an editor vehemently disliked things CURRENT editors made!
(This is okay with me as long as the staff acts in a way that fosters mutual respect; people need to be free to make decisions as editors and to have their space.)
No matter what, though, I think that it is more important to keep our word, and keep our individual words, to people once promises have been made.
Occasionally, a new poet or writer finds out we are alive, still, and guess what? A previous editor—gone some years ago—promised this person that this or that story would appear.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
My first acquaintance with Patrick Lawler
This was originally posted 06/07/2006. I think that if a blog is worth reading again years later, then it was a good idea to do it the first time. I will try in these old and new blogs to only post things that are worth returning to.
I do not think that I met Patrick Lawler until AWP 2005, which was in Vancouver, and Many Mountains Moving, Inc. was still working on his book, Feeding the Fear of the Earth, at the time, and the process had been taking longer than anyone at MMM had imagined. Nonetheless, Patrick was more than patient; he was extraordinarily open-minded and willing to talk about the ultimate shape of the book.
I found it to be an extraordinarily poignant, politically provocative and personally challenging book. Susan Terris, the MMM Book Contest judge, called it "outrageously original," and I was compelled to agree more and more as I understood the depths of the style. I was impressed by how he wrote so felicitously and beautifully about the environment, torture, urban decay, our political/moral obliviousness, our deeply ingrained (little-discussed) somewhat schizoid national melancholia about money, fame and narcissism, and so much else....
Damn, the last time I'd read a book with that kind of scope, it was, swear to God, A Cony Island of the Mind.
Even better, Patrick turned out to be great to work with, and for that I was very grateful. Better yet, he introduced us to some other wonderful writers, Linda Pennisi and George Kalamaras, and he turned out to be a great reader of his own poems and a very entertaining presenter of his thoughts on, for example, Surrealism. He was even a sort of a cause célèbre at AWP 2006 in Austin when he talked about Surrealism. (I have also seen a DVD of his April 27, 2006 reading at LeMoyne College, and it was just stunning.)
It was a blast to have him and his book there on the table at the AWP Bookfair in Austin for Many Mountains Moving.
Though it took a while to work out all the design elements of the book, we are all very proud of it. Getting to know Patrick's work and Patrick himself have been very inspiring gifts.
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