. . . is a really cool thing. Okay, yes, he picked one of my poems today, so of course I like this new series of his, except he also picked nine other poems to feature. And he’s good at it. I hope he keeps at it, because I love when someone else weeds through the dreck to find interesting poetry and then shares it with the rest of us. Thank you Gabriel!
Go here and see what I’m talking about:
. . . and Nic Sebastian’s voice is sublime as she reads them. Go, go, go listen:
I love this new project, Whale Sound. It’s introduced me to some fantastic work by poets I’d not read before, and listening to someone read them has illuminated the poems in a way that I didn’t expect. When I write a poem, I hear what it sounds like in my head, in my voice, and when I read it aloud, I try to preserve that emotion and sense of pacing. Listening to someone else read my poems is the ultimate test: did I succeed in conveying what I intended in that poem? Did I put enough space in between the imagery so that a reader can feel what I wanted as they read the poem?
My favorite poem at Whale Sound is He Calls Her Etsy by Karen Shubert. I love this poem. I love Nic’s voice as she reads this poem, the fragile wonder of love and sunlight that she manages to infuse within the lines. I can imagine the scene so clearly and then the last line devastates me. Listen and be amazed.
Thank you Nic, for your incredible contribution to the world of poetry. I am so very honored.
I’ve updated my website, November Sky! I’ve updated my bio page and my published work page. I also added poems written in 2010 and audio for a number of poems: Anael, Crescent moon with earthshine, Twenty-year love poem, First Crocus, How to photograph the heart, Zachary learns to swim,Cicadas, and Peace.
Check it out!
Greetings!
The eighteenth issue of Autumn Sky Poetry is now online.
Read poems by Peter Branson, Nielle Buswell , Melissa Butler, Luke Evans, Jennifer Givhan, Laura Levesque, Brigita Orel, Laura Sobbott Ross, Matthew Sholler, and Lew Watts.
—It’s all about the poetry.
Sincerely,
Christine Klocek-Lim, Editor
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Call for Submissions: Every October, Autumn Sky Poetry publishes artwork as well as poems: visual, video, etc. I’m looking for poems with corresponding artwork, or ekphrastic poems. Please read the Submission Guidelines for details and feel free to peruse last year’s Art issue, Number 15, for examples.
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Two of my sonnets are in the new Think Journal: Iridescence and Tail clouds. Please consider buying an issue to peruse. It’s a lovely little literary magazine.
Three of my astronomical poems are in MiPOesias’ summer 2010 issue: Moondust, Enceladus creates Saturn’s E ring, and The star trails of Kilimanjaro. These poems are on pages, 8, 9, and 10.
I’m rather happy about the Kilimanjaro poem being published. It’s one of my favorites and has been rejected numerous times. Does that make the poem bad? Why do I continue to like it so much when so many editors didn’t? It’s a mystery, this submitting and publication thing. As an editor, I know that sometimes poems just don’t fit in with the others I’ve chosen, so I know how it goes. Still, I find myself confused by the difficulty of knowing which of my own work is publishable. Some poems, more than others, seem to find their way into print.
As for the sonnets, I’d despaired of ever finding an editor who wanted them. So far, I’ve managed to get three published. With those, I’m more inclined to think it’s because so many people just don’t like formal poems and that’s why the others haven’t been picked up. It’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.
Later this month, I will be participating in an awesome book blog tour with some pretty fabulous authors: Jeannine Hall Gailey, Joanne Merriam, Wendy Babiak, and Mary Alexandra Agner. Stay tuned!
To my delight and surprise, six of my newer poems have just been published. These are part of my supernatural series: angels, goddesses, saints, etc. All of them are prose poems. They’ve been both terrifying and exhilarating to write.
The first three were published in PoetSpeak, an online journal that specializes in audio poems. I had to record myself reading and send the audio files to the editor. I was pleased that they also chose to publish the written versions. To hear and read the poems, go check it out:
PoetSpeak: Three prose poems by Christine Klocek-Lim
The next three poems are from the same collection and I was completely thrilled to have them accepted for OCHO #30. I love OCHO and all the other things Didi Menendez publishes. The mix of poems in this particular issue is fantastic. Here are the other contributors: Bob Hicok, Nick Carbo, David Krump, Sam Rasnake, Favia Tamayo, Letitia Trent, Grace Cavalieri, Cheryl Townsend, Andrei Guruianu, and Peggy Eldrige-Love.
OCHO is available online here: OCHO #30 and in print here OCHO #30 print.
If you’re curious about how I managed to get two chapbooks published within a few months of each other, I’ve written a short blog/essay about the total random luck of it, over at Larina Warnock’s Significance & Inspiration blog:
Guest Blogger Christine Klocek-Lim: Words on the Edge of a Recycle Bin
And I’m delighted that one of my recently written poems from this year’s NaPoWriMo was picked up by ProtestPoems.org:
I also bought a gorgeous pair of pink sandals. It’s been an awesome weekend.
Christine Klocek-Lim 