poetry submission | The Beautiful Stuff

Guest Poet: Bethany Beeler

Posted on April 29, 2021 by sereichert

Good morning, Beautiful Readers! Today’s blog and poem come to us from the incredibly talented Bethany Beeler. https://www.bethanybeeler.com/. Please enjoy an in-depth look at why poetry offers us intense and true experience, in an angel’s breath of time and, as Beeler so eloquently says, “poems are your and my experience of a unique and intimate moment that can’t be replicated“

I would love to see some discussion on this blog so shoot me your comments and questions. Also, look forward to enjoying some of Bethany’s poetry in The Beautiful Stuff’s new anthology “Wilderness of Soul“, out next Fall.

Here’s a little more about Bethany and where you can find her work:

Author of North Street Book Prize Finalist, How to NOT Know You’re Trans., and artist, Bethany A. Beeler was born and raised in the Pittsburgh, PA area. After college, she settled in Texas for the next 37 years with her wife Pamalyn, raising three children, and mayoring the city of Krum, TX. She’s been a professor, teacher, and tech writer. Her work has been published in The Twinbill.

Links

Website – https://www.bethanybeeler.com/

Amazon Author Page – http://amazon.com/author/bethanybeeler

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/BeautifulBuddhaBethanyBeeler/

Medium – https://medium.com/@beautifulbuddha

Twitter – https://twitter.com/bethany_beeler

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/beautiful_buddha_bethany_b/

Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/

Another Kiss

Goddess fingernail moon over pines,
Crepe myrtle early
Bloom. Huntress
Belt, chaste and fair, Hekate
Gift and swoon. Thrush song’s
Dark, creeping
Cold
Grips my soul. Walk apace,
Venture, snap,
Brittle face, I
Take her lavender
Kiss, lips trembling. I
Sing silent, sibilant, unsated heart, hand in
Nest, breast aflame, this
(Nipple spark)
Touch too wet,
Soft. I
Hush, her hand awash in
Me, greet, guide, hold, caress, I
Burst, dripping
Star and comet, quasar and
Dust, fecund harvest,
Birdsong lush in night of
Morn and noon. She takes
Me home too soon to sleep in
Parted lips, hastening another
Kiss.

In The Alphabet Versus the Goddess , Leonard Shlain says that “written words and images are
entirely different ‘creatures.’ Each calls forth a complementary but opposing perceptual
strategy.” He’s wrong in two ways—words and images are not merely complementary but are
abstractions of a deeper reality, which, of course, also means they aren’t in opposition at all.
That deeper reality is experience, which is neither an abstraction nor a material thing but an
event that is life itself. Nowhere do we better see the wholeness of which image and word are but
facets than in poetry. Poems are liminal moments of experience. If novels can be likened to
movies and short stories to snapshots, poems are not even the camera flicking on; they’re the
threshold between “on” and “off,” an event that can’t be filmed or recorded but experienced only.
We don’t observe poems. We live them.

In poetry, words cease to be signifiers but image things themselves, and images cease to be
“like” anything but word experience itself. When I write a poem, I’m both aware of and
oblivious to being watched. The absorber of a poem is eavesdrops on the speaker’s
liminal/threshold experience. I am not the speaker of my poems, but we couldn’t eavesdrop on
that speaker without me as the poet and you the voyeur. I hope you feel the same about poems
you write and ones you take in. Whether composed or received, poems are your and my
experience of a unique and intimate moment that can’t be replicated. The quality of your and my
experience and the event you and I consummate is more unique than you and I are individually.
Here, in this moment, at this doorway, we meet in a way we’ll never meet again, even upon
repeat couplings. Ours forever, it can’t be taken away.

So what is “ours” about “Another Kiss”? I love words sounding to me without my thinking about
them. I want their thud, slither, or hiss to knell me and you without their having to “mean
something.” Simply put, I try to make words “image” experience for you and me.
That being said, consciously or not, I don’t choose just any words to thud, slither, or hiss us.
Those chosen words image a river of cultural and personal significance for you and me. In a
poem, we step into a river that was there before us, caresses us right now, and will tug us after.
But you and I change its course. For the better. In a way no one alone, nor any other pairing of
persons can recreate.

But I want us to recreate, too. And “Another Kiss” is as sensual a poem as they come. I
swallowed this night, wooed by plants, scents, breezes, stars. I invite you to seduce the event, as
the event. For you and I are the event. Enjoy.

Guest Poetry: Jennifer Lockwood George

Posted on April 22, 2021April 12, 2021 by sereichert

Ya’ll, I’m super excited to feature this next artist. Not only is she a beautiful writer, and a wonderful person, but the poetry she sent me is some of the most sensual, melodic, and moving work I’ve read in a while (AND anyone who knows my novels, knows I have a particular longing in my heart for Mainers). Please enjoy and feel free to share!

Our beloved poet, Jennifer Lockwood George comes to us from the coast of Maine, where she teaches writing to college freshmen who live in little Zoom boxes with their names in the corners. She graduated with her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine in 2019. Her work has appeared in The Kankakee Daily Journal, Muse, Stonecoast Review, and The Ginger Collect. Her novella was published serially in The Silver Pen’s Youth Imagination online literary magazine. She has also been a guest writer on the Celebrities in Disgrace blog.

And Then Nothing Happened

You pretended your English was terrible.
You asked me to stay
to sort out your syntax,
to smooth your eager consonants
and soften the accent
that told stories you would never pronounce.

I would not correct the music that came from your lips.

You wanted me to turn grammar into an aria.
You leaned closer as I sang each conjugation.

I pretended I wouldn’t give my right arm
to hear you play the piano,
but I could have spent forever watching you
coax desire from ivory and wood.

I wanted to hear you recite Lizst
with your eyes closed,
tilting your chin upward in rapture
tightening your jaw at the climax,
rosé wine tinting your cheeks at the final decrescendo.

You taught me scales and finger positions.

We were forbidden liquor; neither of us would drink.

You called my name as I left your studio.
My coat was on.

You offered me wine.
The notes you poured flowed over the piano keys
and onto the floor, flooding the room,
rising from my feet,
to my ankles, then my knees.

My vision blurred.
My coat became a drunkard’s snare,
my purse strap a bond I could not escape.

I fought against your concerto,
fought not to sway
fought not to dive into the flow
fought not to ask you to pour more.

I could not reach the door;
Music’s brazen kiss had backed me against the wall—

Until your fingers collapsed on themselves
and you forgot how the rest of the song went.

Your cheeks were pink.
I forgot to breathe.

I almost recited the entire thesaurus for you.

Guest Poetry: Sourav Sarkar 3-25-21

Posted on March 25, 2021March 13, 2021 by sereichert

Good morning!

Today, I am pleased to feature the work of a stunning poet from India, Sourav Sakar. Sourav is a graduate of University B.T. & Evening College and received his post graduate from St. Josephs College in Darjeeling. His poems have been published in England, India, Bangladesh, America, Canada, and Trinidad. He is the author and creator of the Dead End Poetry Movement which you can follow here: https://www.facebook.com/Sourav-sarkar-poetry-794116610755710

Also, a gentle reminder that I will be reading my short story “Rinse, Reincarnate, Repeat” at CopperMuse Distillery this Sunday (March 28th) from 4-6. If you are in the Fort Collins or Northern Colorado area, I’d love to see you there. Along with a fun little story about God, Love, Stardust, Split-Aparts, and dogs, this incredible distillery will be featuring a special cocktail to go along with the story.

And now, this beautiful selection from our friend, Mr. Sakar:

Take over

Your presence is a gift to the world

You have two options here to live

Whether you be a slave of a follower of your own

Suppose you are a young bird travelling light years through time

And spreading magical sprinkles

To acquire living

Suppose yourself also to be cloud

Wallowing forest fires;

You motive will determine to move towards

Deserted roads or to a new destination

Then you will hear the sound of winds clashing together violently

You will be detached and secluded

Having no sense of organ

You may think about aesthetics

Or animism

You have to take over the state of being alive

You have to break that metallic surface that is self made

By hoax.

Faithful

Shut the doors

shouted master for a while

there were no passers by

on the road,

Indian summer had come,

thirsty water lands had been dried up

coconut sellers were showing pride

weather was clumsy and tight

and lazy boys were not there

might be sleeping in the schools

they took help of books

ice cream pedlars were looking dull

roaming about for hours

but a doggy was sitting still

his eyes were at the door

master took him and shut the door.

Poetry 3-11-21

Posted on March 11, 2021March 11, 2021 by sereichert

Good Thursday to you, Beautiful writers and readers. I’m still accepting submissions for this year’s Beautiful Stuff Poetry Anthology “Wilderness of Soul”. Please send me your work (up to 3 poems, no more than 80 lines, with a short bio) to be considered for publication in the fall of this year as well as promoted on this site.

I’m so impressed and happy at the poems and writers who’ve been sending in their work and I will begin featuring them here on this blog beginning at the end of this month. For today though, you’re stuck with me.

Enjoy, and happy writing.

 
 Things I Love, Great and Small
  
 I buried my children’s fish today
 in the frozen ground
 where I had to chip through
 the hardened clay 
 for a hole just big enough,
 a palm’s worth
 of dirt
 to lay the spine twisted body
 of a once vibrant and
 complex machine
 who flowed with grace and ease 
 for miles around his five-gallon domain.
  
 I scraped my knuckles,
 the ground was so hard 
 in late February
 while birds sung above me anxiously 
 jumping the gun on spring
 singing of life
 of rebirth
 While the cold air bit the tip of my nose
and melted frost
seeped into the knees of my pajamas
where I knelt in dead grass.
  
 Why not just the toilet? 
 one easy handle pull in the warmth
 and comfort
 of the inside?
  
 Because things I love,
 those I cared for and looked after
 lives I've nurtured
 don’t belong in the toilet
 or the sewer
 or the river of waste and unwanted.
 Things I love,
 now still and soul departed
 belong in the arms of a mother
 the nurturing life of soil beside
 highways of roots

 they belong to the body
 of life and the circle 
 of growth and decay.
 Things I love
 great or small
 deserve the care and effort
 of kneeling and toiling
 of cold knees and watering tears.
  
 Things I love
 are not waste…
 are not forgotten.
 no matter how great
 or small.

Poetry 2/11/21

Posted on February 11, 2021February 9, 2021 by sereichert

Good morning!

Just a quick reminder that the poetry anthology is accepting submissions until September of 2021. I’m already receiving some truly amazing work. In the next few months I will be featuring and promoting the poets who have submitted their work. I encourage you to support their work and check out their other writing endeavors. If you have something to contribute to the “Wilderness of Soul” please feel free to contact me at sereichert@comcast.net.

Today, I’m offering up a couple of poems in semi-celebration of this strange month of ‘love’. Enjoy the broad spectrum of heart.

 
SCARS
 Growing a scar is hard.
 The wound never stops throbbing
 It’s enough to keep you awake at night
 And irritated during the day.
 The thrashed skin, angry and red,
 Prying open at the slightest provocation
 So you wrap the bandage
 Good and tight,
 Until the rest of the limb
 Distal to the wound
 Throbs with its chokehold, 
 Gasping for blood. 
 No blood, 
 But no pain either
 And no dead skin, 
 Hanging to catch on your clothes.
 Reminding you
 At every minute
 Bump against door,
 Hair toss
 Or paper turn
 That someone,
 You love
 Cut you.

 
 
 Lizzy
  
 We were girls in tall grass
 Running with scraped knees
 And dry throats.
  
 Disappearing into the past
 When things were simple
 When life was sunshine
 And big-dipper gazing
  
 We were the past 
 I can’t quite recall anymore
 But the whisper of memory I hold on to 
 Like the edge of a cliff
  
 What if I forget?
 Will we both stop existing?
 Will we snuff out 
 Without the constant loop playing 
 Over and over in my memory?
 Do I keep you alive?
 Or does your memory keep me?
  
 Your bike gears were gritty with sand
 and the vinyl on your seat was cracked
 so you never sat.
  
 You were never still.
 You were perpetual motion 
  
 And magic kept you aloft.
  
 How still and fallen you lay now.
 The earth is tender and cruel
 Around bones that once
 Commanded the rotation of the skies.

2021 Beautiful Stuff Poetry Anthology Submissions

Posted on January 14, 2021 by sereichert

From now until September 30th I will be accepting poetry submissions to be considered for The Beautiful Stuff 2021 Poetry Anthology “Wilderness of Soul”.

This anthology will loosely follow the themes of nature, growth, transformation, self-awareness and personal resilience.

Poems may not exceed 80 lines, must be previously unpublished (unless it was on author’s website), and must be the original work of the author. Please send all submissions to: sereichert@comcast.net, or via The Beautiful Stuff website: (https://thebeautifulstuff.blog/contact/) with the subject line “Wilderness of Soul Submission”

In the body of your email, please include the title; your poetry, your name, and a short bio. You may submit up to three poems for every entry. You may submit as many times as you would like, but please ensure that each submission includes different work. If your work is a simultaneous submission please let me know.

There is no fee for submitting.

Every submission will be read and, if selected, the author will be notified by October 15th, 2021 via the contact information provided.

Winners will receive 2 free copies of the anthology, promotion through The Beautiful Stuff Blog, and a chance to have the book entered into the Colorado Book Awards for 2021. Authors will also have the option to purchase more copies at a discounted rate.

You may email me or message me via Facebook with any questions or concerns you have about the contest rules and submissions. As usual, I welcome poetry along the entire spectrum of creativity (from the traditional to the strange, from the sparkly-sunshine to the darkly macabre) but will reject any work that glorifies or promotes extreme violence, racism, sexual degradation, or harm against another human being.

That’s the long and the short of it. So send me something good. Give me guts and heart, all the dark and light of your thoughts. I look forward to reading your poems and giving you a chance to showcase your work!

Have a little poetry:

CONNECTION

Beats the rhythm

Inside my chest,

Shaking the tender bones of my ear

Arousing the eternal chorus

The human heart beat,

The womb of sound and voice

That speaks in vibrations to

The celestial mathematician

Caged inside my cells

How we dance,

Humans

How we shake our heads and hips

Filling up the empty dark

With the pulsing light-magic of sound

Pouring warm caramel voices

over triplet beat

Reaching into the inner primordial

Tying strings to our bones

Weaving stories through our

Muscle fibers,

Puppeteering our

hip locks and drops

In the same wave of motion

Connecting us

Without color or god.

Resonating with all

That is

Our divine.

2021 Beautiful Stuff Poetry Anthology Submissions

Posted on January 14, 2021January 14, 2021 by sereichert

From now until September 30th I will be accepting poetry submissions to be considered for The Beautiful Stuff 2021 Poetry Anthology “Wilderness of Soul”.

This anthology will loosely follow the themes of nature, growth, transformation, self-awareness and personal resilience.

There is no fee for submitting.

Every submission will be read and, if selected, the author will be notified by October 15th, 2021 via the contact information provided.

Have a little poetry:

CONNECTION

Beats the rhythm

Inside my chest,

Shaking the tender bones of my ear

Arousing the eternal chorus

The human heart beat,

The womb of sound and voice

That speaks in vibrations to

The celestial mathematician

Caged inside my cells

How we dance,

Humans

How we shake our heads and hips

Filling up the empty dark

With the pulsing light-magic of sound

Pouring warm caramel voices

over triplet beat

Reaching into the inner primordial

Tying strings to our bones

Weaving stories through our

Muscle fibers,

Puppeteering our

hip locks and drops

In the same wave of motion

Connecting us

Without color or god.

Resonating with all

That is

Our divine.

The Brink…

Posted on December 31, 2020December 29, 2020 by sereichert

The eve of the New Year feels different this year.

We’re standing on the precipice of a deranged, hurtful, hateful, fearful time of existence, wishing that the turn of the calendar will somehow magically allow us all to step into a new world, free of the worries and trials nipping at our heels. The hope that a new vaccine, a new administration, a new awareness, a new number on the end of the date will lead to a year that won’t be a complete and total shit show is riding on our shoulders and settling into our veins, like a bandage to a too-deep wound.

Picture a six inch gash that needs hundreds of stitches, antibiotics, and physical therapy. We’re talking muscle deep. And the change from the 31^st to the 1^st is the Curious George band aid you got from the elementary school nurse.

I’m not saying this to be a Debbie Downer.

I’m saying this to be cautious (Cautious Kate?) that a socially constructed but otherwise meaningless mark of ‘time’ doesn’t determine a great paradigm and brink-of-destruction shift.

I’m saying this to tell you—if you need that date to start a different way of doing things, then Hu-fucking-zzah to you and get on it, Girl (or Bro?) but don’t think that the minute shift to a new year is going to change the world itself.

That calendar flip won’t do anything until we change.

Until we start giving a damn about other human beings.

Until we start understanding if our environment dies, so do we.

Until we start to understand that science seeks truth and power corrupts.

Until we stand on our own, think for ourselves, and treat everything we touch (physically, mentally and emotionally) with the same care, empathy, and love as we would our own child (or cat if you’re a fur momma) our world will never improve.

I’ve thought often of ending this blog in the past year. Sometimes it feels like it’s all for nothing. One voice shouting into a vast expanse of darkness. One voice raised against so many overpowering facets of corruption. One voice aching for connection.

But I know I’m not the only one. And as long as our collective lights continue to shine, there will never be complete darkness. So I will stand for another year. For another day. For as long as it takes until love overpowers hate, for as long as it takes for humans to wake up to the gift of their existence.

For as long as I draw breath, I’ll write. I’ll shine.

This next year will bring about more poetry as well as a new request for submissions from readers and poets for a second anthology from The Beautiful Stuff. There will probably be some ranting, some raving, and some venting. I can’t help that—and I’m not going to try or even apologize for it.

I’m also planning on running a ‘dime novel’ series that will include some weekly submissions of short stories (a la novella style) ranging from sci-fi/fantasy, to romance, to speculative fiction.

Stay in touch, and I’ll announce submission dates for not only guest blog pieces, poetry, and anthology submissions, but also for “dime novel” contributions.

Until then…keep shining.

If you must make New Year’s resolutions, don’t think about a smaller pair of pants, but how you can make your voice and your power bigger in this world. Don’t think so much about an organized closet, but an organized movement towards social justice.

Let’s aim our sights on living large of heart in this new year.

The Beautiful Writers Workshop #25: Submitting Your Poetry

Posted on July 30, 2020August 14, 2020 by sereichert

Good morning poets, writers, daydreamers and those who’ve accidentally stumbled onto my blog. Welcome. Grab a seat and a cup of coffee.

I’m starting off today’s post with some poetry submissions that came in over the last two weeks. I want to commend all the poets who send me their work. On a site like mine, where no profit is made, the art I share and display is for the soul and seeks to create a connection between us all. It means a great deal to me, especially in these days of separateness, to have someone answer back from the darkness with pieces of their lives that have moved them.

The second portion of this blog will have a run down of helpful tips (f*&k yeah! another bullet list!) on submitting your poetry for publication or competitions as well as a list of respected journals, websites, and independent magazines that are currently accepting submissions.

Please enjoy the poetry first. Roll it over in your brain and let it affect you.

From a small foam couch by a wide still

morning spreads hummingbird wings

and hovers above sweet shared generosity of

green breath, fragrant openings berries rounding

toward giftable ripe.

In my hand a letter of

urgent pleas, a photo of a severed head, defaced, a supine body.

i hear the cries of the killers’ children

starved of homeland, thirsty for water

not weighted by toxic sludge, in the

mourning touches and silent vigil—those who

gather to hold the immensity of loss and betrayal

together, whose hearts beat slow and whose long

trunks touch, mourner to mourner, connecting.

In my head echoes a question the letter refuses

to ask. Who buys this ivory?

Earnest groups patrol for poachers and

arrest sellers and confiscate poached evils, but

those with money enough to buy have

clout enough to hide or we allow them

to remain hidden behind lavish excesses

of endless kinds, hiding the sickness they carry

behind false fronts of our own contrived desires—

convinced that their perceived ease is our only goal.

In the pain of this poem is not where

i want to be this morning. In the dusty

Mara waiting for rain, waiting for humanity

to remember where we came from, where

we can again live whole and connected

among kin of all kinds who know us

as worthy of being mourned, i feel

the touch of sensitive trunk on my streaked cheek.

In my breath can i carry this song

of our truth—our birthright wealth? In my

heart can a scent of love spend the only

currency that matters? With my strong legs

i can embrace the work, celebrate the work, of

releasing our aspiration to laziness, so that

in my cupped hands, i can gather ripe fruits

to carry to all who hunger.

sid sibo

What I Didn’t Say

What I didn’t say

was that I was not sorry,

That you deserved

every faltering and bold moment

I loved you

What I didn’t say

was the space between notes

and the harbinger of changes

that I hadn’t heralded yet

All the words I did not speak

Still bitter on my tongue

And in their place

A thousand sorrys

I did not mean

I am not sorry

for my heart tremors

erotic night dreams

and the wicked way my hands scraped skin

I am not sorry

For falling, impetuous and blind

into the volcanic mess of you

The stifling and choking cloud

Heat of resistance

burning around

a cold,

locked heart

I am not sorry for sacrificing

my heart cells
to the lost cause of you and yours

You can have them,

the cardiac muscle and hardest working fibers

What I didn’t say

is that

you can take them all

You need them more than I do.

Elliana Byrne

Non attachment

I’ve been preaching to my mind

In forced moments of stillness,

When images of you surface

Non attachment.

Nothing really exists.

Least of all you

Least of all me.

Nothing is permanent.

Ever changing

Ever moving

To hold on is to suffer.

i am not attached.

i am not in need.

You are nothing.

And everything.

As everything is nothing and

Nothing is in the everything.

So even though you may

have seemed my everything

You are, as all, just nothing.

Just Neo’s spoon.

And I know now

There is no spoon.

So it can bend and move,

Or cease to exist.

There is no you.

No me.

No this,

No words you gave

Or thoughts you implanted.

There’s nothing but the breath

And the heat within me

Forging in time,

mine of universal light

Perfect harmony

And maybe this is the way I let you go.

Because you are the

Regret of my past

The ill-placed hope of my future

And all I really have…

Is the empty now.

Thanks for reading through all of those beautiful journeys into humanity. Now, I present to you a short and sweet bulleted list of tips for submitting your work:

Do your research: There’s nothing worse than sending your erotic, atheist, non-trad poem to a Christian Journal looking for pieces to be read aloud at their yearly conference. Know the journal/mag/contest you are submitting to. Try to write or match up a poem that fits what they’re looking for or at least the general “flavor” of their publication.
Be respectful and follow the guidelines: Every submission has guidelines. Read them. Follow them. If it seems like jumping through hoops is a waste of your time, thinking of sending out 35 submissions that don’t even qualify. That’s a waste. Most guidelines can be found on the website beneath or within the “Submissions” page.
Make sure your work is complimentary and tight: If you send out a group (3-5) poems it will help to have the poems compliment one another in some way, so the tone is not too disruptive but it also shows the depth of your writing skill. Also. EDIT. I know poetry is a bit free form and we can play with spellings and words to make things interesting, but don’t play it that way if you really just didn’t feel like spell checking.
Keep a Log of your submissions: If you use Submittable (and many contests, journals and mags do), it will track who you’ve sent work to, when, and how much the fee was if applicable. This not only helps you keep on budget but it allows to see where your work is and query or move on if no responses are given with the appropriate time frame. If you don’t want to go that route, you can make a spreadsheet in Excel, or keep a notebook with the date submitted, the publisher/journal, the poem(s) sent, the expected response time, entry fee, and anything else that you feel like creating a column for.
Don’t be afraid or discouraged by rejection: I’ve known poets who submit over 700 times a year and maybe get only five to ten poems published. I’m not nearly that ambitious but it helps to know that its just part of the game, and is not necessarily a reflection of your work so much as it is a matter of odds.
Know your ownership rights: Some forums will require that they have the sole publishing rights for a certain amount of time, meaning you can’t put it on your website or shop it around, even to local or smaller works. Be sure that you are okay with their terms of publication.
Start Small: Ya’ll I’m not even joking. One of the biggest secrets to publishing is to not throw your heart into the cauldron of huge publishing factories. Not only will your work get lost in the endless entries from around the globe, but it may not get into readers’ hands in the same way you wrote it. Do yourself a favor and research local magazines, niche magazines (think Erotic Atheist Digest?), local writing groups, and small literary presses. While they can be more discerning in some respects, they also carry the torch of being outliers that appreciate the art in a more grassroots way.

Well…holy smokes this might be one of my longest posts but, I did also promise you some good starting points for sending out your work. So, big breath in, you’re in the home stretch.

Thrush Journal
8poems
32poems
Rattle
FreezeRay
Ghost City Review
Barren Magazine
Little Death Lit
Palette Poetry
Wildness Journal
Androit Journal
Frontier Poetry
Winter Tangerine

Don’t forget to search local college/university literary journals, local publishing companies or poetry groups, and independent journals. Don’t be afraid to, every once in a while, send your stuff to bigger places too. The Harvard Review and Poetry Magazine as well as The New Yorker usually also accept submissions.

Until next week! Happy Writing!

The Beautiful Writers Workshop #23: “Snap To! Let’s Get Organized!”

Posted on July 16, 2020July 15, 2020 by sereichert

*Disappointed I can’t find an image of the scene when John Gavin shouts this line while fumbling with a live chicken and coming out of a tranquilized haze.* *Apparently, the internet **DOES NOT** have everything.*

I’m not immune to the fact that this blog has tripped around in the dark a bit lately. Let’s be honest, all of us are probably tripping in the dark. We’re in unprecedented times, facing stresses and noise that we’ve never dealt with before. It’s easy, in the dissonance, to lose our path.

So for the next three to four weeks I’ll be getting organized and coming back to the basics. No, I’m not going to make you deconstruct your sentences into diagrams, circling your subject, double scoring your gerunds, slashing through your adverbs (or will I? Could be a fun practice in the lost art of sentence diagramming AND tortuous. I’m a girl who likes it a little rough).

*For the love of all that is good and holy…if this doesn’t make you hot…you’re not my kind of nerd.*

First, we’ll be taking a few weeks to explore the basics of each type of the most prevalent submissions for authors: poetry, flash fiction, short story, and novel.

Following that, and into the fall, I’ll start breaking it down further into genre work, dialogue, plot building, scene construct, story structure and the basics of good editing.

That’s not to say I won’t occasionally throw in a “stop being assholes to each other” rant. I like to keep it exciting after all.

It’s been a while since we dabbled in the lighter word count and heavier hand of poetry so I thought…why not start there?

(Hold on to your asses, she’s about to ADULT over here!)

Poetry used to be the sole conveyer of great stories, epic tales, and the meat and potatoes of religious creed. The first believed poem, author unknown, was called The Epic of Gilgamesh. Besides this epic, there was Rig Vedas of Hinduism, and The Song of The Harper from Egypt. Centuries before we first heard a Greek throw down an ode to an urn, people were writing poems.

Poetry was borne in the heart of burgeoning cultures and empires. As we move west across the world, we have The Iliad, Beowulf, 154 shout outs to Will Shakespeare’s best girl(s), and eventually, on to the new world with works like The Song of Hiawatha.

From these epic and structured beginnings, poetry has evolved and moved, like a river around obstacles, constant but ever-changing. One of the reasons I love poetry is its ability to capture the heartbeat of time-periods through the use of its language and form, as well as the ideas that it holds.

Poetry records history. From the simplest nursery rhymes (“Mary, Mary Quite Contrary” was actually based on Queen Mary I, aka Bloody Mary, who tortured and killed hundreds of protestants. Silver Bells and Cockle Shells aren’t perennials, they’re torture devices.) to Walt Whitman’s descriptions of the horror and decimation from America’s Civil War (“O Captain, My Captain” was written about the assassination of Lincoln just before the close of the ‘storm’ of war) poetry is a powerful conveyer of humankind’s journey through time.

Poetry connects. It’s visceral and often uncomfortable. It paints pictures with the deepest hues of language. Poetry is vital to song writing, memory retention, and a host of other deep-seated neural mechanisms humans use to survive. (the ABC song, “Thirty days hath September…”, “I before E except after C–and about a dozen other exceptions because the English language is a bastardized torture device for anyone learning it”)

So how do you write a poem?

Well, that’s the beautiful thing. We are no longer shackled to the 15 line iambic pentameter, nor are we beholden to ends that rhyme. Poetry can be written in just about any form you can conceive. You can write it, you can rap it, you can sing it, you can paint it across a street in bold letters. There are no rules but one.

Poetry should be true to your soul.

It should never be half-way. It should fling open the shutters of your close-held heart and expose it to the light. Poetry should reflect the thoughts and the feelings, the commiseration and worry, the anger and peace, the joy or the sadness that fills your head and your community.

When I think of poetry, I think of catharsis and a means to work through big and hard emotions (a girl’s favorite kind?) I think of finding meaning and perspective, shrinking down the large imposing impossibilities to moments I can do something with. To feelings I can direct towards change.

To write a poem is to be truthful about what hurts most in that moment.

I’m sure you can guess this week’s exercise. Write some poetry. In any form you want. Send it to me, let me know if you want it to have a little spot here on The Beautiful Stuff, or if you rather just share it with another soul. I don’t have a preference for form or length. Just get to the darkness, poke around in there, tickle the tender underbelly of what drives your biggest emotions and tug it out into the light.

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Happy Writing.