I've been Broadsided!

The folks at Broadsided are using the internet to crowdsource publishing and I love it.  (Although the word "crowdsource" is cringeworthy).  They produce PDFs of broadsides for their motivated readership to print and pin up in communities around the world.

Even better, they hand each poem/flash to a visual artist, basically say, "run with it," and then they produce a 8 1/2" by 11" broadside pairing the written and visual art. They also do the reverse, hand visual art to writers.  In all cases, they they interview the artist and writer about the collaboration.

And right now, Broadsided's main page, that link right there, takes you to my poem, a sonnet, in fact, my favorite sonnet of mine (OK, I only have three), if I'm allowed to have favorites, for silly reasons. Something to do with giddily tackling Spenserian.  Something to do with that poety high I get from feeling concise for a change. Something to do with risking a cheesy or overconfident finish.

I'm happy to have been paired with visual artist Kara Jean Searcy, and I'm happy to be a part of Broadsided's project. You can read Searcy's comments (and mine) here.  Time to print and tape! Er, well, not at midnight, anyway. Time to shut up and sleep.



(No, it's not one of this summer's Bs. Broadsided kindly accepted my poem about a year ago for broadsiding in 2012)

Halfway through the alphabet

NANO Fiction
NAP
Nashville Review
Neon
New Fables

Too many of the Ns I like charge for submissions. Narrative is $16 for up to five poems -- the cost of a contest entry, although to be fair, they do consider submissions for a hefty editor's prize.  Still. I think I might wait until their next one-month free submission period.

Ms

make/shift
Measure
The Missouri Review
MOLT
Muzzle


I'd submit to MAKE but they're theoretically still considering a submission I sent over a year ago. I guess that's what withdrawing is for?

The key to productivity is to trick yourself into it.

Or at least that's how it works for me. I visited the hardware store, cleaned the ceiling fans, sorted summer and winter clothes, and cleaned out my desk, all before 11:30 when I switched to baking and Buffy-watching.

Brandi came by today under the pretense of helping me bake pain au chocolat, although we all know she was only there to collect my cats for her nefarious cures.  We tackled a recipe I've used before from the Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker, who happens to have figured out the easiest pain au chocolat recipe short of cheating and using pastry dough.

Here they are in the oven, these chocolate croissants that are not actually crescent-shaped. But they are poofy and perfect, even though we cheated and halved the last two rising times.


For the pastry-making disinclined, croissants and anything like 'em involve a giant block of refrigerated butter and folding refrigerated dough around it, and then hours of rising in between four or so folding sessions. Some recipes even require overnight resting. This is supposed to slow the dough's rise, and somehow enhance the flavor. I don't doubt it, but when I can achieve these:


in 3-4 hours instead of eight+, well. Do let me know how your fancy shit turns out.


Ls and summer

The Lifted Brow
Lines + Stars
Literary Laundry
The Literary Review
Loaded Bicycle
The Lumberyard

Every time I despair of a letter and consider sending to only three or four journals of that letter, I end up sending work to a sixth.

Also, I'm up to three rejections since this project started.

...

Today was: morning work, cleaning, writing, thrifting, Bananagrams, birthday partying around a mini grill, and a phone argument with my brother, who just found out he got a new job. Congratulations, brother, for sticking it to the man and coming out on top. Um. Maybe this is why he yells at me.

...

Tomorrow/latertoday: pain au chocolat, more working cleaning/laundry, packing, Homegrown Alabama Farmer's Market, and chocolate peach pasta with themuppetface and her sister.

Ks and things

Keyhole Magazine
kill author
Kindling
KNOCK
Kudzu Review
...

The tomatoes my friend and I planted are thriving.  A handful have blossom end rot, but we can take steps to fix that.  Our basil and carrots and watermelon and eggplant seem to be doing well, too, but the lettuce and bok choy have succumbed to bugs and the chard, beets, and spinach are going the same way.

...

I've been writing two letters for BWR.  Letters are far more difficult to write when you've been writing emails and submission cover letters.  One letter is the editors' letter for the next issue, my first issue writing the letter, and the other letter is a template relating to the issue after that.   It creates a weird space, looking forward and behind and forward all at once.

...

There's a fresh grave in the cemetery. There must be a job word for the guys who come and dig and set up the coffin.  Anyway, they gave me a nod as I drove by the other day, on my way to work at a friend's.  I was glad to be out all day–I must have missed a funeral.  When I got home, the coffin and hole were replaced by a mound with a little orange flag on a wiry pole.

I've not yet had to drive past a funeral here.

...

Today: Challah french toast using themuppetface's and her sister's gorgeous homemade challah, then the on-campus waterpark and of course work.

Js... and my day in pictures

Jabberwocky
JERRY
jerseyworks
Jelly Bucket
Juked

I've sent work to Jellyfish, and been turned down, too recently for it to be polite to send more poems just yet.




Not pictured: work, email checking, dishwashing, counter cleaning, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, carpet spot cleaning, and giggling over a less-than-a-day rejection (one of the Js!).
















Late night Hs with a hungry cat

Harvard Review
Hawaii Review
Hayden's Ferry Review
Heavy Feather
Hobo Pancakes

Is later today. Many of my favorite Hs are closed at the moment.

***

So far, I've sent poems to around 40 journals/magazines/reviews.  This is already starting to feel like a blistering pace.

***

My black cat is acting like the new food is poison, which means he's hungry a lot the past day or so, which means he's much more snuggly. Too bad he can't lose weight by not eating without getting fatty liver disease. Too bad I can't have all the snuggles.

Dinner Tonight: Chocolate Peach Pasta


It's nearly June, and oddly enough this means that peach season has started.  (Tomatoes are right around the corner!)

At the the Homegrown Alabama farmer's market, I picked up a bunch of peaches for my favorite peach recipe, which involves chocolate–and isn't a dessert.

I found the recipe fairly haphazardly.  Occasionally I search Google for a handful of disparate ingredients in the pantry.  This has served me very, very well on most occasions.  And if you're squeamish about peach and chocolate with pasta, well, just look at the results:



I found a recipe by Sean Conway and Francis Segan over at Cultivating Life, where they explain that before Italians had tomatoes, they used fruits for their pasta sauces, and moreover, they used to use chocolate as a spice.  The chocolate peach pasta in the recipe (and video) below can be made with peaches or any other stone fruit.

I've tried it with nectarines, and I've even supplemented peaches with mango, to great effect.  What they don't tell you is that the sauce varies in fun, interesting ways depending on the peaches/fruit. The peaches I used this evening were ripe when I bought them, and so now were over-ripe.  This made for a much sweeter sauce than usual.  The peaches were fairly yellow, so the sauce after the chocolate was added turned out light brown.  In the past, I've used peaches with rich purply and red in them, which turns the sauce color vibrant pink before the chocolate, and much closer to standard tomato sauce after the chocolate.




Chocolate Peach Pasta Recipe (with my tweaks):


1/2 to 1 cups white wine
8 fresh peaches, chopped (or a bag of frozen chopped peaches, partially thawed)
1 to 2 oz chocolate as dark as you can get (65-100%)
fresh thyme to taste
2 to 4 tablespoons butter, chopped or chunked
3 shallots, minced (more if you love shallots)
1 lb radiatore or your favorite sauce-grabbing pasta shape
parmesan, freshly grated and/or shaved
cocoa nibs
salt and pepper to taste


Boil the pasta according to package directions -- start the water heating right before you start the sauce.

Cook the peaches and half the wine in a saucepan over medium heat, and bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes, until the peaches break down.  This takes longer with firmer, less-ripe peaches (and sometimes with frozen).  Add the rest of the wine gradually, but use less if you prefer a thicker sauce.

At this point, if you like, mash the peaches gently with a potato masher to achieve a more uniform, but still fairly chunky sauce. (Use a stick blender or food processor if you like blasting the texture out of your sauces.)

Remove the sauce from heat and stir in the chocolate and thyme.


Drain the pasta, and place in a serving bowl.  Toss with butter and shallots until butter melts and coats the pasta evenly.

Don't toss the sauce with the pasta. Serve it over the top of each serving of pasta, and top each with parmesan and cocoa nibs (and salt and pepper) to taste.

Serves 4 normal people, 2 Emmas, or 6 if it's a side.



Some notes:

–I prefer this sauce with radiatore, or any pasta with texture and folds, but the folks in the video recommend penne.
–I know nothing about white wines (or any wines, really), but I usually grab something mid-range and self-described as fruity.
–The amount of wine always varies for me, but I never need as much as the original recipe calls for.
–Cocoa nibs are bitter and add a good deal of depth to the meal, but the recipe certainly doesn't need them.
–The thyme is great, but if you are out of thyme, try oregano.
–If, like me, you cringe at the thought of raw shallots, try sauteing them briefly in the butter before tossing with the pasta.







Original recipe at Cultivating Life.

A through D

A capella Zoo
Able Muse
AGNI
Anti-
Artichoke Haircut
Artifice

Birdfeast
Birkensnake
Bluestem Magazine
BOXCAR Poetry Review
The Baltimore Review

Caketrain
Camera Obscura
Cellpoems
Conte
Crazyhorse
(Conduit and Court Green postal)

Dark Sky Magazine
decomP
diode
Drunken Boat
DIAGRAM

...

Es later today.

...

It's probably important to note that I'm reading current and/or back issues of these journals where I can and selecting poems to send them that I hope might fit.

Project

A summer project: Send poems, etc., to five journals a day, beginning with journals whose names begin with A and progressing through the alphabet daily. The goal is to discover some new journals and send to them as well as journals I know and love.

The goal is also to read more journals regularly by the end of the summer.

So far, I'm in the Ds.

Summer

When you're a writer, everything you do is work. Also fun. Everything falls into that nebulous "research" category. This includes:

lake picnics
Downton Abbey
medicating the cats
waking at 6:30 am when you're a night person
journal galleys
hours of artist websites
cat snuggle time
gardening in the front yard, without asking the landlord
spontaneous visits home
Baldur's Gate with remote boyfriend
arguing with Public Works
walking to the bakery
walking to the hardware store
Sherlock Holmes
dog park with other people's dogs
potluck dinner meetings
on-campus waterpark
raccoon-watching
sudoku
killing flesh flies
Moby Dick, or, The Whale
sending work to journals
writing

and so on.

Obviously different activities have different weights in terms of productivity.


Blogging

This is a blog by a poet/artist who doesn't really have enough to say to you, the internet, to justify a blog. This is an internet presence. This is an experiment in the well-tread path of bloggery.

This poet lives and writes in a graveyard in Alabama, near the University of Alabama, where she MFAs and edits and gardens and bakes and ostensibly letterpresses.