Hello again, Dusty Journal. Nice to meet you at the finish line! Although there are still 3 check-ins left to go for Round 1 (and more than a handful of screwy goals left to accomplish), I declare myself across the finish line. For all of my high-falutin’ goal-tracking, this round was about publishing a book. Manifesto For All went live this week in paperback (an excerpt can be found here). It was only 1/3rd of the work I wanted to finish this round, but it was the goal I resolved to complete. As much as my disappointment might like to second-guess the work I accomplished, I crossed a finish line and let the other goals go.
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- Tracy McCusker
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- 6 Comments
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- ROW 80
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I am a mere hours away from driving to the airport, to be whisked off on a grand adventure. I’ll be visiting the Surly Muse in the Great Cold North! This update, then, will be uncharacteristically short. The big news of the week is that I finished the manuscript for Manifesto for All. It has been uploaded, the cover has been futzed into printable form and a proof copy has been ordered. Thanks to the crash-course in Kindle poem formatting faux-pas that I received on Letters from Nowhere, I will be releasing the Manifesto for All ebook at roughly the same time as the paperback. Huzzay!
The second large piece of news is that, in conjunction with Bullish Ink, I am hosting a poetry contest for visual & prose poems. Prizes in Amazon gift certificates (or other online book/ebook retailer) will be awarded by participants & judges. The contest is tailored to entice non-poets to give it a try. So, poets and non-poets… give it a thought. Check out poem tickets and poem walks. The linky list for entries opens on Monday. I hope you’ll join in the fun.
When I return from vacation, I’ll likely have little to say on the ROW front… but I will be sharing a few poems from Manifesto for All…and giving away a few free copies in another one of those delightful give-away type deals.
Best of luck to my fellow ROWers and non-ROWers! Read more…
- Author name:
- Tracy McCusker
- Discussion:
- 4 Comments
- Categories:
- ROW 80
- About Tracy McCusker:
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What: A Poetry Contest In Two Parts
Who: For Poets and Storytellers Alike
When: February 20 – April 10, 2012
Why: For Amazon Gift Certificates and Assorted Swag. See the contest page for more information!
Judged By: Your fellow submitters and a panel of judges
Hosted By: Bullish Ink and the Dusty Journal
Max Submissions: Two poems from each category
Poetry is not as well understood as it should be in this day & age. It is an art that makes more poets than readers, and pushes “real writers” away from poetry quick as they like.
But poems grow with the world around them… and they come up between the cracks like the most stubborn ragweed.
Nearly everyone has seen a picture with a few lines of poetry attached to them; a sentimental image macro, or a poetic meme. A few of us have seen their photographic counterpart: a hand-written label stuck next to an incongruous object. A prose account of a stroll through a town or next to a river bed would be recognized as journal fodder, or a choice descriptive passage for a novel.
These are, as Susan Woolridge calls them, two poetic forms: Word Tickets and Poem Walks. In honor of two new poetic forms that scarcely would have been called poetry a hundred years ago, Bullish Ink and the Dusty Journal are proud to present a poetry contest.
Entering the Contest
1. Create a Word Ticket or a Poem Walk (or both if you like!). Read on to learn about word tickets & poem walks.
2. Post these poems in a single entry on your blog. You can enter up to up two from each category.
3. Enter your post URL into the contest linky-list (will be available beginning February 20th). The linky list code to add to your blog is provided below.
4. The contest closes on April 10th.
5. Your fellow entrants will vote to award the Jury Prizes. A panel of judges (your hosts) will also award Judges’ Prize.
Word Tickets
A word ticket is a photograph of an object and a name tag; the poetry is half image, half linguistic ledgerdomain. “Trigger stones,” if you will.
Cut out words from a magazine, or choose random words from your favorite story (article, etc). Nouns & verbs work the best (concrete words!), but feel free to choose any word that strikes you. Choose one, or two, or three. Create a “word ticket” out of any material that you like (an index card, the back of a theater ticket, some delicate strapbooking paper, etc) and stick your words to the tag. Tags can be as ornate or simple as you like. Go around your house, neighborhood, work place, until you find an object that you feel pairs up with your word.
What strikes you?
What triggers you?
What object/word ticket combination speaks to you?
When you’ve found the object, attach your name card, snap a photograph, upload and voila–you have a word ticket.
Poem Walks
A focused prose account of an experience in a familiar place of no more than 250 words; the poetry is in its incisive description
Take a walk through a familiar place. Do you normally go out with headphones and an iPod? A phone that you flick through carelessly? Keep all technology out of your hands, and just watch everything that there is to see. When you get home (or to a convenient resting place), jot down some notes about the experience.
What was new?
What was unexpected?
How did you feel about the place when you started–when you finished?
Did your feelings change towards the place?
The trick with any observation poem is to observe closely and write, but not to let observation or writing get in the way of the other! Craft a prose passage about the place, as though you were writing a description for a novel. Now pare it down to its essential bones. Make sure no word is wasted. Try to evoke the sense of you moving through a space and the emotions it brings up. Keep in mind a poem should have a beginning, middle & open end like flash-fiction, but the parts are an emotional arc. There! Now you have a poem walk.
Poetry is no longer the exclusive domain of people who can read meter; we encourage everyone to enter! The contest closes on April 10th.
Good luck!
Linky list blog code!
<!– start InLinkz script –>
<script src=”http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=128744″ type=”text/javascript”></script>
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- Author name:
- Tracy McCusker
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Twitter, my new mistress and stealer of time, sometimes seems as though I am in a bizarre market of promoters bellowing at the top of their lungs. “Roll up, roll up! Come see the contraptions on equal footing with Edison and Tesla. Yes, the two giants of industry and science today meet their match in this outstanding offering! Just 7.99 to enter!” It’s a wonderful song, and I flit from booth to booth to see what the self-publishers and indie-promoters are doing. They are in the boat that I am, and their successes, their triumphs, are stuff of budding legends. I have opened my own small booth on this green–@dustyjournal–but I seem to chat with the other booth owners more than attract a new clientele.
This has become a stumbling block. I’m ostensibly a professional poet, and ostensibly I sell poems. Read more…
- Author name:
- Tracy McCusker
- Discussion:
- 5 Comments
- Categories:
- ROW 80
- About Tracy McCusker:
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On Monday, I did the last prep before sending the manuscript out to its beta readers. Since then, it has been a week of pretzels. Mental pretzels, sure, bending myself this way or that–trying to anticipate my beta readers’ complaints. But also actual pretzels, because they’re salty & delicious, and good-tasting gluten-free snacks are few and far between. I also had an interview with the Surly Muse which was far less surly than I expected. Read more…
- Author name:
- Tracy McCusker
- Discussion:
- 6 Comments
- Categories:
- ROW 80
- About Tracy McCusker:
-
Follow on Twitter