Monday, June 23, 2008

Dwelling On It


Issue #8 of The Shit Creek Review is due out some time in October — if we don’t lose our paddles. Submissions may be sent now. The theme is:

Obsession/Compulsion. Obsession, or Compulsion, or both. Yes, Obsession. Compulsion. Obsession. Or Compulsion. Both, maybe.

Don't dwell on it, get your submissions in early...

Monday, June 09, 2008

Into the night!

We receive a very heavy volume of high-quality submissions. People who send work to The Shit Creek Review normally realise that there is much more chance that their submission will not be accepted than that it will. Quite obviously we editors are only going to select a small proportion of that which comes our way, and equally obviously we will make that selection based on our own preferences and our own best reasons. Grasping this concept is not, as they say, rocket science.

Every so often, though, someone who has not taken on board this basic idea submits work to us, then becomes enraged when we decline their submission. Bitter letters follow with remarks sent to your humble & obedient editor, the tone and tenor of which are often rather hurtful. Worse than the inevitable editorial tears such letters provoke is the time lost by yr humble & obedient in reading and sometimes replying to these baneful missives.

Occasionally, declined submitters storm off into the night and seek to blacken the already vile name of Shit Creek Review by posting hurtful comments around the internet about SCR and all who sail in her; this anger can take months, years or decades to play out, with the disappointed submitters registering under assumed names and misleading aliases on poetry forums and the like solely to vent their hatred of SCR and particularly of yr h'mble ob'd't.

So why am I telling you all this? Ah, now I remember: a plea for niceness and civility, Disgruntled Ones. For world peace and harmony and the Age of Aquarius. Peace and Love, not Pieces of Liver. Fluffy kittens and sunbeams and the Bluebird of Happiness. Sweetness and Light. Understanding. Those sorts of things.

The Shit Creek Times

We're very proud of Angela France, Poetry Editor of The Shit Creek Review, who has had an eventful few weeks. She has been appointed to the editorial board of the excellent U.K. poetry magazine iota along with SCR contributor Sonia Hendy-Isaac. The editorial team at iota will be headed by Nigel McLoughlin, who is another contributor to SCR ( here and here) as well as to The Chimaera. Congratulations, Angela, Sonia and Nigel!

Poetry submissions to iota poetry may be made here: http://iotapoetry.co.uk/submissions.htm

iota poetry journal is currently recruiting reviewers. Please send two sample copies of your review writing along with CV to Kate North, Reviews Editor, at: knorth@glos.ac.uk

But there's more! Angela and Sonia have had their poetry collections chosen from over 300 manuscripts submitted to the Bristol-based publishing house, Bluechrome. Angela's collection is provisionally titled Occupation, and Sonia's Flesh.

Anthony Delgrado, director of the press, commented: "Angela France’s work has a real depth of craft, and a lyrical quality to the language... Sonia Hendy-Isaac has a really saleable quality which feeds off the performance tradition but combines it with the literary tradition.”

Angela and Sonia will join a strong list of writers such as Catherine Smith, Matthew Francis, D.M. Thomas, Susan Wicks and James Kirkup, who have all recently signed up with the Bluechrome Press.

More congratulations, Angela and Sonia!


SCR's Resident artist Pat Jones, who does such fantastic work in selecting and crafting fresh, lively art to complement the poems published in SCR and The Chimaera, and who has been the soul and guiding light for SCR since its strange inception, has been honoured with a feature on her in the current Avatar Review . Go there and treat yourself to some stunning art, as well as to Pat's enlightening reflections on the artistic process.



Sally Cook, whose work is in the current Masks issue of SCR, has a poem "The Face of Morning" in the June/July
issue of First Things. Her "Advice On The Groundhog" appears in both the online and hard copy version of the recently published Poems For Big Kids. Her poem "A Passion For Fashion", which tied for third place, Limerick Award in Alfred Dorn's recent World Order Of Narrative And Formalist Poets Contest, is to be published in Light Quarterly. Two other of her poems have been accepted by The New Formalist.



Don't miss out on the Spotlight Feature on Alison Brackenbury in The May Chimaera. There's reviews, interviews, and new poems from Alison.



If you are a contributor to SCR or TC we will publish your poetry news here from time to time. Send news items to the editor([at]shitcreekreview.com. We reserve the right to decide what we will or will not publish, and particularly wish to avoid material which is political (rather than cultural) in nature. Sometimes we will include news of contributors' publications in other ezines and magazines, but this will be entirely at our discretion. Readers of the SCR and TC Blogs may also leave comments on the Blog sites, though these will be moderated.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Watch Your Wake



and don't lose your paddle...or your sense of humor.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Up Shit Creek to The Chimaera's Lair




The Shit Creek Review issue #7 is out now! — the theme is 'Masks', the poetry is hot, the art is enough to make you lose your paddle!



When you've reached the furthest limits of Shit Creek you may meet The Chimaera! The fabulous beast's 'Belonging' themed issue explores notions of both belonging and alienation through a variety of texts: poems, stories and articles.

As well there is a spotlight feature on English poet Alison Brackenbury, including nine of her new poems, an interview, and a review of her new book Singing in the Dark.

The Chimaera's lair is well-stocked with poetry, reviews and fiction for your enjoyment. Just be careful The Gryphon doesn't see you there!



('Sun-Paddle' art by Mark Bulwinkle)

From the Inner Station

The Supreme Being has written to us here at Shit Creek Inner Station deploring the fact that each issue of the Shit Creek Review looks quite unlike any other issue of the Shit Creek Review, thus breaching all protocols of publication visual identity and showing contempt for the notion of "clear visual signature". Each issue of SCR is it seems a totally new and therefore disturbing experience unrelated to any previous experience of poetry in the furthest reaches of Shit Creek. It is frustrating, unpredictable, disquieting, counter-intuitive, injurious to poetic health and possibly even insanity-inducing.

Furthermore, opines Mr. Being, the art in SCR does not stay nicely in the place always allotted to art in normal poetry magazines, but wantonly moves all about the page in mysterious ways, hither, thither and yon, apparently at random, occasionally even usurping space above the poem which should be reserved for pure Poesie alone. SCR is thus not serving Poesie Alone but some other Dark Force it seems.

I have discussed this matter with the more important staked heads loitering about the Inner Station, and the stake-holders and I have taken on board the substance of Mr Being's remarks. Accordingly we have resolved as follows:

1.) Unfortunately the bribes have been paid and the contracts are already out for SCR #8, so no substantial alterations can be made to its format. Carl Williams, Mick Gatto and the Moran family, all of whom are involved in SCR #8's implementation, tend to resist vigorously any changes to terms of agreement.

However, starting from Issue #9, the name The Shit Creek Review will be replaced by the name The Nice & Normal Poetry Standard. All layout, artwork, poetry selection and indeed every other aspect of the publication will be reset to comply with Poetry Industry Standard Specifications.

Innocent poets have too long laboured under the misapprehension that in offering their work to a venue misleadingly named Shit Creek Review they were in fact submitting to an organ of the utmost rectitude. They may now rest assured that their work will be presented in future with impeccable sobriety, propriety, discretion and good taste.

2.) From Issue #9 onwards, reading and submitting work to the Shit Creek Review Nice Normal Poetry Standard will no longer be compulsory. That's right, Canoeists: thenceforth you may read SCR NNPS as an act of existential choice, and you will be allowed to submit work of your own free will!


Ever yours at the cutting edge of The War on Poetry,

Mistah Kurtz.


May The Creek Be With You!



Art by Mark Bulwinkle.