The Shit Creek Review Blog

Sealed with Bright Runes

2012-01-08T06:15:00.020+11:00

I know a charm:
it will save me if Malice
cuts dark runes on a sapling's roots
with intent to harm;
it turns the spell;
the hater is harmed, not me.
Ponderous with plots,
the Wobble-Troll defeats
herself into nowhere: airless Niflheim.
Bright runes I know
which trolls know not,
nor might trolls ever mount to mind.
—Rígsþula

Pushcart Nominations

2011-12-17T06:30:00.001+11:00

We have waited until The End of Days issue was published to announce these Shit Creek Review Pushcart nominations, though they were mailed off before the due date. Good luck to all concerned!

1. Philip Quinlan, 'The Pier at the End of the World'

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue15/content/the-pier-at-the-end-of-the-world/

2. Richard Epstein, 'Apocalypse Now'

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue15/content/apocalypse-now/

3. Kona Macphee, 'Wild Raspberries'

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue13/issue13index/wild-raspberries/

4. Simon Williams, ' A Zombie's Take On Walnuts'

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue15/content/a-zombies-take-on-walnuts/

5. Jonathan Kessler, 'The Octopus'

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue14/issue14index/the-octopus/

6. Journal Entry by R. Nemo Hill

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue13/issue13index/journal-entry/

Shit to Hit Fan Soon!

2011-12-08T13:21:00.000+11:00

The Shit Creek Review End of Days is nigh! All textual content has been selected by the Five Editors of the Apocalypse, & quill’d in by your End-of-Days Scribe, Paulus Stevensis; proofed moreover by the various authors, & corrected accordingly. Editorials & such are written & inscribed. Art-Angel Patricia Jonsensis has fabricated excellent & mimetic images. Arch-Art-Angel Zirilli is putting his final magic touches to The Eschatological Look. “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven ...” But very SOON. For I have seen It in a dream ...

The Imminent End of Days

2011-11-30T07:57:00.000+11:00

Dear Composers & Responders,

Angels flitting about in the rafters? Strange shafts of light, with pointing fingers on the end, piercing through the clouds? Seven-headed beasts slouching through the flower-beds? Children speaking in tongues? No beer left in the fridge? It must be the… End of Days!!!

Coming VERY soon in a Shit Creek Review near you!

Yours Apocalyptically &c.,

Paulus Stevensis,

End of Days Scribe

Shit Creek Apocalypse Now

2011-08-05T22:09:00.000+10:00

The End of Days approaches and the shit is really starting to hit the fan now, as submissions open for the Apocalyptic 15th issue of the Shit Creek Review. Prepare for that freakish Creekish Rapture by carefully studying the Signs revealed here:

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue14...x/submissions/

Then follow those Revelations exactly.

It is written that submissions will close at midnight on October 2nd, or at the very moment when the world ends: whichever comes first. May the Creek be with you.

SCR 14

2011-07-15T01:37:00.003+10:00

By God, we're up the creek with Wendy Videlock!

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue14/

And the winner of the Rude Sonnet Contest is...

2011-07-03T07:52:00.003+10:00

Burt Myers!

Burt will receive a copy of Grasshopper: The Poetry of M. A. Griffiths, and his winning sonnet will appear in Issue 14 of the Shit Creek Review.

Congratulations to Burt, and thanks to all the contestants. I had fun reading the entries.

Down at The Mermaid with The Flea

2011-05-26T09:52:00.001+10:00

An evening down the Pub; & dire Aftermath: With John Whitworth, Ann Drysdale, Les Murray, Geoff Page, Peter Wyton, Anna Evans, Rick Mullin, Patricia Wallace Jones, Stephen Edgar, Ben Jonson, Timothy Murphy, Marly Youmans, Jan Iwaskiewicz, Nicola Daly, Susan Taylor, John Donne, Salli Shepherd &c. &c. Hangover remedies from John Whitworth & Alan Gould; Followed by spiritually-uplifting ejaculations from the Reverend George Herbert.

http://www.the-flea.com/Issue16/index.html

Rude Sonnet Contest

2011-04-28T11:41:00.002+10:00

Details here: http://shitcreek.auszine.com/contest.html

Lucky 13

2011-01-31T15:30:00.004+11:00

Issue 13 - The Random Issue is now online:

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue13/

This issue is dedicated to the late M. A. Griffiths (1947-2009) and includes several essays about her and her work. Be sure to read Julie Stoner's "Truth and Fiction in the Poetry of M. A. Griffiths" and listen to Ann Drysdale's wonderful readings.

A Note to Our Contributors

2011-01-14T08:22:00.010+11:00

"SCR" is a handy abbreviation and easier to type than "The Shit Creek Review." It is not, however, the proper name of our journal. When listing publication credits or acknowledging previous publication, it's not only customary to spell out the name of the journal, but preferable for practical reasons.

Suppose you're published in some other journal, and your bio mentions that your poems can also be found in "SCR." Hoping to find more of your work, the reader Googles "SCR" and finds a bunch of articles about silicon-controlled rectifiers. He then searches for "SCR Poetry" and sees results for both the Shit Creek Review and the South Carolina Review. That's confusing. It makes it harder to find your work, and it deprives us of the credit we deserve for publishing (we think) good stuff.

2010 Pushcart Nominations

2010-11-25T01:08:00.002+11:00

I've just mailed off the 2010 Pushcart nominations for the Shit Creek Review. The following were selected by Nigel Holt, Angela France, Paul Stevens and me.

Lullaby by Charles Musser

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant by Quincy Lehr

Childhood Punishments by Jee Leong Koh

To My Baudelaire by Jennifer Reeser

All Over the Mirror by R. Nemo Hill

The Power of Lawlessness: A Close Reading of Denise Duhamel's "Lawless Pantoum" by Marybeth Rua-Larsen

Think of the nominations as a gesture of thanks to our contributors. The chances are slim that any of them will be selected by the Pushcart judges, but we like to think the nominations themselves are meaningful, coming as they do from SCR, a webzine so elite and exclusive that only a privileged few know of its existence.

The Shit Creek Review now has a bookstore

2010-08-15T15:15:00.004+10:00

We now have an online bookstore where you can browse and buy books by SCR contributors:

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/bookstore.html

Feedback on Issue 12

2010-07-31T09:11:00.015+10:00

The response to Issue 12 "A Fetish for Good Poetry" has almost all been very positive. A few people have raised interesting questions about our inclusion of several gay-themed poems in the issue. Aditi Machado even Twittered about it: "Why is gay sex 'weird'?"

In her case, the confusion probably arose from Nigel's (obviously, I thought) tongue-in-cheek use of "weird" in his editorial. In this twittering age, irony is a risky thing.

We also interpreted the theme fairly loosely, of necessity. Otherwise we would have had to eliminate much of the issue.

Take Marybeth Rua-Larsen's "Aubade," for example. The speaker sounds more like an adventurous wife adding some spice to her marriage than a fetishist in the strictest sense of the word. And the speaker in Michael Ferris's "Those Hills" just happens to like a nice ass - that's hardly unusual. We accepted those poems because we liked them and they were at least tangentially relevant to the theme, though not necessarily right smack on the nose.

Anyway, these questions raise some interesting questions themselves. As I see it, all of Jee's poems in the issue have a kinky element, independent of orientation. But just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that wasn't the case. Is including a sexy poem by a gay poet in a fetish-themed issue the same as literally equating "gay" with "fetishistic"? I don't think so. And underlying that question is another, trickier, question: inaccuracy aside, is there something insulting about such an equation? Only if you think fetishes are bad.

Shit Creekers paddle on!

2010-07-27T22:04:00.001+10:00

Issue 12 of The Shit Creek Review is now online:

Issue 12: A Fetish for Good Poetry

Highlights include an interview with featured poet Jee Leong Koh; essays and reviews by Moira Egan, Quincy Lehr, Marybeth Rua-Larsen and Paul Stevens; poems by Mike Alexander, R. Nemo Hill and Jennifer Reeser; and artwork by Pat Jones, Maggie Mae-Hymn and Julian Mendez Perea.

Thanks and kudos to all the contributors for their fine work.

BUG-ery galore!

2010-06-09T08:56:00.002+10:00

Come to THE FLEA Circus and Bug Rave — a cast of trillions!

http://www.the-flea.com/

No Stilletos...Drat!

2010-03-30T15:17:00.003+11:00

Call for Art Submissions

2010-03-11T07:40:00.002+11:00

We have a guest art editor for Issue #12: the fabulous Katy Maslow!

The theme for Issue #12 is "A Fetish for Good Poetry." See the submission guidelines for details.

Please be creative and don't send her tons of photos of stilettos.

Visuals!

2010-03-03T08:19:00.003+11:00

I've just been admiring the newly redesigned Soundzine, which looks fantastic (congratulations, guys!), and it's made me all the more acutely aware that here at SCR, we are in dire need of a new art editor. If you're interested, please write to editor@shitcreekreview.com. We can't pay you, unfortunately, but you'd be showered with undying adulation and gratitude.

Action Stations!

2010-02-23T07:58:00.005+11:00

The periscope has risen, the torpedoes fired. The explosion is about to hit your screens. Stand by for the latest war-filled issue of the Shit Creek Review.

http://shitcreek.auszine.com/issue11/

This issue, number 11 in a continuing odyssey, sees another casualty with the sad departure of Pat Jones, our long-suffering art editor. Happy paddling, Pat! We'll miss you on the oars! And thanks to Paul for his long-suffering at the helm and for floating this baby in the first place.

Issue 12 will be 'A Fetish for Good Poetry'

'Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,
Marked cross from the womb and perverse!'
—from Swinburne’s “Dolores”

Submissions - yes - you will submit! - to be with us by the end of May 2010.

Paddle on!

The Flea Footeth It Featly

2010-02-23T05:54:00.002+11:00

A Flea moreover which transmuteth that which is base imperfect Mettle into Gold, & whych projecteth many a Stone Philosophickal or Nugget Poetickal thereby; as witnesseth Philip Quinlan, Leo Yankevich, Joseph Salemi, Fr. Robert J. Pecotte, Geoff Page, Amit Majmudar, Rose Kelleher, Nigel Holt, Bill Greenwell, Alan Gould, Louis Gallo, Angela France, Nausheen Eusuf, Stephen Edgar, Ann Drysdale, Kevin Cutrer, Peter Coghill, C.E. Chaffin & Jared Carter.

http://www.the-flea.com/

Take me to your leader

2010-02-06T02:28:00.003+11:00

There's been quite a shakeup at SCR recently. Most of you probably already know that the esteemed, distinguished and eminently spongeworthy Paul Stevens has stepped down as editor. We're also going to have to muddle through somehow without Don Zirilli and Pat Jones, our erstwhile art editors. Wahhh!

All is not lost, however. Nigel Holt has volunteered to take over as editor-in-chief. I've joined Angela France as a co-editor. What this means is that Nigel gets to do the scutwork of forwarding the submissions to Angela and me in anonymous batches for scoring (so you could say that our selection process is 2/3 blind). We also get to blame him if anything goes wrong.

We've completed the selections for the February issue and will release it soon, or at least sometime this month. We're still looking for a new Art Director. In the meantime, Nigel's calling this issue "the Austerity issue" because the layout is a bit plainer than usual. Thanks to Peter Bloxsom, who built the site and has been very generous with his time and advice, the technical side of the transition has been relatively painless. So we're paddling on.

Seen in Shit Creek

2010-02-01T16:39:00.000+11:00

In SCR's 'Talking to the Dead' issue way back last August, Shit Creeker Michael Cantor had this abso deffo brillo sonnet:

'Death Watch'

What a little ripper, eh? But absolutely YONKS later the rest of the world finally catches up with Shit Creek as Associate Press releases this story in Feb 2010:

Feline's fatal streak: Oscar the cat predicts patients' time to die

Moral: Up Shit Creek in a barbed-wire canoe without a paddle is a weird place to be, but it definitely puts you at the cutting edge in talking to the dead. Or something.

Yule

2009-12-27T22:40:00.000+11:00

I was there, when men squatted on haunches
to chip flint and weave webs of belief
from seasons and circles of death and growth.
The stink of boar-grease stiffening my braid
and blue whorls whispering under my skin
offered hope that darkness could end.

I put on homespun robes and tonsured my head
to walk the years when dogma stalked faith;
smoothing old ways and old faces to new shapes,
nudging builders to find safe spaces in stone arches.
Heedless of changed names for the turns of the year,
I watched the ploughman bury cakes for first cut,
crooned the song of seasons round to seed-time.

I’ve paced the years’ life and I am still here to die
ever again. Hide me beneath plastic and tinsel,
dress me in red, fatten my cheeks, disinfect my story;
the scent of old circles clings to the shade of man.

Peace to all the Paddlers

2009-12-25T06:27:00.001+11:00

Season of THE FLEA

2009-12-05T05:48:00.002+11:00

You've got to pick up every stitch,
The rabbit’s running in the ditch,
Beatniks are out to make it rich,
Oh no! Must be the Season of the Witch...

http://www.the-flea.com

Thomas Zimmerman, Marly Youmans, Gail White, Timothy Murphy, Rick Mullin, David W. Landrum, Rose Kelleher, Clive James, Jan Iwaszkiewicz, Midge Goldberg, Richard Epstein, Ann Drysdale, Kevin Cutrer, Norman Ball, Gene Auprey, Mark Allinson, Mary Alexandra Agner.

Who decides which poets editors may publish?

2009-12-01T11:25:00.003+11:00

I am the founding editor of Shit Creek Review, The Chimaera and The Flea, three poetry venues which between them have published nearly one thousand high-quality, mostly formalist poems as well as short stories, reviews, essays and poetry features. I have had no option but to resign from the Eratosphere poetry forum because of the activities there of a particular group of members who have consistently and forcefully attempted to dictate who I may or may not publish in my poetry magazines. More details on the Caratacus blog.

I left my brain at Shit Creek.

2009-11-29T06:28:00.004+11:00

Now that I'm on board the Shit Creek canoe (and wielding a paddle... mostly on Nigel... he's incorrigible) Paul thinks I should post to the SCR blog. So here I am. Too bad I have nothing to say.

Ever since I came on board I've been teaching myself PHP and the ins and outs of Wordpress. Not that I need to do much for SCR, with the brilliant Peter Bloxsom working quietly behind the scenes. But it's a compulsion. The left side of my brain wants - no, needs - to be creative, in its sharp, clean, linear way. It knows poets don't think much of it, and it doesn't care; it's not very social. It's a nerd, but that can be a good thing. Old Lefty has integrity. It has principles, it has rigor. It also has its own sense of beauty, its own deep yearnings - O, when a piece of code works perfectly! When is a poem ever perfect? So sneer if you want to, murky-minded poets. Lefty loves the symmetry of curly braces, the humility of tags that are never greater-than they are less-than, the democratic nature of one foreach. It's a poet of the people, it sings as it works.

At the round earth's imagin'd corners

2009-11-18T17:18:00.004+11:00

.....blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go...

Yes, me friend,
We deh a street again.
Yes, me friend, me good friend,
Dem say we free again.

The bars could not hold me;
Force could not control me now.
They try to keep me down,
But Jah put I around. Yeah!

Yes, I've been accused many a times
And wrongly abused, now.
Oh, but through the powers of the Most-High,
They've got to turn me loose.
Don't try to hold me up on this
bridge, now.
I've got to reach Mount Zion -
The highest region.
So if you a bull-bucka,
Let me tell you this -
I'm a duppy conqueror - conqueror.

Yes, me friend, me good friend,
We deh a street again.
Yes, me friend, me good friend,
Dem say we free again.

So don't try to cold me up
on this bridge, now.
I've got to reach Mount Zion -
The highest region.
So if you a bull-bucka,
Let me tell you this:
I'm a duppy conqueror - conqueror.

Yes, me friend,
Dem say we free again.
Yes, me friend,
Dem set we free again.
Yes, me friend, me good
friend...

Check out Caratacus' Blog http://caratacus.blogspot.com/

Skirmishes in the hedgerows. Smite the Evildoers; bring on Armageddon

2009-11-03T18:12:00.004+11:00

And She said...

Send us you Wars, all kinds...in art and poems... for the next issue...coming soon.

Caratacus Rides Again!

2009-10-31T15:49:00.002+11:00

My Domus Carataci personal blog on JournalSpace with years of posts was destroyed when JournalSpace's server crashed in 2007. Since then I haven't run a personal blog, channeling most of my energies into Shit Creek Review, The Chimaera and THE FLEA and their respective blogs. But some material fits better onto a personal blog than onto the more formal context of a literary magazine's blog; with that in mind I have revived Domus Carataci, now on Blogspot, and renamed it I, Caratacus. I will update it from time to time, whenever Bloggina, the Muse of Bloggers, inspires me.

Pushcart and Dzanc Books Best of Web Nominations

2009-10-25T10:47:00.005+11:00

SCR's Best of the Net Nominations for 2009

2009-08-30T09:31:00.007+10:00

The Shit Creek Review is proud to announce these nominations for the Sundress Best of the Net 2009 Anthology.

'After the Funeral' by Janice D. Soderling Issue 9

'Kung Fu Monkeys Hijack Armored Car' by Dennis Loney Issue 9

'After Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night' by Sam Byfield Issue 9

'Ritual' by Brent Fisk Issue 8

'Unmended daughter' by Christine Klocek-Lim Issue 8

'Who Calls Its Children To Their Altars' by Geoff McLain Issue 8

Into the Jungle

2009-08-30T09:23:00.002+10:00

Paul Stevens and Don Zirilli have jumped canoe and escaped into the jungles around Shit Creek. Zirilli has found a haven at Now Culture and Stevens appears to have vanished into the Heart of Darkness.

Nigel Holt has taken the helm for the next part of the voyage, and Rose Kelleher has joined Angela France as poetry editor, and Pat Jones takes command as Art Editor.

Onward!

Terry Stanton in Trouble

2009-08-24T21:30:00.009+10:00

My old friend Terry Stanton, who used to drink at The Royal George, is in dire straits. Nine months ago he fell and hit his head, and has been in intensive care ever since, having lost many of his faculties. There will be a benefit for him at Palm Beach R.S.L. on Sunday 30th August, 1-4 pm, with an auction of art by (amongst others) Martin Sharp, Reg Mombassa, Bruce Goold and Mick Glasheen. Phone (02) 9974 5566.

Click on the images below to make them bigger and easier to read.

Shit Creek Mosaic

2009-08-23T09:51:00.003+10:00

SCR and the GOP (and Jennifer Reeser)

2009-08-16T07:34:00.006+10:00

Jennifer Reeser, whose work has appeared in SCR, The Chimaera and The Flea, gets a mention in a major Republican Party Blog. An excerpt from one of Jennifer Reeser's 'Dark Lady' sonnets recently published in The Chimaera has been picked up by a website called 'GOP12'. It's an online blog which tracks American Presidential hopefuls for 2012 from the Republican party — and has been quoted in ABC Business News, and at salon.com, among other places:

From one of the best contemporary poets, Jennifer Reeser, an excerpt from the assumed perspective of the obscure woman of William Shakespeare's later poems.

If I were both thy mistress and thy muse,
From all conceivable reactions, chief
Among my choices — if I had to choose —
Would be the innocence of disbelief.

More here.

I, Caratacus, post this as a Post-Modernist Jihadi Shock-Commissar of the Maoist Ultra-Green Spartacist Gender-Studies Poetry Brigade — of course!

Jee Leong Koh on the Joe Milford Poetry Show

2009-08-15T17:30:00.004+10:00

From Jee Leong Koh:

"I was interviewed recently on the Joe Milford Poetry Show: one-and-a-half hour unedited reading and conversation about my new book of poems Equal to the Earth. We talked about my Singaporean background, art and autobiography, the mythic sea, use of meter and form, sense of humor (!), the objective correlative, children's playfulness, Chinese homosexuals, and love. I hope you enjoy some of it."

Best, Jee

From the show website:

The Joe Milford Poetry Show archives readings and interviews from acclaimed and established poets as well as up-and-coming poets from America and Canada. The Joe Milford Poetry Show prides itself on its candid and organic nature infused with a lively discussion of poetics, genre, the writing process, and myriad theories and movements of poetry. Join us once a week for regularly scheduled shows on Saturdays at 5pm Eastern Time, and watch for special edition shows by announcement. Add The Joe Milford Poetry Show to your MySpace Friends by going to the links page.

Parleying with the pure, oracular dead

2009-08-08T11:03:00.003+10:00

We talk to them, and sometimes they answer back.

Shit Creek Review, Issue 10: Talking to the Dead

http://www.shitcreekreview.com/

Poetry by Arlene Ang, David Gwilym Anthony, Greg Billingham, Michael Cantor, Enriqueta Carrington, Antonia Clark, Mary Cresswell, Ann Drysdale, Bill Greenwell, John Milbury-Steen, Timothy Murphy, Frank Osen, Rob Plath, Daniel Sluman, C.P. Stewart and Peter Wyton. Art by Patricia Wallace Jones, Tanzy Keiko Mai, Donald Zirilli and Mark Bulwinkle.

The Shit Creek Muse

2009-07-27T05:14:00.003+10:00

Inspirational! Shit Creek to some, but the Hippocrene Fountain to true poets: that's The Shit Creek Review, which Muse-like has inspired a stream of pellucid verse from Dave Bonta, poet and editor of the innovative poetry web magazine qarrtsiluni.

Read 'Shit Creek' at Via Negativa: http://www.vianegativa.us/2009/05/shit-creek/

We're Shakin' It, Boss!

2009-07-24T17:05:00.002+10:00

Shit Creek...

2009-07-24T12:38:00.002+10:00

...it's closer than you think. Hopefully by the end of July, possibly early August. Keep treading.... errmmm.... water.

The Byte of The Second Flea

2009-07-06T16:26:00.002+10:00

The Second Flea has hatch'd, and, pamper'd, swells — with verse by Peter Bloxsom, Catherine Chandler, David Davis, Ann Drysdale, Rhina P. Espaillat, Bill Greenwell, Clive James, Jalina Mhyana, Timothy Murphy, Alfred Nicol, Marly Youmans and Thomas Zimmerman. Go, read, be bytten!

http://www.the-flea.com/

Margaret Menamin, Poet

2009-07-02T17:14:00.026+10:00

************** ************
We are all saddened to hear of Margaret Menamin's death. She was a poet's poet and beloved by many, not only for her fine work but her gracious and thoughtful critique. This poem of hers from The Chimaera III speaks beautifully about acceptance, remembrance and treasured relationships …how those who loved her will come to remember her season on season, summer after spring.

Baucis and Philemon

I believe I know how it will be
with you and me:
Coming silent one day through the wood
where last you stood,
I will stop, remembering, and see
a newsprung tree.

It will be as if it had been planned:
Where then you stand
I will stop, remembering, and see
a wild young tree
tall and straight among the others, and
put forth my hand.

As I touch your greenness, some strange thing
will leap and sing
within the hardening fibers of my hand.
So we will stand,
season on season, summer after spring,
remembering.

Recent news from our published authors

2009-07-02T17:01:00.004+10:00

A new interview with Joseph S. Salemi, along with some of his published work, appears at the following website address: http://alongstoryshort.net/ThePoetsCorner-June09.html

Salemi writes a monthly column for The Pennsylvania Review , and his comic poem "Rear-Meat Rhoda" is up at The Formalist Portal.

Bench Press: Poetry that exerts pressure at every point, and so achieves a momentary rest.

Bench Press, an independent publisher of poetry, will be launched on July 4, 2009. On that day its website will go "live," and unveil its logo.

The press is pleased to announce its first title: Jee Leong Koh's Equal to the Earth. Of Koh's book, Vijay Seshadri writes: "Jee Leong Koh is a vigorous, physical poet very much captured by the expressive power of rhythm, rhetoric, and the lexicon. He is also, paradoxically, a poet in pursuit of the most elusive and delicate of human emotions. The contradiction is wonderful and compelling, and so are his poems."

You can read a poem from the book on the press website, and purchase a copy of the book.

Creekish Editor Questioned

2009-06-21T22:29:00.001+10:00

Paul Stevens, CiC of the Shit Creek Corporation's War On Poetry, interviewed by Nic Sebastian:

http://verylikeawhale.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/ten-questions-for-poetry-editors-paul-stevens/

Book Launch for Ray Pospisil's The Bell

2009-06-17T16:24:00.003+10:00

Ray Pospisil, a Brooklyn based poet and journalist, was born in Bogota, Colombia, and early in his life moved with his parents to Union, New Jersey. He spent most of his life in New York City. Ray was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Rutgers University. He worked as an energy and environment journalist working for Fairchild Publications sand then McGraw-Hill and later became a freelance journalist working mostly for McGraw-Hill publications. Ray had a passion for poetry and often read in the East Village and in Manhattan. His work has been published by Lyric, Iambs & Trochees, The Newport Review, Rogue Scholars and others. In 2006, his chapbook of poems, Some Time Before the Bell, was published by Modern Metrics.

Ray died tragically on January 28, 2008, aged 54. The Bell is a book of remarkable precision, feeling, and sense of beauty among the squalor of urban life in the early twenty-first century. A mixture of anger, humor, compassion, and a deep, hard-earned love for life in spite of its many disappointments make this a painful yet transcendently beautiful collection.

Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Nightingale Lounge
213 Second Ave (Corner of 13th Street)
Manhattan, New York

Featured readers:

Quincy Lehr
R. Nemo Hill, Jane Ormerod, Oran Ryan,
Thomas Fucaloro, Michelle Slater, Su Polo,
David Elsasser, Terese Coe, and Wendy Sloan.

Talking to the Dead

2009-06-07T13:27:00.001+10:00

Coming soon to a creek near you...

Angela France's New Book

2009-05-31T06:56:00.012+10:00

Our Poetry Editor, Angela France, has a book out! It's called Occupation, and it's a ripper! Occupation is full of the sort of poetry that SCR loves: articulate, honest, incisive, imaginative, true.

And English: if you love English poetry—not just poetry in English, but English poetry — you will love this book. And if you're going to buy a book of poems to read and then come back to, this is the one.

Occupation is available for pre-publication order from Ragged Raven Press, and will be launched with a reading at Ledbury Poetry Festival on July 10th.

Ragged Raven Press is here: http://raggedraven.co.uk/collections.htm#Occupation

Angela France’s robust poems move through a range of themes, but the passage of time and the struggle against it, in physical effort, in mind and in dream, recur. There is also a very welcome intellectual clarity that produces a beauty of its own, in short poems, like Unpoem and Beeing, but also in more gritty works of realism like Urban. The poems are always vigorous and rhythmically controlled. Occupation establishes a clear, firm, valuable voice in contemporary poetry.

—George Szirtes

Here's a poem from Occupation to whet your appetite:

Secrets

The scrubbed block had scars and nicks
from the graded blades hanging on the rack;
I could see blood lingering
in deep cuts. His slabbed hands
were always wet and red, fingers
plump as the sausages forced
from the maw of his machine.

He smiled at customers as he slapped steak
on white paper, chatted as his cleaver
slammed through flesh and joint.
He knew all the wives by name,
knew who would want the cheap cuts,
the marrow bones for soup. He’d wink
an extra slice of ham into the wrapper
for Mrs Green and tease newlyweds
about what they’d give their man for supper.

I’d keep my eyes down, only offer
words from the shopping list,
scurry away with ideas about his steel door
and what it hid, sure of his kinship
to the plaster pig in the window
with a striped apron and a perverse smile
as its varnished trotter pointed
to rows of glistening chops.

I coloured him red,
heard draining arteries in his voice,
the thud of cleavers in his laugh.
I watched him checking a delivery, afraid
of what might burst from the straining seams.
He caught me looking
at the pigs hanging in the lorry,
pink feet pointing in a row.
Look like ballet dancers, don’t they?

The Opposite of Cabbage

2009-05-18T18:29:00.003+10:00

Rob A. Mackenzie contributed to The Sears Roebuck Shit Creek Review under the nom-de-creek of 'Prof. H. Blumqvist'. You'd think that would be enough of a dizzying dalliance with immortal glory for him, but no — he's a compulsive joy-popper and he's now brought out a new book of poetry, seeking to relive that dazzling Shit Creek moment.

I think he might just crack it. The book is called The Opposite of Cabbage and it's available from Salt Publishing. Folks reckons it's pretty damn good. Better go and have a look.

The Mighty Flea

2009-05-08T18:31:00.000+10:00

The Flea is definitely out there! Poems by John Whitworth, Jennifer Reeser, Geoff Page, Tim Murphy, Rose Kelleher, Tim Hawkins, Alan Gould, Anna Evans, Rhina P. Espaillat, Stephen Edgar, Ann Drysdale, Temple Cone, Catherine Chandler & Alison Brackenbury.

http://www.the-flea-com

THE FLEA approacheth

2009-04-17T07:26:00.005+10:00

Mr. Paul Stevens, ever stedfaste in the conviction that he hath indeed in Former Times befported and comported himfelf during a long & difreputable Paft Life as a Fellowe and Boone-Companion of Jack Donne Esq.,Ben Jonfon, Sir John Suckling, Richard Lovelace and his partickular Frende and Crony Mr. Andrew Marvell of Hull & Nun Appleton Houfe, wishes to presage the imminent Publickation of an Exhibition or Congeries of Poemes, Sonets,Squibs & Epigrammes,endited & compofed of variovs Illvftrious Avthors & diuers Handes, whych he hath whimfically deuysed under the Favoure of the Souereygne Muse in a Broadfheet to be called THE FLEA, after the excellent Conceite of his Frende Mr. Donne; and will aduyfe furthermore any new Newes as seems bothe appofyte and timely.

THE FLEA

2009-04-07T05:50:00.006+10:00

by John Donne

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
      Yet this enjoys before it woo,
       And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
       And this, alas! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
       Though use make you apt to kill me,
       Let not to that self-murder added be,
      And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
      'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be;
      Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
      Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

I love this poem!

2009-04-02T08:59:00.001+11:00

It's called 'Martin' and its on Peterloo Poets here:

http://www.peterloopoets.com/html/EnglishCivilWar.htm

'Martin' comes from Keith Chandler's new book The English Civil War Part 2 published by Peterloo and available for purchase on the Peterloo site.

Shit Creek News March/April

2009-03-31T13:37:00.014+11:00

Shit Creek Review Editor Angela France has been shortlisted for the Irish Strokestown Poetry Competition which has very healthy cash prizes and stacks of prestige. Respect, Angela! Angela's forthcoming book, Occupation, will be launched at Ledbury Poetry Festival in July.

Susan McLean, whose work appeared in The Chimaera of May 2008, has an essay on translating Martial's epigrams in Amphora, the newsletter of the American Philological Association, now available for free in PDF at the address below:

http://www.apaclassics.org/outreach/amphora/2008/Amphora7.2.pdf

The essay is on pages 4-5 and includes a few sample translations.

Sally Cook who has appeared several times in TC and SCR, has a poem, 'Some of the Parts' in the current issue of The New Formalist, another poem 'The World Arises' in Contemporary Sonnet Number 4 and an essay 'A Very Contemporary Artist Speaks' in the most recent issue of The Formalist Portal.

Work by Joseph S. Salemi appears in a new anthology recently published by published by The Oxford University Press, titled A Mind Apart. The book, clustering about themes of melancholia, madness, and addiction, has as its editor one Dr. Mark S. Bauer, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard

Salemi’s 'Sicilian Beachhead' keeps good company with poets from the fourteenth century up to the moment such as Cowper, Clare, Dowson, Herbert, Hardy, Kees, Larkin, Millay, Plath, Roethke, and others.

Sonnets galore! Recent new editons have appeared of online sonnet magazines 14by14 and Contemporary Sonnet, two magazines which serve the sonnet form excellently. Both feature work by many authors who have appeared in SCR and The Chimaera.

That excellent poetry forum The Gazebo has had major server troubles which are now being repaired, but the repairs will take some time. Meanwhile a Gazebo in Exile forum has been set up at http://thegazeboinexile.iforums.us/. The Gazebo is a a very good place to have your poetry critiqued — in return of course for offering your own critique of the work of others there. It also offers discussion about submission of work for publication in various venues. And let us not forget that it was a riotous thread at Gazebo that gave birth to the legendary Shit Creek Review. Hmmm...

Shit Creek Review and the Nightmare of History

2009-03-14T12:49:00.003+11:00

Eternal recurrence, Whiggish progress towards Liberty and Enlightenment, dustbin, or just plain old wie es eigentlich gewesen -- the Februaryish Shit Creek Review's 'History and Memory' issue is now online. There are a few poets there you'll recognise, some you might not have met before, and as many bent views of History as the most rabid Post Structuralist could desire, with as goodly a dash of memory as would satisfy the impossible yearnings of the most nostalgic Traditionalist.

Poetry and art by David Gwilym Anthony, Peter Austin, Sam Byfield, Michael Cantor, Mary Cresswell, Jan Iwaszkiewicz, Kathryn Jacobs, Dennis Loney, Donal Mahoney, Matt Merritt, Alistair Noon, Christine Potter, Janice D. Soderling, Peter Swanson, John Whitworth, Mark Bulwinkle, C. Albert, Don Zirilli, Patricia Wallace Jones, Ed Clarke and R.K. Sohm. Edited by Nigel Holt, Angela France, Pat Jones, Don Zirilli and Your Humble Obedient Servant.

Want to plunge further into the Nightmare of History? Just click >>>>HERE<<<< and say a quick Hail Mary.

Listen up. The Subs Gate is now open for SCR issue #10, due to come out in approximately July, circa 2009. The cheery theme for that issue is 'Talking to the Dead'. Better check out the Submissions page (accessible from the SCR front cover). So get out there and start talking to the Dead. Then write the poems and bung them off them to me c/o Heart of Darkness, Shit Creek, in a plain packet ballasted with Kruger Rands. Subs close May 31st. Or (perhaps more reliable) use the email address and online submissions form on the Submissions page.

Nearly there...

2009-03-02T22:13:00.002+11:00

Listen to Donald Gardner while you're waiting.

More on Donald Gardner at his website: http://www.donaldgardner.net/

Pay No Mind

2009-02-22T11:14:00.001+11:00

Mighty Strange Stuff

2009-02-18T17:49:00.003+11:00

Coming down the Creek these days...more to come, no doubt.

The Creek is on the Rise

2009-02-14T11:14:00.003+11:00

Jennifer Reeser's Dark Lady

2009-01-25T06:30:00.003+11:00

I am so impressed with the selection from Jennifer Reeser's Sonnets from the Dark Lady published in the current Mezzo Cammin, >>>here<<<. For me, Shakespeare's sonnets are the apex of poetry, and Jennifer's play on them — the wit, the resonances, the language — are the best things I've read since... since... I last read Shakepeare's sonnets!

Jennifer's own site is at http://www.geocities.com/jdreeser/

Honeymoon

2008-12-02T18:33:00.005+11:00

Speaking of history...hope they bring those 30s clothes back. : )

Message Found in a Calvados Bottle Floating Down Shit Creek

2008-11-15T19:55:00.010+11:00

Thoughts from the Commander-in-Chief

Due to the retrograde influence of a mysterious but demanding phenomenon known as 'Real Life', not much work has appeared on the Chimaera/Shit Creek Blog news front. This post is an attempt to catch up on some of that.

From J.J. Steinfeld, Canadian writer whose brilliant flash fiction apppeared in The Chimaera's issues #3 and #4:

"Thought you might be interested in knowing that Chimaera has entered Canadian academe in the form of an essay topic for an English literature course at the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada). Attached are the course outline for "ENGL 1080-06 F08: Reading the Past" and the (May 2008) Chimaera topic from that course. So, some eager Canadian literature students should soon be visiting Chimaera."

I tell you, Lads and Lad-esses, that eventually The Chimaera and the Shit Creek Review will be required reading for every student on the planet! Untold wealth and fabulous fame will flow from these mighty enterprises. Even as I rant, 60,000 New South Welsh students, their teachers, and tutors, as well as the massive educational support industry, are searching for additional texts for the mandatory Year 12 Higher School Certificate Area of Study question on 'Belonging' — and many of them are starting to find The Chimaera's 'Belonging' themed feature from issue #3. Another 60,000 + will do the same thing next year, and the next, until about 2012: many of these will end up at The Chimaera, and find poems or prose relating to Belonging that they can discuss at school and write about in the HSC. There are worse things for writers than finding your way into Senior High and University courses and essays.

Dennis Greene's lovely poem 'One Tree Bridge' was published in SCR #2. Now Dennis tells me that the state officer given the task of updating the signage at One Tree Bridge ( in Western Australia )has written to him, saying that he was searching around on the internet for information and came across'One Tree Bridge' on Shit Creek Review, adding 'I would like to use this poem at the [One Tree Bridge] site as I think it is a great description of the area and alludes to the history which is the major focus of the interpretation.' Who says that poetry has no impact on the real world? Well done, Dennis!

Jack Large has posted nearly 100 short videos of US poets reading on his YouTube (jakvid) channel http://uk.youtube.com/user/jakvid . You may also be interested in looking over the website at www.thetemplebookstore.com. Jack's recommendations for the YouTube foray: Janine Pommy Vega ("Habeas Corpus"); Klyd Watkins, ("Nipple of light"), Charles Potts ("The English Verbs", "Pahsimeroi Eki"), Andy Clausen ("Deconstruction of an erection") and Corrine De Winter ("Heroin poem").

Sally Cook has a poem 'The Face Of Morning' in the June/July 2008 issue of First Things. Seven poems by Sally are now on The Hypertexts. Sally also joins Margaret Menamin, Jared Carter, David W. Landrum, and Joseph S. Salemi on the Featured Poet roster at The Formalist Portal. But there's more! Sally has reviewed The Conservative Poets: A Contemporary Anthology, by William Baer (published by University of Evansville Press (Evansville, Ind.) 192 pp., $20.00 cloth, 2006.) The review, 'Rhyming The Right', appears in the Summer 2008 University Bookman.

More readings on Youtube with Leo Yankevich's White Horse Tavern page: http://uk.youtube.com/user/WhiteHorseTavern, where Leo reads a number of his own poems. Leo edits The New Formalist and other Formalist literary magazines.

Australian poet Peter Nicholson has an very interesting online site at http://peternicholson.com.au/, with poetry, essays and student notes; see also his blog on 3 Quarks Daily.

A reminder for New South Wales poets, especially Novocastrians and those on the Central Coast, that Poetry at the Pub is held at the Northern Star Hotel in Hamilton, normally on the third and fifth Monday of the month (check their website first) — a good chance to drink a schooner or two of ~~Black Ale~~ pure inspirational water from the Muses' fountain.

Paul Hostovsky, who appeared in The Chimaera's Belonging feature in issue #3, has a new book out, Bending the Notes, from Main Street Rag Store.

Kathryn Jacobs, whose work also appeared in issue #3 of The Chimaera, has a book out, Advice Column, with Finishing Line Press (the titles are arranged alphabetically; scroll down to find Kathryn's book).

Juleigh Howard-Hobson, who has been with us since way back, has had a few gigs lately: work in 14 by 14, HawkandWhippoorwill, Soundzine and Bumbershoot Candelabrum, The Road Not Taken Journal of Formal Poetry and PanGaia. Doubtless more, since she told me this back in August!

I've put a lot of news items in here, but may have missed some that people have sent in. I'll have another go very soon: promise! In the meantime, if you are an SCR or Chimaera poet who is sending me an item, it really helps (now that we have a great many authors on board) if you tell me which issue your work appeared in so I can quickly find it and link to it; or better still, send me the actual URL. This would expedite considerably these news relays.

I experience the submission process from both sides of the equation: I receive submissions as an editor, but I also send poems out to editors in hope of publication. Sometimes they are published, more often they are not; sometimes editors are impressively prompt in replying, more often they take 6-12 weeks; depressingly fequently I never hear back from them at all. So, Dear Poets, without whose contributions there would be no Shit Creek Review or Chimaera, what I'm saying is that I know what it feels like to wait and wait. All of us working on both magazines are practising poets: we know the angst. Editors at SCR and TC try hard to move things through quickly, given that they all have day jobs, families, and all sorts of other commitments. And poems have to be emailed to and fro betweeen, and considered by, several editors: this takes time.

Also, with our system of selection there remains the fact that if you submit near the beginning of any particular submission cycle, that is just after the latest issue came out, you are probably going to wait longer than if you submitted late in the cycle, since decisions tend to be made when sufficient submissions have accumulated. So please factor that into your submission-response-freak-out-tolerance quotient. And finally: a percentage of my replies bounce — that is, the submitter's isp or mailbox just refuses to accept them. Unless I have another way of contacting that person (for example through a poetry board's PM facility) there's nowt I can do except feel sorry for the submitter. I always retry several times, but I'm often left with submissions from authors to whom I am unable to reply. I'm sure some replies end up in Spam folders, so if you're keen to hear your submission's fate it pays to check those from time to time. But If your emailer totally bounces my reply, I'm afraid it's Game Over. And the bugger is that you will not realise that this has happened, and think, 'Oh, bloody slack Stevens is probably drinking rounds of Calvados, flirting with poetry groupies, partying around the clock and generally skiving off while totally ignoring my poems!' Not so, alas! Not so!

PS: Rose Kelleher's Bundle o' Tinder is now on sale at Waywiser. Buy it, or we'll position the Shit Creek Corporation peace-keeping nuclear-armed gatling-gun satellite over your house and it will be the worse for you!

Peony Moon Poetry Blog

2008-10-26T08:59:00.004+11:00

South African poets seem hard to find on the English-speaking poetry boards and in the ezines. Lots of Merkins, Canuks, Pommies, Aussies and the odd EnZedder, but in my ignorance I just don't seem to stumble across many Seth Efricans. Now here's a cool poetry blog emanating from that direction — Peony Moon. It's run by Michelle McGrane, a smart lady who's given me some great ideas. Peony Moon's worth following — I've put the url into the Links list.

Back to Taylor Square

2008-10-18T07:33:00.005+11:00

If you blow into this site in quest for the days of The Royal George, you will also love Lynne Komidar's blog Musical Notes -- it's chokka with yarns, memoirs, snippets, photos and goss about that era, and does a particular focus on the Taylor Square scene. If you were there in that era then like me you probably don't remember much -- until you start looking at the names, faces and yarns at Lynne's place. Starting to come to you back now? So -- lurch on out of The Royal George and begin the long but adventurous Odyssey up to Taylor Square... but watch out for The Chimaera along the way. And make sure you don't find yourself Up Shit Creek!

Important Instructions -- Follow EXACTLY!

2008-10-17T09:22:00.001+11:00

1.) Ensure that your computer box and screen are aligned exactly correctly taking ALL factors into account (use a standard carpenter's square, GPS, sextant and I Ching to determine the One True Angle)

2.) Check, re-check, and re-check again that step 1.) has been performed correctly and that all calculations are accurate

3.) Vacuum the keyboard, then thoroughly clean it and the screen, mouse and mouse-pad several times with antibacterial wipes (usually 72 passes on each is sufficient to ensure adequate bacterial and psychic sanitation but when in doubt repeat the sequence as many times as it takes)

4.) You may now click on the link to the Obsessive/Compulsive Shit Creek Review

5.) Make sure you read it in EXACTLY correct sequence

6.) IMPORTANT: If interrupted at any point, including the reading process, do not just subsequently resume reading -- BEGIN THE WHOLE OPERATION AGAIN from Step 1.)!

Ewww! Look at that canoe, crawling with microbes! And those paddles! Where are the wipes?

The Chimaera wants light

2008-10-12T06:53:00.000+11:00

For The Chimaera Issue 5, due out in the second half of January 2009, our Feature Theme will be light verse. John Whitworth (Spotlight Poet in this issue) has agreed to guest-edit the feature. The definition of light verse will be broad rather than narrow. We’ll be looking for well-made poems in a lighter style (see the part of the the Spotlight interview touching on light verse). John will select for the feature from submissions received, which should be sent via our online form (preferred) or by email to the usual editorial address (editor@the-chimaera.com) — not, please, directly to John. And please read our submission guidelines first.

Our Spotlight Poet for Issue 5 will be Stephen Edgar, three of whose poems appear in the current issue. If you have special familiarity with Stephen Edgar’s work and would like to contribute to this feature, please contact the editor.

Issue 5 will also include the usual miscellany of verse and prose in various styles and on various themes. We invite Submissions for this General section as well.

All submissions need to be in by December 1st, 2008.

The Chimaera Unchained!

2008-09-26T22:48:00.003+10:00

It's the Fourth Chimaera!

Starring

John Whitworth,

with Mark Allinson, Peter Austin, Anne Bryant-Hamon, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Antonia Clark , Sarah Colona, Maryann Corbett, Corrie Fenner, Sally Festing , Jan Iwaszkiewicz, Margaret Menamin, Timothy Murphy, Henry Quince, Myra Schneider, Janice D. Soderling, John Weston, Christopher Whitby, Gail White, Greta Bolger, J. J. Steinfeld, Alan Brownjohn, Harry Chambers, Wendy Cope, Gregory Dowling, Ann Drysdale, R.S. Gwynn, Richard Broderick, Stephen Edgar, Sally Festing, Howie Good, Taylor Graham, Christopher Hanson, Janet Kenny, Quincy Lehr, Lance Levens, Amy Bell, Julie Wakeman-Linn, Duncan Gillies MacLaurin, David Holper, and Quincy Lehr.

Cameo performances by Les Murray and Roger McGough.

Art by Pat Jones. Blood, sweat and tears by Peter Bloxsom and Paul Stevens.

Better read it now!

Obsessed

2008-09-18T15:07:00.001+10:00

Seriously Obsessive

2008-09-11T16:33:00.002+10:00

Coming soon to a venue near you...grab a paddle!

John, and Rose, and Quincy, and Sally, and...

2008-08-09T10:16:00.012+10:00

Dear Creekish or Chimaeric Reader,

Coming soon! The September Chimaera approaches, carrying poems, stories, reviews and articles in its maw(s) — including a Spotlight Feature on the UK poet John Whitworth. John has published ten books of verse (and a very good book on writing poetry called errmm... Writing Poetry). His poem 'The Examiners', published in The Chimaera, was voted by readers of the Times Literary Supplement to second place in TLS's Foyles Poetry Competition (details here). I love reading John's poetry for all sorts of reasons — not least because it's fun! The ludic element in his verse is extremely vigorous, and exhilarating: this is poetry that you can unashamedly enjoy reading — aloud if possible!

Anyway, read a lovely bunch of new poems by John, as well as an interview with the good fellow, and some of what other poets have to say about him — and a few other little surprises as well.

The September Chimaera will also have a 'Multum in parvo' themed section where writers will attempt to express a greast deal in relatively few words. We're pretty tight-lipped about that. 'Nuff said.

As for the next Shit Creek Review — prepare for weirdness! The normally sane, orderly, clean-minded Shit Creek Review will become strangely psychotic. Bizarre obsessions will run riot in ever-diminishing circles. Implacable compulsions will drive the writers — and the readers — relentlessly on. Compulsive reading indeed: due out sometime in September — provided I ever get my hands clean enough to type it up.

Rose Kelleher is well known to readers of The Chimaera and Shit Creek Review. SCR nominated her 'Mortimer' for the Best of the Net, and Rose, as we reported, won Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for her forthcoming book, Bundle O' Tinder. This feisty but perfectly formed little book is full of real, live poems, some of which will bite you on the bum! We highly recommend Bundle O' Tinder which is available to pre-order here at Amazon. Rose reviewed Gail White's new book Easy Marks at Quincy Lehr's new blog The Belletrist. The Belletrist, according to Quincy, 'aims to fill something of a lacuna in the reviewing of new work—books on independent publishing houses and chapbooks in particular — from less 'established' writers, as well as to provide at least some coverage of live readings', and the site looks set to fulfil that aim admirably.

Paul Hostovsky contributed some of his work to The Chimaera's 'Belonging' feature, here. Now he too has a book forthcoming: Bending the Notes, available at Main Street Rag Store (towards the bottom of the page). So there goes the rest of your pocket money!

Sally Cook has graced our various online organs several times, with controversial prose and well-turned verse. Not content with such glory, she now has a poem, 'The Face of Morning', in the June/July 2008 issue of First Things. Tim Murphy has a poem in the August/September issue of First Things, as well. But back to Sally: check out her contributions to The Bumbershoot Annual , where you'll find three of Sally Cook's poems: one, 'Artistic Licenses' in the general section, and two parodies (one on Auden's 'The Fall of Rome' the other on Emily Dickinson's 'A Light Exists in Spring') in the Fractured Verse section. I think I recognise some of the other writers there too. Sally's been busy: her poem 'MRI' is in Contemporary Sonnet, and you'll also find work by Sally, and Joseph S. Salemi, and Juleigh Howard-Hobson, and David Anthony — all SCR/TC writers — in Poems for Big Kids.

Speaking of Joseph S. Salemi: his brief essay and three annotated translations from the Roman poet Martial were published in the latest issue of The Barefoot Muse . These are worth a read! — But only if you're not easliy shocked. Another essay on poetic composition ('Bottom's Dream') has just appeared at ShatterColors Literary Review. A pair of matched sonnets by Joseph are in the newest issue (issue #3) of Contemporary Sonnet, and two brand-new sections from his verse satire 'A Gallery of Ethopaths' have been showcased at The HyperTexts website, along with illustrations by the political cartoonist Bob Fisk.

I reside in New South wales, and went to high school in Newcastle. So speaking authoritatively as an ex-Novocastrian, I'd like to recommend one of the very best of our local live poetry venues: Poetry at the Pub, which takes place at The Northern Star Hotel, Beaumont Street, Hamilton in Newcastle, normally on the third and fifth mondays of the month. Recently Stephen Edgar (who will feature as the Spotlighted poet in The Chimaera's January 2009 issue) appeared there, and Michael Collins and David Reiter will be reading there on August 18th and September 29th repectively.

In the Write Light, Spain's hippest creative writing workshop, has ditched the hippy digs for chic boutique. For the October 1st to 5th workshop, they are moving from the campo to the town centre. Participants will enjoy the luxury of local hotel, Pousada Vagamundo. Martina Devlin, the bestselling author and tutor for this workshop will be showing would-be writers how to give their work a commercial edge and get published see their site for details.

SCR/TC will publish this newsletter on its blogs at irregular intervals, and will willingly include poetry news that I deem more or less relevant to our particular vision of poetry (there! I used the 'V' word!). But writing the newsletter up is extremely time-consuming, so be aware that producing it is not at the very top of my list of priorities: it trails behind making a living, trying to be a good family man, doing household chores, editing The Shit Creek Review and The Chimaera, helping select sonnets for 14by14, watching The Sopranos (again!), partying, pursuing mindless pleasure, playing fan-tan, staring absent-mindedly into space — oh, and trying to find time to write my own poetry in the middle of all this. Actually it's a wonder that the bloody newsletter gets published at all!

If you sent me an item of news and I've left it out, it was probably inadvertent. Email me and remind me. You know where.

Cheers!

Paul

The Owl

2008-07-29T06:15:00.000+10:00

Signs of Obsession

2008-07-28T15:54:00.002+10:00

The Uses of Obsession

2008-07-06T09:47:00.001+10:00

Obsession: not just a fashion accessory.

Obsession is how you make art, poetry, music, progress. Love.

"Love: the cognitive-affective state characterised by intrusive and obsessive fantasising concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance."

(Definition of Love from a psychology textbook)

So get your obsessions to work for The Shit Creek Review, whose theme for Issue #8 is.... well, yes: Obsession.

If you don't do Obsession, try Compulsion. Write poetry compulsively instead. Set free your inner Nutter.

However you get there, write the blooming obsessive-compulsive poems, then, if you can bear ever to part with them, send them to The Shit Creek Review.

Here we are:

http://www.shitcreekreview.com/

Check the Submissions Guideline page for details.

But if Mars Sector 6 has commanded that you don't look at submissions gudelines on alternate Sundays, then send the poems direct to editor@shitcreekreview.com

Here's another definition of Love. Obsessive, or what?

The Definition of Love

My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by despair
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown
But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended Soul is fixt,
But Fate does Iron wedges drive,
And alwaies crouds it self betwixt.

For Fate with jealous Eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruine be,
And her Tyrannick pow'r depose.

And therefore her Decrees of Steel
Us as the distant Poles have plac'd,
(Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac'd.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new Convulsion tear;
And, us to joyn, the World should all
Be cramp'd into a Planisphere.

As Lines so Loves oblique may well
Themselves in every Angle greet:
But ours so truly Parallel,
Though infinite can never meet.

Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debarrs,
Is the Conjunction of the Mind,
And Opposition of the Stars.

— Andrew Marvell

Dwelling On It

2008-06-23T14:38:00.002+10:00

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...

Into the night!

2008-06-09T12:31:00.006+10:00

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

2008-06-09T09:50:00.017+10:00

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.

Watch Your Wake

2008-06-06T16:00:00.005+10:00

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

Up Shit Creek to The Chimaera's Lair

2008-06-04T07:20:00.015+10:00

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

2008-06-04T06:39:00.007+10:00

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.

Procrastinators all...

2008-05-31T12:23:00.003+10:00

...the Special Forces Team of the Shit Creek Corporation's War on Poetry have done their best—their very best, way beyond the call of duty—in their heroic attempt to bring the May Issue of SCR out in June. "June is the new May!" was their watchword and warcry, and they tried their hardest to live the Dream.

Alas, Grasshopper! Sometimes noble intentions and superhuman efforts are not enough. For as it has turned out, the Shit Creek Review's May Masks issue has actually appeared in May! Oh well, they tried.

http://www.shitcreekreview.com/

I'm Ready!

2008-05-23T09:53:00.002+10:00

Dogzplot: Virtually Erratic

2008-05-16T21:48:00.002+10:00

Dogzplot: Virtually Erratic

by Colette Jonopulos

When the editors of Dogzplot say their lit journal’s content is “erratic,” they mean it. Erratic allows for short prose pieces, longer pieces, poetry, rants, visual art—whatever the writer/artist needs to put down in words or paint. There are no limits, no boundaries. If your Queen eats quesadillas in extra spicy pico de gallo sauce, she’s welcome here. If you’re theophobic (and aren’t we all just a little?) this is the place for you. Art in its abstractions, photography in shades of gray, poetry, flashes of fiction, and longer works can be devoured like expensive dark chocolate on one of the net’s more progressive literary sites. Visit Barry and Jamie and Peter in their erratic world of literature and art. You will find them eating pizza and drinking beer while reading over submissions and commenting on your sketches in the back room of their collective imagination.

Go now: www.dogzplot.com

Fearless

2008-05-14T07:33:00.000+10:00

Pink Floyd

Innovative work practices at SCR

2008-05-05T12:30:00.011+10:00

The SCR crew has chosen to do all the work on SCR#7 while wearing garish masks — but otherwise totally nude!!! This procedure is causing unexpected delays to the completion of SCR#7 'Masks'. We hope these issues will soon be resolved, and that SCR#7 will emerge from the murky Creek later in May.

SCR crew hard at work with their novel editorial method.

One of the Staff Working on SCR/ Mask

2008-04-30T16:55:00.003+10:00

Between cold showers, of course.

Shit Creek Poetry News

2008-04-23T07:59:00.001+10:00

The April 14by14 Sonnet zine is out! Sonnetic gems by Anna Evans, Robert Crawford and 12 others. Some of them are wicked! It looks like Peter has nicked the Adirondack chair from the front porch of The Gazebo! Only one poet at a time will be able to sit there now. You've got to keep an eye on these poetry editors.

~~~

Irish-American Poet T. S. Kerrigan whose work will appear in The Chimaera's issue #3 due out in May, will read from his new book, My Dark People in Sanata Monica (USA) on May 10th.

This new volume of verse is 'a profound look at the lessons of a difficult past with the hope for a better and richer future'. X.J. Kennedy, poet and former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review describes My Dark People in the current issue of Chicago's Light Quarterly as a book '[America] sorely needs by one of the finest and most entertaining American poets alive.' Distinguished poet Timothy Murphy has said that in this book 'Kerrigan's tenor has the register of John McCormack. It is a sometimes grave, sometimes hilarious, always profound view of the modern world by a man who has tasted victory and defeat at its highest levels. A master of understatement...'

The poems will be read by Kerrigan himself, an by Thomas MacGreevy (who trained at Dublin's Abbey Theatre) and Michael Cooke (Mulholland Drive, Showgirls). The reading will take place here:

May 10th, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Martin Luther King Auditorium
Santa Monica Main Library
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 458-8600

There is a map here.

My Dark People can be ordered on http://www.centralavepress.com or http://www.kerryrecords.com, or later this month on Amazon.com.

~~~

Joseph S. Salemi's latest essay 'The Witness Revisited: Whittaker Chambers and American Conservatism' has just been published in the Spring 2008 issue of The University Bookman. Joseph's essays and poems have appeared in The Chimaera/II here and here, and in Shit Creek Review here and here.

~~~

David Landrum has had two poems accepted for the fabled Blue Unicorn. David's work has appeared in SCR/II and The Chimaera here and here. He is the editor of Lucid Rhythms, a great little online poetry magazine.

~~~

Quote du jour:

'I’ll clean toilets at Piccadilly Circus but don’t let me come back as a Poetry Editor.'

—Carlol Baldock, Orbis.

Rose Kelleher wins Anthony Hecht!

2008-04-17T08:16:00.002+10:00

Rose Kelleher, a Chimaera/SCR poet, has just won the 2008 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for her book Bundle o' Tinder, which will be published by Waywiser Press. The competition was judged by Richard Wilbur.

Rose is a poet whose work Shit Creek Review and The Chimaera have always loved to publish. Just two examples:

Sea Monster

Mortimer

Rose's web page may be found here.

Well done, Rose—thoroughly deserved!

My Shit Creek Mask

2008-04-08T16:21:00.002+10:00

Do you have one?

Last Seen on Shit Creek

2008-04-04T10:40:00.002+11:00

Mask in the Making

2008-03-29T09:59:00.002+11:00

Poem Recognition Contest

2008-03-25T06:50:00.005+11:00

The first prize is a free read of the Shit Creek Review.

The poem in question is an epigraph to another poem by Jean-Marc Bernard (b 1881 d in action 1915). His poem is called De Profundis, and the title is followed by a four-line epigraph from another poem which seems to be called 'Quelques Essais'. So who wrote the lines 'Le nécessaire...Votre œuvre inachevé'? Hein?

De Profundis

Le nécessaire de ma raison de vivre,
O morts, je l’ai trouvé,
Et je sais aujourd’hui que je devrai poursuivre
Votre œuvre inachevé

Quelques Essais

[Bernard's poem then begins...]
Du plus profound de la tranchée,
Nous élevons les mains vers vous,
Seigneur! ayez pitié de nous
Et de notre âme desséchée...

[Then follow four more stanzas of Bernard's poem.]

PS. We don't know the answer to the question of who wrote the epigraph. We're hoping you do.

Torn?

2008-03-20T18:44:00.003+11:00

Submit all your masks...but do it by Sunday!

Beasley Street

2008-03-19T22:03:00.002+11:00

John Cooper Clarke at The Argotist.

Evidently Chickentown.

Four Chapbooks and a Deadline

2008-03-19T08:11:00.010+11:00

Rick Mullin's work has graced the pages of SCR/TC on more than one occasion:

'Amity After the Fire'

'Shrine to Satan' (An SCR Pushcart Prize nomination)

'Still Life with Mackerel'

'Waziristan'

Now he has a new chapbook out, Aquinas Flinched, available from Modern Metrics. You'll also find books there by SCR/TC contributors Mark Allinson, Mary Meriam and Quincy Lehr.

+

SCR#7 'Masks' issue deadline is SOON!

March 23rd, 2008, in fact. Crikey! That's ~~next week~~ this Sunday!

Submissions for SCR #7

The Chimaera's 'Belonging' issue deadline is pretty soon too—April Fool's Day.

Grab some vellum, sharpen those quills, a quick quaff of laudanum, and start composing!

Submissions for The Belonging Chimaera.

SCR in Safe Hands

2008-03-18T07:43:00.003+11:00

Paul Stevens, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of SCR, and CEO of the Shit Creek Corporation, captured in a reflective moment.

Paula Berinstein interviews Joseph S. Salemi

2008-03-17T08:32:00.003+11:00

Joseph S. Salemi, who has published work in The Chimaera and SCR (here and here), was recently interviewed at length by Paula Berinstein of the Writing Show website on the problems of contemporary poetry. This interview will be of interest to all engaged with poetry, whether they agree with Dr. Salemi's argument or not. 'The State of Poetry Today' interview can be accessed as an audio podcast at http://www.writingshow.com.

Also, one of Salemi's translations of Horace's Odes was a finalist for the latest Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.

Kudos!

Pat Jones in the Guardian

2008-03-13T08:13:00.004+11:00

Pat Jones, Shit Creek Review's Resident Artist, is also a very gifted poet. We are proud to announce that her poem 'Fog Woman' not only features in The Guardian's poetry workshop for March hosted by David Morley, but a richly evocative phrase from the poem, thick with season, is used as the title for the whole workshop article! Pat has been the heart (!) and soul of SCR since our first tentative paddlings up the proverbial, and is also the artist/photographer for The Chimaera.

Good on you, Pat!

The Rapidly Rising Organ of The Shit Creek Review

2008-03-07T16:54:00.011+11:00

The Guardian, once described by Frederick Engels as 'an organ of the middle class’, but now the leading centre-left British newspaper, has recently noticed another organ in the paddock (so to speak), namely The Shit Creek Review.

Tim Radford, a columnist in the Education section of The Guardian, discussing the ubiquitous term 'edgy', refers to an SCR article written by Rose Kelleher:

I first noticed the word "edgy" in poetry reviews. It is still a poetry word. "Of all the ongoing poetry wars, the one that most interests me these days is Edgy vs. Nice," says a commentator in the Shit Creek Review. This organ helpfully invokes the American Heritage Dictionary, which defines edgy as "daring, provocative, or trend-setting" to make a point, but very often, the word edgy makes no particular point at all. Decades ago, poetry critics used to describe verse as being "taut" or "sinewy" or "nervous." These days they use the word "edgy". The implication is that "edgy" is good, without actually committing the critic to any precision about the nature or extent of this goodness...

—Prosaic postcards from the edgy

Tim mentions Rose's essay to support his claim that 'edgy' is still a
'poetry word', and his column makes some similar points to Rose's essay.

Rose Kelleher's essays are good value indeed—almost as good as her excellent poetry (which has appeared on and off in SCR since our very first issue). Her essay 'Edgy vs Nice' broke new ground in the hot new field of Edginess Studies.

As for The Guardian's description of The Shit Creek Review as an organ—well, your editor's mind boggles! Clearly The Guardian, as it ventures into the murky waters of Shit Creek, is beginning to realise that there is another proud organ on the rise, a magnificent instrument that will expand and grow to gigantic heights. One day, paddlers, SCR will rival and surpass the great Guardian itself, which is destined to fade into the gloom of our mighty shadow!

A Prayer for Sobriety

2008-03-01T09:39:00.004+11:00

«Hart Crane, Wystan Auden, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Delmore Schwartz, Elizabeth Bishop, Louise Bogan, John Ciardi, Dylan Thomas, James MacAuley, John Berryman: this is only a short list of remarkably talented 20th Century poets who destroyed themselves with alcohol. I am well along my way to doing the same, which is why I am seeking help at St. John’s.

Curiously, none of these gifted writers wrote compellingly of the thing that slowly or suddenly killed them, thus leaving me “open field running” as a football coach might say. As part of the reconciliation with the truth prerequisite to any recovery from alcoholism, I have gathered together my poems of the last decade which bear upon this affliction... »

Tim Murphy's poems on alcoholism can be found in The Chimaera #2.