Does poetry have a canvas like art?

There are certain types of poems that come to mind where I would say yes there is a definite canvas. Picture poems, are poems where the line breaks, text and the margins create a physical picture on the printed page. The picture is the first thing that you notice when you look at the page. The words and punctuation are the secondary image, created when you read them, and they are related to the physical picture. Here the poet must pay attention to the canvas when creating the poem, as the words, line breaks and punctuation must not only convey the meaning they must also work together to create a physical picture. To create a well crafted poem that fits the shape requires an additional layer in the poets craft. Consider Altar by George Herbert < http://www.humanities.ualberta.ca/herbert/altar.htm > a poem that takes the shape of a church altar, but also of a large “I” a first person pronoun. Then read the text which brings both, the first person singular, “I”, and the church furniture, “Altar”, together in a moving poem about a man and his faith.

This form, referred to as concrete or graphic poetry is said by some to have been created in the 1950’s. I would question this as George Herbert lived from 1593 to 1633. Perhaps the 1950’s popularized this form to generate interest in poetry for school children, something they could visually see and then further understand by the words they used to describe the shape. What comes first in the creation process for this type of poetry the images shape, or the words, or do they both come together?

These poems can also be referred to as visual poems. Take a look at Hand Game by Frances Boyle. When you look at it on a page the first thing you see a picture of an open hand and the text starts by defining the thumb and works down each of the fingers and the across the palm.

Can other types of poems be said to have a canvas? Would the spoken word poem created for an auditory event, be said to have a canvas of sound?  Or does that stretch the term canvas too much.

It would appear that some poetic forms do have a canvas.

Track & Trace by Zachariah Wells published by Biblioasis

All of the poems deal with tracks and/or traces left behind, like “Flowers here a fire once burned” in the opening poem “What He Found Growing in the Woods”. One of my favourite traces was the poem “Kaddish”, where a grandson recognizes his resemblance to a dead grandfather he never knew, the inherited parts we all can see in ourselves when look at old family photos. Another of my favourites was the series of Sonnets “After the Blizzard”. Each of the seven sonnets begins with the last line of the previous sonnet but takes the reader in a new direction. The crowning piece of craftsmanship is where the reader is returned full circle to the beginning, the last line of the seventh sonnet repeating the first line of the first sonnet.  My words do little to convey the well crafted adventures the reader will find in this collection of Tracks and Traces. Now sadly I must send this little book on its way to someone else for their perusal, perhaps it will find its way back to me at a later date. Do check it out for yourself.

Track & Trace by Zachariah Wells decorated by Seth published by Biblioasis

Opening a small package in the FreeFall mail I was immediately enchanted by the little book that came out. The cover a textured white stock with embossed shoe prints wandering around the grey title plate, literally tracks in a snowy white background, how wonderful. I ran my fingertips over the textured surface embracing the promise of an absorbing experience with the enclosed poetry. The decoration continued inside with a single snowflake dangling at the end of a dotted white line on a black page, how elegant. The decoration continues throughout the volume with wintery scenes that say so much in their sparse nakedness. Seth has decorated this volume beautifully, I can’t wait to discover the poetry enclosed. It is everything that my tactile sense wants in a book. I’m now off to explore the contents.

News from FreeFall

FreeFall 2008 contest winners have been announced you can find the list at http://www.freefallmagazine.ca/contest.html  

Volume XIX Number 1 has gone to the printers and copies will be available for sale at the Launch and Reading on April 30, 2009 at Pages Books on Kensington. http://www.freefallmagazine.ca/events.html

I am very excited about the Launch. We will have the first place winners for both Poetry and Prose coming to read their work. This is especially exciting as the prose winner Paul Sammartino is coming in from Vernon, B.C. to read his story “The White Tiger”.  Other readers include Rosemary Griebel (Poetry 1^st place winner), Joan Shillington (Poetry 2^nd place winner), David Miller (fiction) and Melvin Pasternak (poetry in issue Volume XVIII Number 2). It will be a wonderful celebration of the written word.

Enough resting on my laurels, back to work, lots to get ready for the coming year: A survey of our readers; A special contest to produce two chapbooks as a celebration of twenty years of publication; and of course the new judge for the 2009 Annual Prose and Poetry contest.

You can always check our website to see what is happening at www.freefallmagazine.ca

A Managing Editors Week March 2009

In the coming week I will be laying out the next issue of FreeFall, entering the contest winning poetry and prose texts into the file for the printer. In addition there is the creation of an ad for the 2009 FreeFall Annual Prose and Poetry contest as well as inserting all of the paid and exchange ads that will appear. A balance between making the text look pleasing on the page yet retaining a large enough font size for readability takes time and some finesse. Once everything that has to go in, is in, maybe there are some empty pages. Then it is time to make selections to fill these pages. The selections will be made from the contest entry short list. In discussions with the Editor, Micheline Maylor, I will select items to fill those empty pages. You as a writer might not want to hear it, but sometimes a poem that is better than the other poems we have to choose from does not make it in because there is only one page left to fill and the best poem cannot be squished on that one page, it needs two pages, so the next poem down the list is chosen instead. This is one of the reasons that you should never take a rejection letter personally. At FreeFall we don’t hold any of the submissions over from one reading period to the next, you either make it into the issue or you receive a rejection letter. Perhaps this practice will change in the future.

You can check out the website for the contest short list, then drop back later in the month for the announcement of the winner’s of the 2008 Annual Prose and Poetry Contest are at www.freefallmagazine.ca.

Look for the issue with the winner’s work at a local newsstand or in your mailbox in the middle of April.

Issue and the various meanings

I recently was reminded how difficult it can be to understand the English language when it is new to you. Consider the word issue. Consulting my Collins Gage Canadian Dictionary (2006) I see that as a verb issue means 1 send out, 2 come out; go out, 3 publish, or be published, 4 distribute. As a noun the meanings are 1 a quantity sent out at one time, 2 coming forth, 3 point to be debated, 4 a child or children.

As the managing editor of FreeFall I most often use the word issue to talk about a current copy of FreeFall or an upcoming one. While at an event at the Calgary Public Library I was talking with a lady and she was confused when I referred to the various copies of FreeFall that were sitting on the table as issues. She was even more confused when I said to her that we would have a new issue out in April 2009. When she asked what would be in the new issue I said that it would contain the winners of our Annual Poetry and Prose contest as well as an interview with a local author and a number of book reviews. At first I couldn’t see why she was having a problem understanding, and then it dawned on me. She was relatively new to the English language and when she learned the word issue she only related it to the noun meaning: a point to be debated, and wondered what issue we were discussing in each of the copies. FreeFall as a literary magazine does not generally debate points; we publish poetry, short stories, creative non-fiction, novel excerpts, Author interviews and book reviews.

May all our readers enjoy our next issue and freely discuss any issues that may arise from the exquisite writings, or the current judge Austin Clarke’s selections for first, second and third place in the contest. By all means let us at FreeFall know what you think of the new issue when it’s out. You can check out the short list currently on our website www.freefallmagazine.ca, and the winners will be announced by the end of March 2009.

Poem of the day and Webinar on Digital Magazines

Today I read Marie Ponsot’s poem “Live Model”, part of the poem a day that I am receiving this month from knopf a division of randomhouse http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/poetry/poemaday/ – creates a picture of the difference between posing for a painter and being oneself, a great picture. One of the things that I like about being a managing editor and writer is that I get to read the work of others. To thrill at coming across a piece written by an unknown author that has been submitted to FreeFall or one that comes to my in-box like the poetry that I am receiving this month to celebrate poetry month.

What does this have to do with a Webinar on digital Magazines – well digital magazines are certainly the way of the future and as a small magazine that needs to be ever aware of the rising cost to produce our print copies but wanting to expand our offering to our reader community – adding a digital copy to our line up of yearly issues is something that we are pondering. The webinar that I attended from the comfort of my home office was sponsored by AMPA (Alberta Magazine Publishers Association) and presented by Texterity. They went over the various forms that digital magazines can take and what is needed for the reader to view them.  Yes I can see where FreeFall might in the future offer a digital issue to our subscribers.

Mangaing Editor Musings

Unlike a lot of magazines, literary magazines are run by volunteers. FreeFall has an editorial board of 8 – the editor, the managing editor and 6 associate editors. Exactly what does that mean to the authors who submit their work? For FreeFall it means that your poem, or prose piece will be read by at least 5 editors, and they will rate it compared to the other work that we receive. This means that you have 5 opportunities to wow an editor, and if you can wow 3 or 4 of us then you are more likely to be published. We never hold work over from one issue to another no matter how close to publication the piece was. An author may ask why? All of our editors are also authors and we submit our creative work to other magazines or collect them into books, just as you do, and as such we are well aware of the re-write process. You may have thought that your poem was the best it could be, but when it doesn’t get published, and sometimes when it is considered you have been working away at the story or poem and made changes. By not holding pieces over for another issue we are saying, go ahead take another look at it, perhaps you change a few words or rearrange a few scenes and then send it elsewhere, or maybe you send a different iteration of the piece to FreeFall sometime down the road. If we had held your piece we would have stopped you from working on having the best piece you could produce. So when you get a piece back do take a look at it, read it over, see if there are improvements that you can make to the piece, and then send it off again. Try another literary magazine or even try another type of magazine that doesn’t usually publish poems or fiction. I recently sent a poem to a quilting magazine – the poem was about friendship quilts – because I felt it would be a good match for the magazine. They felt it was a good match as well and published my poem. So think with an open mind when you submit your work.

Poetry Month – daily dish of Poems

In honour of poetry month I have been receiving a poem a day in my inbox. They are delightful little interludes that also serve as reminders that to celebrate poetry I planned to write a poem a day this month. Not a perfected poem, but a first draft. I have gotten as far as picking out some topics that I felt would make good poems. But, alas I have not protected my writing time and have been busy getting ready for the FreeFall launch on May 1^st and the mail-out of the current issue when it comes off the presses. I wonder how other poets are making out – have they taken the challenge up and are they putting pen to paper, finger to keyboard and getting some rough drafts down for future refinement? Will they be poems submitted to FreeFall in the future, which I will get a chance to peruse when they arrive?

Last week I attended two additional readings – A children’s author reading (which I also read at) and the Alexandra Writer’s Centre Society Writer in Residence reading – both were celebrations that I enjoyed.

This Thursday I am taking in Deborah Miller’s book launch of Landing at Night and looking forward to an evening of listening to some outstanding work.

 

 

 

 

 

The Quartet 2008 launch of 4 books of poetry

Last night it was my pleasure to attend the launch of 4 books of poetry – Autopsy of a Turvy World by Sheri-D Wilson, Water Strider by Karen Hofmann, She is Reading Her Blanket With Her Hands by Sharron Proulx-Turner, and Wiser Pills by Richard Stevenson. www.frontenachouse.com

As always I am amazed by the added dimension that attending a reading gives you of the work, in this case poems. The depth of emotion, the background that generated the creation are just two reasons for attending a poetry book launch and hearing the author read their work. Of course there are always differences in the readers, you find that the more experienced readers have developed a stage style where they perform their work and don’t just read it. This will come for the new poets as they get more experience. What attending tells me is that if I ever feel that I have enough of my own poems to submit to a publisher to create a book of my own – I can look forward to a launch where I will present a taste of the work, and that not everyone is a performance poet, or at least not at the start. There will be another launch of the Quartet 2008 on April 10 in Toronto – worth your while if you can get out to hear and see the production.

It was a great way to start off poetry month. That’s right April is poetry month and Calgary the centre of Canadian poetry is celebrating that with the 5^th Annual Calgary International Spoken Word Festival. You can check out the schedule for the events at www.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com