submissions

Listening to Ben Sollee's Daytrotter Session recording for the first time and it is slightly distracting as I came to blog about submissions but my mind keeps wandering into inquisitive mode about his music and lyrics.  I'll try to stay on track.

I bought the Jan/Feb issue of Poets & Writers with intent to mark and scratch off contest submissions for whole poetry book competitions.  I have two unpublished cohesive collections that stand well as a group but probably not so well as single pieces as people might be curious as to why I'd write what I wrote without knowing the rest of the collection's intent.  I've considered publishing Lexington Lives myself through a print-on-demand site, but I think I could see it drown in a puddle because no one would actually purchase it, and no bookstores would know about it, and it wouldn't get any publicity whatsoever.  I'd rather like to see a publisher in Kentucky pick it up.

My wish is the same for Rise When the Rooster Crows but by a Mississippi press since I set the story in the Delta primarily.  Wouldn't it be great if UM Press, my Alma mater's university press, picked it up?  Daydreaming.

I do have a small selection of poems that stand alone and that I could use to send off for one-poem-at-a-time poetry contests.  Besides, I probably should revise Lexington Lives again before I try submitting it for a competition.  I have sent Rise When the Rooster Crows to Yale Younger Poets, so I will have to wait to hear about that.