Hallelujah for 50ft Women

This beauty arrived through my letter box this morning! My advance copy of Hallelujah for 50ft Women poems selected by Raving Beauties and printed by Bloodaxe. My poem The Beast is Dead, Long Live the Beast is in there, amongst some knock me down inspiring poetry... much needed refreshment for my muse - after a year of novel writing, the process has begun to feel like wading through mud :)

'This new anthology is inspired by a passionate desire to celebrate our bodies in a fully realised way, leaving Barbie’s grotesque silent pliability in her box for good. Instead of pouting, our mouths have the power of language, our romantic fluttering hearts give and receive compassion, skin ages with grace when we see beauty in everything, a pierced belly button connects us to our ancestors and a belly needs to be strong before it's flat.

This book has been selected from over a thousand submissions. New poets published here for the first time are proud to share this anthology with established writers such as Selima Hill, Kim Addonizio, Jackie Kay and Helen Dunmore. By revealing the complex depths of our relationships with our bodies Hallelujah for 50ft Women makes a much needed contribution to a compassionate understanding of our evolving selves.'

RAVING BEAUTIES

 

An interesting call for submissions I came across on the ravingly ravishing Emerging Writer's Blog. 

RAVING BEAUTIES - Sue Jones-Davies, Dee Orr, Anna Carteret and Fan Viner - are inviting submissions for their fourth collection of women’s poetry which will be published by BLOODAXE BOOKS in 2015. They want to join together with women poets to explore what it feels like to be a woman in her own skin. Here's what they have to say.....   

'however you feel about your body and whatever kind of writer you are – a published poet or impelled to write your first poem reading this – we want to hear from you. We can offer you the possibility of sharing your words with thousands of other women, and will consider previously published work as well as new poetry.

PLEASE SEND UP TO THREE POEMS BY MAY 1st 2014 to ravingbeauties@yahoo.co.uk

 

‘As feminists we want to support the incredible courage, insight 
and a dedication to the truth that challenges even the bravest of us 
when we ‘stop colluding with a culture that makes so 
many of us feel physically inadequate?’ 

(Oprah Winfrey)

Our relationship to our bodies is affected by many things including culture, religion, family, sex, hunger, pleasure and pain. This new collection is inspired by a passionate desire to celebrate our bodies in a fully realised way, leaving Barbie’s grotesque silent pliability in her box for good. Instead of pouting, our mouths have the power of language, our romantic fluttering hearts give and receive compassion,  skin ages with grace when we see beauty in everything,  a pierced belly button connects us to our ancestors and a belly needs to be strong before it’s flat.

Kim Addonizio’s inspiring poem brings together two heady desires -  to put on that red dress and to ‘wear’ that body. And own them both. Fearlessly.’

‘What Do Women Want?’

by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

The Stony Thursday Book

"The Stony Thursday Book is calling for submissions from local, national and international poets for the next issue which will be published in Limerick, Ireland, as part of Cuisle, Limerick City International Poetry Festival* in October 2010. The Stony Thursday Book was founded by Limerick poets John Liddy and Jim Burke in 1975, and has also been edited by Mark Whelan, Kevin Byrne, Patrick Bourke and Knute Skinner and Thomas McCarthy. This year the editor will be Mark Whelan.

The Stony Thursday Book is one of the longest-running literary journals in Ireland and celebrated its 30th Anniversary Edition in 2005.Poetry submissions are now being accepted for issue No. 9 which will be published in October 2010. Closing date for submissions is August 13th 2010. How to submit: Send no more than 6 poems. When submitting poems, write your name and address on each page. Send poems to : The Arts Service, Limerick City Council, City Hall, Merchant's Quay, Limerick. Please mark your envelope: The Stony Thursday Book. Or by email : artsoffice@limerickcity.ie
(you may submit by email in word format with your name and details on each page)
Further information from: The Arts Service, Limerick City Council
Telephone : 061 407363 or 061 407421
*Cuisle, Limerick City International Poetry Festival will take place in
Limerick from 13th - 16th October"

I submitted last year, guess I wasn't successful as the only correspondence I got was an invite to the launch a few weeks after it was over! But what if...
Even so, will submit as it looks like a nice publication, would love to have work published in a fat book for a change (I rush to add that I'm grateful to be published anywhere! Am now bowing graciously to all editors in the universe...)

Can poems/stories published on a personal blog, or group writing blog be submitted as previously unpublished? Mslexia Magazine says, more or less, if your work has been published and been through a selection process, or won a prize - it's not eligible - but posted on a blog seems to be okay for them.
I imagine its the same for most publications, though I think any writing I post and later choose to submit somewhere, I'll save temporarily as a draft until I get invited to the already over launch party...or maybe even...
Will keep the faith, have had a few rejections on the poetry front in the last couple of weeks, enough to make me contrary enough to keep sending them out!