Sturgeon's Law

I was driving the last two days, and I returned to St. Louis just in time for a fun 4th of July party. The drive was uneventful. Have a great rest of the weekend!

I've been thinking and hearing and reading about titles a lot recently, and I'm going to have a lengthier post about them in the next week or so. Here's one little random thing that's not going to fit in there.

I like Joshua Marie Wilkinson's book titles of a certain breed: The Book of Flashlights, Clover & Milk, The Book of Truants & Projectorlight, etc. So it's no surprise that I immediately thought of that sort of title when I inserted the following phrase into the draft below: "the jukebox of streetbikes, wind and mindgames."

You longtime readers of my blog know that I tend to be completely into the practical aspects of poetry editing and publishing. Mary has an insightful post about book manuscripts (and it says it's the first in a series, which I'll be keeping an eye out for). I thought I'd add my own thoughts about manuscripts. This is from my perspective of having helped to judge contests, having read many of my friends' manuscripts both pre- and post-publication, and having had just about as many friends read my manuscript (still pre-publication, of course). Here are a few points.

The things that really matter: the poems themselves and how they go together. Mary's last paragraph kindly says what I'd like to put this way: if you have a manuscript where you feel the need to "bury" weaker work, your manuscript is dead in the water. Don't waste your money. There are manuscripts running around that are front-to-back strong work and still losing dozens of contests. You need to be able to look at each poem in the manuscript and be willing to fight for its presence.

The things that matter insofar as you need to not screw them up: the title, the font, the print quality, the table of contents, etc. Just look like you know what you're doing with these, and don't look like you're desperate for attention.

The things that don't really matter a whole lot: the acknowledgments. As long as you have some reasonable publishing track record, this won't matter in a legit contest.

They may be getting a little sick of seeing my name...

1. Gulf Coast
2. DIAGRAM
3. RATTLE
4. Crazyhorse
5. Redivider
6. POOL
7. Mid-American Review
8. FIELD
9. LIT
10. Ninth Letter
11. Boxcar Poetry Review
12. Caketrain
13. Black Warrior Review

Go see my poem "Self Portrait in a Funhouse Mirror" in the new issue of The Pedestal!

Anyone going to AWP in Chicago need a roommate? Or know someone who will? Let me know...

Well, the first one already is a title in my manuscript project #2. The others I'd like to work in.

"I'm Your Huckleberry" (Tombstone)
"Jehovah Jehovah Jehovah" (Monty Python's Life of Brian)
"Get Your Fucking Shinebox" (Goodfellas)
"I'm Talking to All Those Villains in Missouri" (Unforgiven)
"Jesus Christ, Where Do You Get These Names?" (Get Shorty)
"You're the Guy Who Gets Away with It" (L. A. Confidential)
"Warped My Fragile Little Mind" (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut)

Today we have small doses of good news.

• My brother gets out of jail on Wednesday instead of Sunday--six days instead of 10.
• I completed all the tasks listed a post below before my mom got home. (There really were liquor bottles in the computer room, but of the three, one was still-sealed Almendrado that I bought here to take back to St. Louis because it's so difficult to get there, and another wasn't mine.)
• I rewatched A River Runs Through It on Friday. Oh, I knew what I was getting into. I think people should have a funny relationship-test movie and a sad relationship-test movie. River is my sad one.
• Though I sadly have not played darts since I came back to Colorado, I have played several good games of pool.
  
• Today was a day during which I deliberately accomplished nothing. Now that it's on into evening time, I'm allowing myself to accomplish a few things.
  
• I had brunch with Poetry Pal Aaron today. (I once started an e-mail to several Colorado Springs poets "Dear Poetry Pals," and he liked it because it made us sound like a low-budget superhero group.)
• I only have one manuscript left to send out for my big June push.
• Yesterday, I officially decided that I'm going to reapply to MFA programs for the Fall 2009 semester.
  

My brother is in jail. My mom returns tomorrow from a 3-week trip to Arizona. My brother and I were caring for her old, diabetic cat and "caring" for her house while she was gone. What I have to do before she returns:

• Wash a week's worth of dishes (we actually kept up on this one pretty well)
• Spray and wipe every surface in the kitchen, including counters, floor, and breakfast nook tabletop (glass)
• Take out the pile of recyclables that's accumulated in the kitchen
  
• Sweep cat litter off the laundry room floor
• Vacuum cat litter off the rug in the hallway outside the laundry room
  
• Throw out the beer case in the front hallway that I fucking told my brother to throw out
• Move the sack of half-full liquor bottles from the computer room into my room
  
• Buy a replacement cat (Kidding! Rain, aka "Toaster Cozy," is doing just fine, and is actually thinner now.)