—George David Clark

My relationship with 32 Poems Magazine began some time ago when a poet friend slipped an issue into my hand and demanded I stop what I was doing to read the lyric he had just come across. The poems I found those pages stood out for their sonic complexity and the freshness of their idiom. Unlike the other journals I read, 32 Poems, in its unique focus on the short lyric, maintained a consistent and compelling identity. The poems one found there seemed strategically chosen, its poets part of a community, not linked by school or aesthetic but by special attention to the language. Eventually I sent work to the journal myself. My poems were promptly rejected, but through those rejections I met John Poch whose thoughtful comments made it clear that he not only read submissions sympathetically, but possessed a unique talent for identifying how they fell short of their own aspirations. A balance of eclecticism and rigorous standards of craft is one of the things that make 32 Poems so special. Working more closely with the journal these last two years, I have come to appreciate how John’s fundamental generosity of attention has supported the work of his poets, and, issue after issue, gathered some of the most exciting poetry being written today. The loyal readership and enviable reputation 32 Poems enjoys is, above all, a testament to the power of a passionate editor.

I do not take lightly the benchmarks that John Poch and Deborah Ager have set at 32 Poems, but I am also excited about the magazine’s future. 32 Poems will continue to host a wide variety of styles and schools with excellence and compression as common denominators. To the magazine’s many longtime readers, I pledge my commitment to finding and encouraging poets who reinvent the language rather than just giving us more of the same, poets previously unpublished and those whose work we have admired for many years. 32 Poems has always had that attitude, and that is precisely why readers like myself have long looked forward to its arrival each semester in our mailboxes.

George David Clark

After almost ten years of editing 32 Poems Magazine with Deborah Ager, I am stepping down. It is no small step for me, yet I do believe it is, as well, a step in the right direction. First, I want to thank all the poets who submitted work to the magazine during my tenure. I owe gratitude to not only the poets whose poems were accepted but also those poets who sent in work that just somehow wasn’t a fit. What a blessing to realize the great diversity of American poetry in our midst. I have been acting as some kind of magazine editor for more than 15 years now (Chattahoochee Review and American Literary Review, as well), and it is time for me to pay more attention to my own writing and, more importantly, to devote closer attention to Auden, Bishop, Larkin, Eliot, Shakespeare, Dante, and my other favorites.

I wish the best to George David Clark, who is taking over my duties. He is a discriminating reader who I believe will make the magazine better than I have made it. I will stay on in an advising/contributing editor capacity, but after this December, I won’t be choosing the poems any more. It has been an honor and a pleasure. Even if so many of our poets and poems hadn’t won Best New Poets and Best American Poets and NEAs and Guggenheims and MacArthurs and published books with 32 POEMS on the acknowledgments page, I would still believe that we were publishing the best poems in America.

And finally, I thank Deborah Ager who has made 32 Poems Magazine a constant pleasure for all of us.

I know it’s old fashioned and probably a small sacrifice, but please subscribe. And tell your friends they ought to. It’s poetry.

John Poch

We have much in common. Recently, I discussed our commonalities in a Facebook update.

We have, for instance, brown hair.

And children.

We’ve survived the Pennsylvania Turnpike. We fall asleep when our husbands drive. Except I wake up when he swerves to miss roadkill.

You and I? We have not had plastic surgery (yet).

Like you, I’ve taken Benadryl to remain breathing at the home of my in-laws, who have a cat. For years, after taking Benadryl, I often responded to their queries with: “Qwtyruuuu uuuhhhhhhhhh dddddddddagh.” And then I’d fall face first into my Michigan apple cobbler. I think it was years before they knew I could speak English.

Although I never made it happen, I dreamed of meeting relatives at mid-way points so we’d not have to drag an impatient, screaming baby across the country. Eventually, I decided to look at these travel moments as an opportunity for deep personal growth. I let my husband drive while I drank bourbon.

On another note, I too have survived the Western middle-to-upper-class woman’s diatribe on how and why I should breastfeed all day and night while allowing my child to sleep in my bed until she’s 24.5 years of age.

I love this quote from your book:

“Women who not only brag about how much their 5 year old still loves breast milk, but they also grill you about your choices…let me be clear, millions of women around the world nurse their children beautifully for years without giving anybody else a hard time about it. The Teat Nazis are a solely western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement”

Have I mentioned I may love you a little?

What I wanted to say to the Teat Nazis was: “Dude, they didn’t breastfeed in Versailles.” And I like the idea of breastfeeding. I just don’t like the idea of the western upper-middle-class parent telling me what I should or should not do.

On a more positive note, I have learned many things from your new book. For instance, who knew men working in television urinate into jars? I thought only male novelists did this.

I figure you are like the rest of us despite your fame. You get up every day and put your pants on one leg at a time–and then you Google yourself. It’s these kinds of actions that bring humanity together.

Below are some other blog posts about your book and its affect on others. I hope it’s nice to know at least three of us read your book–maybe four if you count your mom, who sounds very nice by the way. I think about five people read my book of poetry (available on Amazon–cough, cough).

Why Tina Fey and I Are Totally Awesome
Heidi Zone

Love,
Deborah, your new “BFF” in a totally unthreatening way

PS: I think our Dads would like hanging out.

Michael Ceraso wins Mortal Geography by Alexandra Teague. This book is one of my favorite contemporary collections. Although I will be sad to part with it, I am happy to send it to a new and good home.

Randall Weiss, frequent Poet Party participant, is the second winner. He wins my book Midnight Voices.

Congratulations!

You want this link if you want to see Steve Almond with a pitchfork to his posterior.

Who Will Be There

Schedule: If you’ve ever wanted to “speed date” an editor, see what’s happening at 12:15 pm.

General Schedule:

* 9:30 — welcome and opening remarks
* 9:45 — workshop session 1
* 11:00 — workshop session 2
* 12:15 to 2:15 — lunch and speed dating with editors
* 2:30 to 3:30 — keynote speaker Steve Almond knocks your socks off
* 3:45 to 4:45 — workshop session 3

It might be a good idea to leave your socks at home—just to make things bit more challenging for Steve Almond.

Hope to see you there.

The annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference came to Washington last week. I am well outside of academe and so did not attend any official functions. However, there were many offsite readings and other events open to the public; in addition, “civilians” were welcome at their magnificent and overflowing bookfair on Saturday, the final day of the conference. I went to a very inspiring and enjoyable literary house party in Adams Morgan (not far from my home) on Friday night. I heard many good poems, met in person for the first time a virtual friend and fellow poet, Bernadette Geyer, and made the acquaintance of the editors of Drunken Boat, 32 Poems, and several other fine little mags.

If you missed The Literary House Party, I am sorry for your loss/missing. Drunken Boat, Born, Tuesday: An Art Projects, and Defunct participated. The wine flowed in a tall house in Adams Morgan (DC) not far from the main hotels, and the performers worked their magic on a mesmerized crowd.

I would like to share photos but it’s a pain to get photos from my phone to the interwebs as of now, so that will be for another day. I’ve got poems to write before I sleep, mes amis.

The next morning, John wrote to say he was stuck in Texas due to snow. One inch of snow in Texas is a big deal and evidently shuts down airports. (Yes, a Chicago person laughed at that.)

The Grist Magazine folks from Tennessee were nice to have as tablemates. Sharing a table makes me happy. It saves money, certainly, but I like how it forces us all to talk to people we might not meet otherwise. Our table, by the way, was within 20 feet of poles covered with ripped insulation, leading many people to speculate rats had been at work.

During the one panel I attended, the speakers claimed not to know they were supposed to talk as well as read. (Oh, no, another “reading” panel.) However, they did talk and one guy was able to pull a talk from a previous event out of his pocket. NOTE: If you do not know you are supposed to talk, should you mention that to the audience? I took notes on my mobile using Evernote–noticing that many others still use paper–and wondered if everyone thought I was a texting fool. I took digital notes on my phone in order to experiment with how I liked it, if Evernote trumped paper, etc.

On Thursday night, I was back at The Lebanese Taverna (we had reservations but it did not seem to matter) for dinner with a bunch of people. The host did not seem to take people in order, so one had to keep asking. He said the customers were taking a long time and lingering over coffee, so I asked him if he needed me to rough people up. He smiled, but humor did *not* get me a table. What got me a table was J., who managed to ask at the right time. The host looked confused, asked her if she was me, and then said we could have a table that had recently been cleared.

Meander. Meander. I spent a lot of time meandering and not as much as you might think at the 32 Poems table. I stopped and chatted with Eduardo Corral, caught a book signing with January O’Neil, met Kelli Agodon, walked around with Martha Silano (and bought her book), picked up a copy of Birmingham Poetry Review (with my poem inside), and bought books by various 32 Poems contributors. I also chatted with Melissa Stein (check out her new book Rough Honey), Dan Albergotti, Dan Nester (bought his book How to Be Inappropriate), Randall Man, and many others.

By the way, January O’Neil blogs her AWP “Confessions.”

Josh Corey talks book buying at AWP and blames Coffee House Press.

Jeannine Hall Gailey discussed how to survive NOT attending AWP.

Collin Kelley gives good reasons for not attending AWP on his Modern Confessional blog.

Kelli Agodon shares the open letter from Claudia Rankine.

Tin House shares the #AWP11 Twitter feed.

Date: Friday, February 4 · 8:00pm – 11:00pm
Location:The Biltmore, 1977 Biltmore St., DC (5 minutes from AWP)

With performances by Daniel Nester, Don Share, Ander Monson, Lia Purpura, Melanie Henderson, Patrick Rosal, Garret Socol, DeLana Dameron, Bernadette Geyer.

32 POEMS is just that—a journal of thirty-two poems, one to a page. They’re available in print biannually, for a total of 64 poems a year.

DRUNKEN BOAT is one of the oldest online arts journals, dedicated to exposure of literary, visual, digital, and cross-media work from around the world.

DEFUNCT is a twice-annual publication featuring writing on all things defunct. New issues appear in April and October.

BORN MAGAZINE is an experimental venue marrying literary arts and multimedia.

Each item, of course, is inside its own square. The big question on everyone’s mind is when will we have a panel during which we can all play?

A few of my favorites items include:

• He/she married who?
• Meet internet friends with awkward hugs, silence.
• Your MFA program is a sponsor but didn’t give you funding.
• Live Tweet one’s own nervous breakdown, add hashtag.