on poetry

“[Poetry] is neither the art of the embalmer, nor that of the decorator. It does not breed cultured pearls, nor does it deal in semblances and emblems, and it would not be satisfied by any feast of music. Poetry allies itself with beauty — a supreme union — but never uses it as its ultimate goal or sole nourishment. Refusing to divorce art from life, love from perception, it is action, it is passion, it is power, and always the innovation which extend borders.”
Saint-John Perse
(May 31, 1887 – September 20, 1975)

. . . . .
photo
quote from Saint-John Perse’s acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1960

submission time

Because we believe in the importance of having your work witnessed and because we know it’s not always easy to figure out where to submit your work, we offer below a rather ambitious list of Cascadia-based presses and publications that might welcome your submissions. First, a few notes:

• Just because you live in Cascadia doesn’t mean you have to submit to local publications. But really, this is a list and we have to stop somewhere, right?
• Not included are deadlines within the next few days (i.e., late May/early June 2023).
• We’ve done our best to confirm this information and apologize for publications that may have vanished unannounced.
• Please familiarize yourself with the publications/presses and follow the guidelines very carefully before submitting. (That includes proofreading your work!)
• For more Cascadia lit links, see the sidebar.
• Good luck!

* * * * *

• 45th Parallel – reopens September 2023
• A Forest of Words – will accept submissions January 1 – March 15, 2024
• Airlie Press – considers full-length poetry manuscripts July 1 through July 31 of each year
• Arcturus – open year-round to Highline College staff, students, alumni, and faculty
• Bellingham Review – open September 15 – December 1
• Black Heron Press – open to queries by U.S. mail
• Blue Cactus Press – open for full-length manuscripts
• Breathe – open
• Burnside Review – chapbook contest open May 1 to June 30, 2023
• CAiRN: Cascadia Artist in Residence Network – application deadlines throughout the year
• Calyx Journal – Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize open March 1 – June 30, 2023; general submissions open October 1 – December 31
• The Capilano Review – open June 1-30, 2023
• Cirque Journal – submissions close September 21, 2023
• Clackamas Literary Review – open September 1 – December 31 each year
• Coffeetown Press – open
• Concrete Wolf – chapbook contest open through July 31, 2023
• Copper Canyon Press – reopens for submissions in Fall 2023
• Crab Creek Review – general submissions open from September 15 through November 15, or when Submittable cap is hit
• Creative Colloquy – open
• CutBank – open from September 15 to February 1
• The Elephants – open for full-length book manuscripts through June 30, 2023
• Fernwood Press – open to poetry manuscript submissions
• Floating Bridge Press – John Pierce Chapbook Competition open January 1 through March 31 each year
• Fonograf Editions – inaugural BUNNY Chapbook Contest will be open July 1 – August 15, and the second issue of FE Magazine will be open September 1 – October 15
• Geist – open
• Gobshite Quarterly – query
• The Gravity of the Thing – open for submissions during the months of March, June, September, and December
• Image Journal – open
• The Inflectionist Review – open
• Jeopardy Magazine – will open in Fall 2023 for the 60th edition of the magazine
• Kingfisher – open for submissions August 1–31, 2023
• Lynx House Press – 2023 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry open through June 15
• Monkeybicycle – open
• Moss – open August 1 through December 31
• North Coast Squid – open June 1-30, 2023
• Pacifica Literary Review – open
• The Poeming Pigeon – submissions open September 15 thru October 31 each year
• The Poetry Box – Read poetry manuscripts year round for cooperative publishing program; open July 1 – August 31 for Select publishing.
• Poetry Northwest – next open reading period will be September 1-30, 2023
• PRISM international – open
• Psaltery & Lyre – open
• Pulley Press – open
• Ravenna Press – open June 1-30, 2023
• Ricepaper – open
• Room Magazine – open through July 1, 2023
• Shark Reef – open
• subTerrain – submissions for Winter issue will close September 15, 2023
• Sweet Tree Review – open
• Tidepools Magazine – will reopen in October 2023
• Typehouse Literary Magazine – submission specs and deadlines vary
• Unsolicited Press – open
• Wandering Aengus Press – Wandering Aengus Book Award submission period is July 1 to August 31 each year
• Willow Springs – open September 1 – May 31 each year
• YesYes Books – open through June 30, 2023, or when submission window hits its cap

Our First Apartment*

2022 Merit Award
By Flannery White

our sheets suspend across my second-
hand chairs; our socks and delicates
overwhelm his drying rack
we read together in
our laundry-wrapped room
our belongings
interlaced
folded
in

*Copyright © 2022 by Flannery White. Broadside illustrated by Christian Anne Smith.

Poet’s bio:
After growing up overseas in Beijing and The Hague, Flannery White moved to the Pacific Northwest at 17 to attend the University of Washington. Her work has previously appeared in Potluck Mag, Foliate Oak, Cirque, and the “Your Body of Water” Collection of the Seattle Poetry on Buses project. “I began writing ‘Our First Apartment’ soon after my now-husband and I moved in together. I didn’t want to forget the poignancy of our first small, shared space, knowing we would eventually move on to larger pastures. I choose to use a nonet because the decreasing line length down to one final syllable echoes a relationship deepening into a single shared life, and nicely mirrors folding laundry, too.”

NOTE: a chapbook of the 2022 Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest winning poems, including this one, is available at Village Books in Bellingham. All sales profits benefit the annual contest.

tonight in Anacortes

The wonderful Madrona Poetry Series continues tonight, Saturday, May 27, 2023, at 7:00pm, with two fine poets, Tom Aslin and Jeremy Voigt. Join them at Pelican Bay Books in Anacortes.

celebration

In case you missed it, the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest awards ceremony this week was a rollicking success. In a contest year notable for its first in-person awards ceremony since 2019 and its unusually small organizing committee, the standing-room-only event went without a hitch and much audience appreciation.

Special thanks to this year’s judges, Caitlin Scarano and Leslie Wharton; to emcee Kevin Murphy; to the contest committee: Sarah King, Rachel Mehl, Joan Packer, Matthew Stuckey, and Flannery White; to the artists who illustrated the placards for the winning poems: Angela Boyle, Megan Carroll, Christian Anne Smith, and Kimberly Wulfestieg; to everyone who helped move chairs, including Dean Kahn and Matthew Scott; to Susan J. Erickson for the gorgeous flowers; and last, but definitely not least, THE POETS!!

This Sunday, May 28, the last of the 2022 winning poems will be featured here on The Poetry Department. On Sunday, June 11, and each of the next 19 Sundays, we will feature one of the 2023 winning poems, which will then be linked to the Winners page. Your Likes and Comments are greatly appreciated.

If you live in Whatcom County, Washington, and you believe poetry is important, the contest committee welcomes new members. It’s not a demanding job (unless it falls on the shoulders of only one or two people) but it’s definitely rewarding. Interested? Drop a note to BoyntonPoetryContest [at] hotmail.com.

At the awards ceremony, each of the judges has a chance to make a few comments. Leslie Wharton noted that so many lines of poetry continued to run through her mind that she decided to make a poem of them. Her cento poem, below, uses a line from each of the 2023 winning poems. Watch for them in the coming months.

Sue C. Roll

Because when stars collect, they look like you
what my younger sister once found most beautiful
as she sleeps, her lips begin to bloom
You might say there’s nothing other-worldly
except for a sapphire hole releasing heaven
Then she looks up, thinks, falling star?
You are acres of berry bushes full of fruit
who feels with kindness for all people
There are so many kinds
runaway combat boots, party shoes tripping
We will hug each other ‘til we are numb
hoping not to die
Silvers — Coho Salmon — swim above concrete
creeks had swollen like the pulse in her veins
In the unknown, all is known
random events explode into existence
reminding me that things will fall down from time to time
but I am not ready to leave
moving fast and joyfully
I feel peace

. . . . .
photo by Flannery White
“Sue C. Roll” cento assembled by Leslie Wharton

the zine scene

The winning zines in the 8th Annual Washington State Zine Contest have been announced and you can see the list here. They will be digitized and available online soon, but meanwhile here are a few places you can see and learn about zines now, in person and/or online, in no particular order:

• The Library of Congress
• The Seattle Public Library ZAPP Zine Collection
• Olympia Timberland Library
• the zine librarians interest group
• Los Angeles Public Library
• Papercut Zine Library
• zines on Issuu

Make some zines this summer and add your work to one or more of these collections!

on poetry

“You don’t necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they’re poets. I don’t call myself a poet, because I don’t like the word. I’m a trapeze artist.”
Bob Dylan
(b. May 24, 1941)

. . . . .
2019 photo by Dave J Hogan

for your book list

Wondering what will go on your summer reading list? Here are some suggestions:

• Action Books – May 2023 | Action Books Micro-Reviews of Poetry in Translation
• Books of Brilliance – 7 Inspired Poetry Books for a reading list refresh
• Electric Literature – 7 Poetry Collections That Capture the Beauty and Brutality of the South
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• Literary Hub – New Poetry Recommendations for the Month of May
• New York Public Library – Best New Poetry Books for Adults
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: April 2023
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: May 2023

Have a poetry book recommendation? Leave a comment!

Next Generation*

2022 Merit Award
By Joselyn Vasquez

Craving inspiration for our next generation
See, we need to save the population
Start some operation
Save this inhumane foundation
Let’s just start a conversation
Not antagonize discrimination
Revive our motivation
to survive this simulation
Immigration, starvation, hesitation
All things stopping us from mass celebration
See, this just my speculation
but shit won’t change without
Determination

*Copyright © 2022 by Joselyn Vasquez. Broadside illustrated by Megan Carroll.

Elizabeth Watts Henley, poet

Elizabeth Watts Henley’s poetry
survived life filled with personal challenges

This is a guest post by Dean Kahn

Elizabeth Artis (Watts) Henley was born into a prominent Bellingham family in 1912. Her parents, Arthur and Maud Watts, encouraged their four children to pursue higher education, and all of them left their mark.

Sister Ruth was a research chemist. Brother Arthur, Jr., became a general practitioner in Bellingham. Sister Catharine, who went by “Kitty,” took over her father’s real estate and insurance business and became a community, regional, and national civic leader.

Elizabeth, who went by “Betty,” showed literary promise when she won a children’s poetry contest judged by Ella Higginson, Bellingham’s nationally known writer. Elizabeth went on to publish numerous poems in prominent magazines, but her writing and teaching were derailed for several years by the Red Scare after World War II and by time in a mental institution.

The precise reasons she spent more than two years in a mental health facility remain opaque. John Henley, her sole surviving child, says he hasn’t explored public records about his mother’s life, and says any pertinent papers his parents might have possessed have disappeared.

Elizabeth began writing poetry professionally during the early years of the Great Depression. She also was a poetry editor at The Puget Sounder, a weekly newspaper created by June and Farrar Burn, a well-known literary couple who lived for many years in the Northwest, including time in Bellingham.

Elizabeth earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree at the University of Washington, where she wrote a master’s thesis about 16th century English poet Edmund Spenser, and taught English from 1934 to 1940. While at UW, her friends included left-leaning activists and at least one acknowledged communist.

She also met and married Preston Henley, who attended UW to study business. She and Preston moved to New York City, where Elizabeth taught at Hunter College High School and had more poems published. After the war, the family moved to Boise, Idaho, and then to Portland, Ore.

Elizabeth taught at Portland State College and became friends with many fellow Oregon poets, notably William Stafford and Vi Gale. Her poems appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, and in McCall’s, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies Home Journal, which were more literary then.

But John Henley says his parents’ marriage became tense, in part because his mother kept her liberal views while his father was “very conservative.” In addition, investigations of alleged communists in academia arose after World War II. A legislative committee investigated the University of Washington. Among those questioned was English professor Sophus Winther, who acknowledged being a communist in the mid-1930s. Elizabeth knew Winther, and mere close association with communists posed risks for one’s job, reputation, even custody of one’s children.

Henley recalls that his mother told him that a top administrator at Portland State College asked her to resign, to protect the college from possible bad publicity. She left the college, then, to avoid bringing ruin on her family, committed herself to a mental health facility.

Elizabeth and Preston divorced in 1956. He gained custody of the children, and later remarried. Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s poet friends lobbied Oregon’s new governor, Mark Hatfield, to gain her release. Hatfield helped Elizabeth obtain a job in 1959 at Oregon State University, in Corvallis, teaching English composition to remedial students.

She disliked being paid less than male professors, and being sexually harassed by colleagues without recourse for help. On the positive side, she continued to write, she loved teaching, and her students loved her. She retired in 1975, and died Jan. 2, 1981, in Corvallis. She’s buried in Bayview Cemetery, in Bellingham.

No book of her poems was published during her lifetime, so, in 2000, her son John and a cousin, Ellen Watts Lodine, published To Hear Unspoken Things, a selection of her work. Here is one of her poems:

“Song of Wheels Turning”

Listen my child to the song I sing,
It is old, it is trite, it is true.
Never go back to the one green hill,
Let it come back to you.
Little and dark, a muffin of trees,
It fades where horizons drop.
You learn as you leave how partial a view
Of the earth you saw from the top.
Taller you travel for being there,
It is less if you return.
Let it come to you as a windy height
Captured from boulder and fern.
There would be tear, only tears, if you found
So much as a gnarled tree,
And cried, “It is here, It is just the same,
The change is in me, in me!”

. . . . .

Dean Kahn worked for The Bellingham Herald for 29 years, with stints as a reporter, editor, and columnist. He wrote more than 1,000 columns, of which about one-in-seven focused on local history.

This profile is an abridged version of one that appeared in the December 2019 issue of The Journal of the Whatcom County Historical Society. To purchase the issue, or other issues of the journal, go to https://www.whatcomhistory.net, or visit Village Books.

—–
Elizabeth Watts Henley photo courtesy of John Henley