Submission Guidelines

Submission Guidelines for the Open Press Poetry Prize

 The Open Poetry Prize is open to all poets who can comply with the following guidelines.

1. The Open Poetry Prize is open to all poets who are in possession of a manuscript, a name, an email address, a phone number, and a check for thirty dollars. Please be sure you meet these requirements before submitting to our contest.

2. Open will consider all manuscripts that are in a single font, are single-spaced, and that contain no more than seventy pages.  All manuscripts must be received by April 15. 

3. Open will not make exceptions or accept excuses from your mother, your professor, or God.

4. Open will consider all manuscripts that mention in their cover letter how much they love Open Press and its poets.  

5. Open will consider all manuscripts that mention in their cover letter which Open Press books they have read, why they love them, which they plan to review, and why they want to become one of them.

6. Open will consider all manuscripts that mention in their cover letters how many readings they can secure for other Open authors and how many friends they have on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets.

7. Open will consider all manuscripts with open eyes and minds.  If you wish that they be closed, please choose another publisher.

8.  Open will consider all manuscripts including manuscripts written by themselves, their professors, their students, and their relatives.

9. Open will not consider any manuscript that is lost.

10. Open will not consider any epics, manifestos, or epic manifestos.

11. Open will not read multiple manuscripts by the same author. Nor will we read the same manuscript with a multiple titles and multiple arrangements of its poems.

12. Open will not respond to bribery, blackmail or suicide threats.  If you are a criminal or have suicidal impulses, please do not submit a manuscript to Open.

13. Open does not wish to know which famous poets you know, have studied with and/or have slept with.  Please do not inform us of these details.

14. Open does not want to go out to dinner with you right now.

15. Open does not care what you are wearing.  Please do not include photos with your entry.

16. Open will not comment on rejected manuscripts and owes you no explanation for its editorial decisions.  

Also please do not do any of the following: 

17. Please do not use Elmer’s glue to stick the pages of your manuscript together.

18. Please do not include glitter or stickers in your envelope.

19. Please do not enter the contest if you don’t want to publish your manuscript,  or if you think you might be sued for libel if the manuscript is published.

20. Please do not enter the contest if you would rather have another press publish your manuscript.

21. Please do not enter the contest if you expect Open to wait all summer for you hear from a preferred publisher.

22. Please do not enter the contest if you plan to continue shopping the manuscript around after it has been accepted, and then to make up an elaborate excuse, should another publisher snatch it up.

23. Please do not enter the contest if you are not an honest person. 

24. Please do not enter the contest if you are psychotic, vindictive, or harbor ill will towards fellow poets.

25. Please do not enter this contest if you think you are the only real poet living today.

26. Please do not enter the contest if you have never read a book of poems. 

27. Please do not enter the contest if you think you are the next Rod McKuen or Mary Oliver.

28. Please do not enter this contest if you post glamorous photographs of yourself every day on Facebook.

29. Please do not enter the contest if you do not brush your teeth. And floss.

30. Please do not enter the contest post mortem.

Thank you for your interest in the Open Poetry Prize.

If we select your manuscript, we will allow revisions, but please do not send us an entirely new book and call it a revision.

We pledge to choose at least one manuscript to publish.  We hope your manuscript is the one we choose.  While we do not care if we know you or do not know you, we do hope you are not a bot.

(Many thanks to David and Stacey for publishing this on BAP: http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2014/03/submission-guidelines-for-open-press-poetry-prize.html)

Plume Travels by Henri Michaux

From the collection, SOMEONE WANTS TO STEAL MY NAME, published by Cleveland State University Press

THANKS TOM!

http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com

WHAT YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO

Certain people I hate.
Number one on my list:
anyone who talks to me on an airplane.
Take my last trip.
I'm just settling in, taking a blanket
from the overhead bin
when this platinum blond, maybe 40,
sits down next to me,
whips out her lipstick and compact
arranges her face,
smiles at it and asks,
--Are you from Pittsburgh?
--No.
--Me either.
What a shit hole, Pittsburgh,
know what I mean?
It's really the pits. Like its name.
I'm from Lynchburg.
Have you been from Lynchburg?
--Nope.  Did they lynch people there?
---Of course not.  It's a gorgeous town.
It's the Chapstick capital of the world.
Do you use Chapstick?
--No.
--I thought everyone used Chapstick.
I never leave home without it.
Even Jerry Falwell used Chapstick.
Did you listen to Jerry Falwell?
He would slide some on his lips
right in the middle of a sermon.
I think he licked his lips when he was inspired,
like, by the Holy Spirit.
Did you know Jerry Falwell?
--No.
--Oh, he was divine.  I mean, for real.
He resided in Lychburg,
and he was on the radio and the TV.
He was on Donahue loads of times.
And he was the President's preacher.
George Bush, I mean.
Everyone I knew loved Falwell.
We listened to him on the radio on Sundays
if we didn't go to church.
What radio station do you listen to?
--I don't.
--Oh well, just so long as you don't listen to NPR.
They say it's news but it's not.
Jerry Falwell said they just make stuff up
and then say it on the air. Like global warming.
He said NPR tells folks cold is hot, and hot is cold.
You feel how cold it is this winter?
--And how hot it was last summer?
--I am talking cold here.
But maybe you don't notice it like I do.
You must be from the north. I can hear it
in your accent.  Just like my ex.
He was from Maine.
He stayed out in a blizzard one time,
and I kid you not,
he got frostbite on his extremities.
All of them.  I mean, really.
Said he never felt a thing.
That's a Mainer for you.
Icicles everywhere.
Not a heart inside them.
And they call this global warming.
Did you ever get frostbit?
--No.
--Well, you never met my husband.
I was with him until I was saved.
I don't even talk to him anymore
but sometimes he calls
and just starts talking and talking,
and I think, why do I have to listen to this?
Know what I mean?
--Yes, I think I do.

from "Come Back" by Henri Michaux, translated by Ann McGarrell

from SOMEONE WANTS TO STEAL MY NAME by Henri Michaux

My Pastimes by Henri Michaux

From SOMEONE WANTS TO STEAL MY NAME by Henri Michaux

A Toast by Ilya Kaminsky

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23902

I love this poem  . . .

The Ladies at the Y

This morning the women were all gathered around the scales
in the locker room.   I dare you to step on it, one woman said to me.
Oh, I can't. I said. I gave that up for lent.
Me, too, they all shouted and went hurrying off to the pool.

There's a popular aqua-dance class  at 9AM
that has a regular following of women.
Last week there was a fire drill for the pre-K children
on an ice-cold day.   The whole Y joined in,
except for the ladies in the pool.  First they got out,
then they got in again, then someone told them to get out.
They tried to turn us into popsicles, one of the ladies told me.

A while ago, one of the ladies brought in copies of a poem
and passed them around the locker room.
Every morning come rain, snow, sleet or
shine, the ladies of the Y  . . .  she began  reading loudly,
only to be interrupted by another woman:
The ladies of the Y are certifiable! We're certifiable.
And everyone joined in, We're certifiable! 
The poet tried several times to complete her poem
but to no avail.  The chant got louder and louder,
We're certifiable! We're certifiable!

Simplicity by Henri Michaux from SOMEONE WANTS TO STEAL MY NAME

       What has been missing from my life until now is simplicity.  I am beginning to change, little by little.
      For example, now I always go out with my bed, and when a woman pleases me, I take her to bed immediately.
       If her ears are ugly or large, or her nose, I take them off with her cloths and put them under the bed.  I keep only what I like.
      If her underthings could use a change, I change them right away.  That is my gift.   If, on the other hand, I see a more beautiful woman passing by, I excuse myself to the first and make her disappear at once.
      Some who know me suggest that I am incapable of doing just what I said, that I haven't the temperament.  I once believed so myself, but that was because I wasn't doing everything exactly as I pleased.
      Now all my afternoons are good.  (Mornings, I work.)

(From Someone Wants to Steal My Name, Cleveland State University Press.)

When you are old and gray

When you are old and gray and full of sleep

and nodding on your favorite pillow, take out your photo album

and look at me, and remember the long walks

we took in the woods, the deer I chased

and the squirrels.  And remember how you never did let me 

go after the neighbor's orange cat . . .

At the Y

I am watching basketball on the TV screen, and trying
only to watch basketball, not the latest reports
on what might have happened to the Boeing 777
that vanished into thin air.  The man next to me asks,
So you're starting to like basketball.  Then he adds,
It's almost like ballet.  You think? 

Nope, I say.   But I'd love to watch a real ballet
while I'm working out. Wouldn't you?  He grunts.
That would be like watching the grass grow.

You mean like watching basketball?  I ask.

I think how often I've heard men compare football or baseball
or boxing to ballet, as if that's a reason to appreciate it.
So why can't we just watch ballet?

Interview with Dawn Potter

http://cavankerrypress.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/nin-andrews-interviews-dawn-potter/

Wyeth Moments

There's always that sense that they are there 
Walking the same paths
Pointing at the trees the view
The newcomers don't see them
They walk right thru them
So certain
They will never be ghosts 

(From notes on a trip to my childhood home where I see more of what isn't anymore
than what is.)

The Statue and I by Henri Michaux, translated by Steven Reese

In my spare moments, I am teaching a statue to walk.  Given its unnaturally prolonged immobility, it is not easy.  Not for it.  Not for me.  Great distance divides us, I am aware of that.  I'm not so foolish as to not understand that.

But one can't have all the good cards in one's hand.  Well, then, onward.

What matters is that the first step be right.  For the statue, everything is in the first step.  I know it.  I know it too well.  In that lies my anguish.  And so, I prepare.  I prepare as never before.

I get up close and copy its pose exactly, my foot lifted like its foot, and stiff as a stake driven into the ground.

But alas, it is never quite right.  Either the foot, its arch or how it is poised, or the style, something is always missing, and so that setting forth, so waited-for, is prevented.

That is why I have come to be nearly incapable of walking anymore, overcome with rigidity, though ever so spirited, and my bewitched body frightens me and will no longer carry me anywhere.

(From SOMEONE WANTS TO STEAL MY NAME, CSU Press.)

From "The Prudent Man" by Henri Michaux

The fellow thought he had a limestone deposit in his gut.  Daily he went to this doctor or that, each of whom would say: "Your urinalysis shows nothing," or else that he was on his way to decalcinization, or that he smoked too much, his nerves needed rest, or . . .  or . . . or.

He quit going to his appointments and stayed home with the
deposit . . .

(from Someone Wants to Steal Your Name, CSU Press.  This poem was translated by Sydney Lea.)

Tulip Bags by Salley Knight

One more post of my sister's artwork.  I love the colors and moods she creates.

Bon Appetit

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/chile-poetry-history

Tulip Bags by Salley Knight

Another of my sister's batiks.  I am such a fan!

Hot-tubbing at the Y

A day of swimming at the Y, only the water was so warm, everyone who got into the pool turned pink.  It was bit like playing lobsters as a child.  My sister used to turn the hot water on, a little a a time.  "Look!" she'd say.  "We're almost lobsters!"  Then she would turn it on again.

The lifeguard told me that some of the men who sit in the hot tub too long have been told to modify their habits because one of them passed out in there.  He had to be dragged out of the water.  He won't be allowed in the hot tub anymore, she said.


Hot-tubbing is a morning ritual for some of the regular men. They come to soak in the hot tub and seem to never leave.  Every time I look up from the pool in their direction, I see them lined up like Buddhas, their faces glowing red.

from Darkness Moves by Henri Michaux

      Doors open and shut under water.
     You have to know how to hear them.  Then you can learn your future, your near future: today's.  Some clairvoyants are remarkably gifted at doing this; you meet them at the seaside, hoping for customers.
     No matter how many errands you're going to run that day, they can hear in advance all the doors you'll go through, opening and shutting, and they see the people you'll meet on both sides of the doors and what they're going to say and decide.
     It's stupefying, really.
     Until nightfall, you think you're living through a day you've already lived.

From Darkness Moves by Henri Michaux, translated by David Ball, published by UCP, page 122

Remembering Rick Beckjord

http://beckjordsculptor.com/site/works-in-stone/

Rick Beckjord, a life-long friend of the family, died unexpectedly last week.  He was an amazing sculptor, a bit of hermit, and a truly unique man who often walked the wooded and rocky trails of Maine in the dark and swam in the lake by moonlight.  He knew every bird, plant, and tree in his path.

He and my mother were birds of feather.  They often walked together.  Rick also loved to make jam--and my mother loved "Rick's unique jams," especially the mint marmalade and strawberry rhubarb.  Last night I dreamt the two of them were walking beneath the pine trees together.

At the Y

I am working out again, trying not to stare at the TVs overhead, looking down or up or anywhere but at the TVs.  The African American man running on the treadmill next to me says, Look, you're missing the  ladies who are LOVING THEIR SELFIES.  He points at the screen showing a parade of women of all sizes and shapes, striding  up and down a catwalk, including two big women in bras,  XL undies and pink robes.  I ask is he thinks men will ever be loving their selflies like that.  Damn. I sure hope not, he laughs.

I begin watching the sports news, but then Le Bron appears in a batman mask.   Does he think he's the new superhero?  the man next to me asks.  Next thing you know he'll be thinking he's Jesus.   Le Bron isn't anyone's favorite in Ohio, not since he left Cleveland.

But then I look at the news on a different screen and see Charles Kupchan-- yes, Charles Kupchan talking about what's happening in Crimea.  The close-captioning below his face says he's an advisor to the President on Ukraine.  Charles Kupchan-- I remember him from sixth grade when he was the new boy in school.  Short and wary, he sat in the quiet section of the room, between Edwin Parker and Nelson Kane next to the window.  I still see him as that boy, but now, at least in my mind, he has to decide what will happen in Ukraine.

Black Scat Review

The surrealist review, Black Scat Review, has just arrived. I have a few pieces in there that are from my forthcoming book, WHY GOD IS A WOMAN.  One of them begins:


On the Island where I grew up

I was only a boy when I first saw God.  I remember the day exactly. I lived in a small neighborhood of twelve stone houses where all the girls in my neighborhood were called Angelina and all the men were old.  Every year tourists visited the Island in the fall after the summer plagues of insects had passed, when the air was reputed to be the purest on the planet.  So pure was the air in fact, it glittered and appeared to contain tiny glass windows.  The Islanders liked to say that if you peered into the windows, you would see what heaven looked like.  Gullible tourists spent hours staring at the shimmering air, seeking their own personal glimpse of eternity . . .


There are some lovely pieces in this review.  Below is an excerpt from "Alter" by Michelle Gray:

I had a dream I was a man. I had a dream that I was one.  I remember feeling love or something like it and bodies intertwined in tender embraces basking in the illusion of safety.  Now I'm awake and I see that it was the dream of another man.  I can't afford illusions.  There's no point in wanting.  There's no point in needing.  There is no way to guard against loneliness and the absurd relentlessness of living.  If one cannot escape from the pain, one must become one with it and become another thing. 

Red Tulips by Salley Knight

"It's summer.  Hot out.  You want something light and easy: a bag that will carry the essentials and yet allow room for that bag of juicy grapes that you can't resist in this weather."

"Red Tulips"-- one of the designs of the forthcoming bags by my sister, the batik-artist, Salley Knight.

from Darkness Moves by Henri Michaux

There is haste in me.  There is urgency. *

I would like. I would like anything at all, but fast.  I would like to get out of here.  I would like to be rid of all this.   I would like to start over again.  I would like to leave all this.  Not to leave through an exit.  I would like multiple leaving, a whole spread of them.  An endless leaving, an ideal leaving so that once I've left I begin leaving again right away.

*What would happen if this "accelerator" were administered to slow animals: to the chameleon, to the three-toed sloth or to a marmot just coming out of hibernation?

from Darkness Moves by Henri Michaux, translated by David Ball, from the chapter, Exploring Hallucinogens, p. 199

AWP Recovery Comic

This is from an email from an AWP-attending friend.

SUN BEFORE THE STORM

AWP COMIC

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AWP Comic

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COMIC: WELCOME TO HOTEL AWP

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