Join These FREE Poetry Events in August
Wed. Aug 18, 2 pm, PST, 5 pm, EST, Join our FREE READING and OPEN-MIC with Stevie Edwards & David Gate Free!
Thursdays, Aug 20 AND Aug 27, 4-6 pm, PST, Join Jon Pearson’s FREE ABRACADABRA SAMPLE WORKSHOP.
Saturday, August 22 - Get More Published and Have More Fun Submitting Poetry with The Poetry Salon and Chill Subs!
Monday, Sept. 7, 2pm, PST/ 5 pm, EST. Less is More: What to Cut, What to Keep, What to Reimagine Completely When Editing Your Work, A Free Workshop with Tresha Faye Haefner.
September 5, 9 - 11 am, PST : Get More Published (And Have More Fun) with Chill Subs!
Making Poetry More “Accessible:” An Interview with Mark Danowsky.
Plus 2 Tricks to Getting More Published
What Does it Mean to Make Poetry Accessible? Two Different Definitions
Earlier this week I had a terrific interview with Mark Danowsky (above), author of Take Care (Moon Tide Press, 2026) and editor of One Art Poetry Journal. We covered a lot of topics, such as why Mark writes such short poems, why I write such long poems, and the fact that water corporation “Evian” is “Naive” spelled backwards.
One thing we kept coming back to is the accessibility of poetry. For The Poetry Salon and for Mark at One Art, our respective missions are to make poetry and community more accessible. You can probably tell that accessibility is important by how many free workshops, readings and events we are offering this month. But why is that important?
Why and when we need “accessible” poetry.
Some people consider the term “accessible” an insult. They think if a poem is “accessible” it must be cheap, boring, unintelligent or cliche. Some people would argue that a “good” poem should require multiple readings, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, and an MFA to be comprehended. But is that really the case? Think about a wedding or a funeral. Those are occasions where a person would want to share a poem that expresses a feeling that people without MFAs can understand upon a first reading or hearing. Aren’t these places and situations ripe for poetry? Aren’t celebrants and mourners equally as deserving of a voice, a message, a form of human connection that they can feel in moments of sorrow and joy? These are the kinds of situations that demand a more “accessible” form of poetry. And these poems do not need to be cliche or un-edited. They just need to be clear enough for the average person to “get.” These are the types of poems Mark tends to publish at One Art.
Making the audience more “accessible”
To be honest, at Odd Pocket Press, I have a little bit of the opposite approach. While I, personally, write poems that tend to be more “clear,” I also want to push my own personal envelope, and stretch my understanding. While Mark says he specifically doesn’t like “Art pour l’ Art” or writing that is too “Avant Guard,” I actually want to see more of that kind of writing so I can get a variety of flavors of what poetry is, can be, - even if it takes multiple readings for me to “get” it.
With every issue I pick 5 poets who have different opinions about poetry and ask them to choose their poems from our submissions. Often they choose poems I, personally, would not have chosen. Sometimes they choose poems that the other guest readers actually detest. This is not a bug, it’s a feature. What I hope for in Odd Pocket is to bring different poets into contact with new ideas. I want someone who only likes traditional sonnets to also read experimental free-verse. I want someone who hates swear-words in poetry to encounter poems with the F-word all over it (provided it’s tastefully done :).
One Art brings more “accessible” poetry to the people. I’m trying to bring more people to some stranger poetry. But “strange” is not the only kin of poetry I want to publish. Every issue I hope we have a few poems that make people go . . . “really?” along with a few poems that make people go, “Oh, of course.”
And this brings me to my main point -
Know your audience.
A few years ago I heard the advice that you should try to collect 100 rejections a year. Up until this point I had been a really slow submitter. I hemmed, hawed, edited and overthought a poem before I sent it out. Then I would hem, haw and overthink WHERE to send each poem.
For a year I tried to work more in quantity than quality. I even if a poem wasn’t totally ready, or I didn’t think a journal totally fit my vibe, I would send a poem, just to hit my quota. You know what happened? . . . I got the exact same number of acceptances as I did when I worked more slowly. Additionally, I also got a lot more rejection letters.
Now, getting rejection letters is part of submitting. There’s no doubt about it. You need to get comfortable with this fact. Even when you submit slowly and really research your market, you’re still going to get rejection letters, but you will get fewer of them, and you’ll get to know the journals you submit to (and maybe yourself) better too.
Quality (of research and writing) can be more important than quantity of submissions
It’s true, submitting more can increase your chances of getting published, but submitting more carefully is a much more effective method. Instead of sending out 100 submissions, I recommend reading 100 poems from a smaller pool of journals. Pick a few poems you really like and see which journals took them, and then follow those journals more carefully. This will help you get a better understanding of what each of those journals like and what you should submit to them specifically.
Because I’ve read so many poems from One Art, I have a better understanding of what Mark looks for in a poem. When I have a poem that I feel is relatable but still quirky, surprising and well-edited, I send it to One Art. When I have something that I don’t think will fit anywhere else, I send it to Rattle or Ecclectica, because they say they want more odd, experimental work. When I have a poem that focuses on the natural world and also has a good use of sound devices, I send it to River Heron. I don’t have to overthink whether or not these journals are a good fit for me because I know the journals fairly well and I know what they’re a good fit for. I’ve submitted to all of these journals many times - and I’ve gotten both acc
Another part of “knowing your audience” is also taking the time to know some of the basic craft elements of poetry. Most editors have different sensibilities, and prefer different styles of writing, but almost all of them have a few guidelines in common. As an editor myself, I realize that I am highly attuned to noticing when a poem feels unfinished or un-edited. My next free workshop is called “What to Cut, What to Keep and What to Reimagine Completely When Editing Your Work.” You can join that workshop for free to get insight into important editing tools to try before sending your work out.
Do something unexpected - but effective
The other thing Mark and I both agree on, even though our journals are so different - we want something surprising. Those poems that are doing something a little different are the ones Mark nominates for Best of the Net. Mark notes that his poem, “Linger” has gotten published and republished because it is one of the few poems that focuses on scent.
Poems that do something different are the ones I get most excited to see at Odd Pocket too.
How do you actually do this?
How do you go beyond the expected? How do you know how to edit your work down? How do you know where to look for poems that want your kind of writing? The answer (duh) is to come to some of these free workshops. You can register to them for free, get new ideas, ask questions, make friends with people on a similar journey, and save yourself a lot of time! Here are all the workshops we’re offering and the big blue buttons to press to join each one.
Join These FREE Workshops in August
Wed. Aug 18, 2 pm, PST, 5 pm, EST, Join our FREE READING and OPEN-MIC with Stevie Edwards & David Gate Free!
Thursdays, Aug 20 AND Aug 27, Join Jon Pearson’s FREE ABRACADABRA SAMPLE WORKSHOP.
Saturday, August 22 - Get More Published and Have More Fun with Submitting with The Poetry Salon and Chill Subs!
Monday, Sept. 7, 2pm, PST/ 5 pm, EST. Less is More: What to Cut, What to Keep with Tresha Faye Haefner, a FREE workshop.
September 5, 9 - 11 am, PST : Get More Published (And Have More Fun) with Chill Subs!
Join us for “Saturday Celebration” Every Week.
Saturday, August 29 - Sarah Browning reads from her new book, Call Me Yes, from The Word Works.
Paid Subscribers will get the link to Saturday Celebrations sent to them as a reminder every Saturday.
Read these poems from our features.
Stay Weird
Make this corner of your world
as weird as you want it
geek out in every way
your quirky heart desires
be a fan
be a stan
value expression
embrace obsession
remember that a doctor
is just a body nerd
and a rock star
is just a music dork
there is no point hiding
all the ways you are unique
because every single one of us
is a gorgeous little freak
-David Gate
Childless
A stranger’s pregnant belly
plops over elastic-waisted jeans,
and a wish kicks its legs
inside me. I wish it
would sit still.
Forest fires blaze
through Quebec, orange
smoke obscuring the sky
of the mid-Atlantic,
ushering in the new
normal: Tyger Tyger,
burning bright,
burning brush
and rushing through
subdivisions, making
ash out of loved lives.
Is delivering a child
into the smoldering of
the Anthropocene
an act of selfishness
or hope? Still, I want
to feel my breasts
milk-heavy,
like little wine bags.
When I hold
my friend’s tender
newborn, I pretend
she is my own—
journey out of her nursery
into the secret life
where I am a mother,
where the little spittle
on my shoulder
is my daughter’s
spittle, and therefore
made lovely. Her tiny fists
yank my loose hair
and pull me back
into the room
where I coo
and cuddle her
as her big eyes search
my face, saying nothing
of the coming dark.
- Stevie Edwards, originally published in Raising the Fifth
What the Salt Meant
“That night when the angels came to Lot [his wife was] going to all her neighbors and saying to them, give me salt, because we have guests…Therefore ‘she became a pillar of salt.’” —Bereshit Rabbah 51:5
Her sin, after all, was not
that her rheumy eyes traveled back,
swollen with hope that her daughters’
singed shadows might rise from the blaze
of collapsing skyline. It was that Lot’s wife
warned her neighbors. She would become
the woman who watched the whip burn
across another’s back, then spread
the word one dark night to slip
inside the barn, hide breathless
beneath the hay while the slave catchers
followed a false scent. The woman
who witnessed yellow stars
sewn on neighbors’ jackets,
and went to borrow a cup of sugar,
perhaps a bit of salt, whispering
what she had heard in town about
the coming cattle cars. The woman
who type government reports
no one imagined
she understood, then waited
near the factory gate at closing time,
la migra viene, don’t go
to work tomorrow. It wasn’t
what she chose to face
that raised the angel’s outrage,
fearing the flames would heat
her mind and melt
her heart. What the salt meant
to silence was her voice.
Joanne Durham
“Call Me Yes”
Songs rise easily in me now
there’s nothing to temper me:
down the highway, road songs
there and back, love songs,
song a hurting with past lovers,
an old ache for us both.
But song wants to be glory –
you and I, we deserve its joyous
clamor – everyone does.
The world begs for it. Love,
you sing to me at bedtime,
you sing to me when I wake.
Hurt flies from my closed
throat, the clench loosens,
and we are singing, you and I,
the past past at last. Love,
bring me your astonished
self, your song-full always.
I think of a song for you even
now, sitting on the stoop
of my new home, you still
sleeping in my bed, summer
bounty you brought me warm
on the counter just inside the door:
Oh squash, oh corn. Red, red tomatoes.
**
Light over the church’s peaked roof:
I think of you.
Waking for the first time in five days
without your hands on me
and it’s a headache morning: you.
Telling myself it’s been less than a week:
you. Sitting in a packed poetry reading
in my new city and I’m the only person
making noise, snapping, I think of:
you, calling out at the Blues jam, clapping
hard. We are noisy. We are large.
Headache praise. Hands praise.
We are gratitude, all over
our magnificent, ruined bodies.
**
Sunday morning and the drums begin
at the church across the way. Cool air
pours into my new home. You are
asleep across town. I rose early, have
been up already for hours. My talents
I’ve turned toward love. Unfamiliar
heart, long tucked away, I’ve taken
out of its tissue paper wrapping. I’ve
taken everything – your body as a token
for the future. Even as the traffic
picks up on my cross-town street
and the church drums quiet for now,
finished with practice,
pausing before praise.
**
We’ve turned to the practical –
before the long drive you take
my car to your mechanics who
give it a once over. You buy me screws,
even down to brass tacks for the hook
in the shape of a stag where I want
to hang the extra set of keys. Keys
we seem to have found to each other’s
locked door of ache.
Wanting. Eyes’ desire, eyes’ please.
I am heart-ened now I please you,
now I take you in my teeth and gnaw,
take you hard against my waiting.
I have been waiting. I have been at once
alive to maybe and thick-skinned to no.
No ate at me, threatened the possible sky.
But now, call me yes. Call me a stone,
turning in the polishing tide.
- Sarah Browning, originally published in Elysium Review