[stylist] Bill, Some resources for you, and all poets

[William L Houts]

  Hello and thanks, Jackie and Linda, you lovely, noble ladies.

As you've kenned, I now have a few worthwhile poems under my belt and 
would like to start submitting them to both contests and magazines.  
Thanks so much for your kind words and wisdom.  I'm so gratified to have 
done some work which lives with you.  I'll take your counsel seriously 
as I work towards submitting my stuff.


--Bill









On 11/14/2014 10:17 AM, Jackie Williams wrote:
> Bill,
> I am almost overcome by your poetry, and also that there is someone on this
> list that seems to feel politically as strongly as I do. In the present
> atmosphere, I am not quite sure where you would send this essay.
> As far as your poetry Lynda has done such a remarkable analysis of all, that
> I will not attempt my own critique. The first, Alien, was surely good, but
> just because I have been all  used up with aliens and science fiction, I
> prefer the ones on Death and Paper Minds. The one on Paper Minds truly
> provoked a great deal of thought, and wanting to write about the concept
> myself. It is wonderful.
> You have asked about getting published, and again, I think that Lynda's
> response is right one, however, you need actual names and guidelines to
> specific places to carry on.
> A few cautionary tips if you decide to submit to contests. I have scanned
> the 2015 categories and guidelines for the National Federation of State
> Poetry Societies. This was not easy to do, so I encourage all of those
> interested to print these. I have been entering this for over ten years.
> With fifty categories, varying in subject, form, and line length, you can
> usually find several to enter.
> Keep in mind that you really have to know your forms in all detail, and
> follow all directions exactly. The chairman and judges will look for any
> technical reason to cut down on the number of poems, so don't think your
> poem is so exceptional that a judge will bend the rules. The number of poems
> submitted per category can vary from 60 to over 200 on the higher paying
> ones. I feel very successful if I get even two awards per year with either
> places or honorable mentions, and I keep track of how many others entered so
> I can feel even better.
> My one nightmare experience was in 2007 when I actually entered 47 poems,
> but being newly blind,  when I deleted my name and other information on the
> upper right hand corner, I was unaware that it also deleted the number and
> category on the left hand corner. The chairman of the contest could have
> easily noted that, and not knowing I was newly blind (I have never made any
> judge aware of this)sent them on. But they were all disqualified.
> Somehow, I see you as a more free spirit than to submit to what might seem
> as unfairness. And I think, perhaps that individual contests, such as the
> Naugatuck River Review, (check spelling) might be better for you. Bigger
> money, and the last contest had 700 entries, but I truly think your poetry
> might have a bigger chance in the individual magazine contests.
> Either way, you might have to join the NFSPS, or subscribe to Poets and
> Writers on the web to get all of their poetry contest announcements.
> With Lynda's roadmap to establish your own, the effort might make sense.
> There is no doubt in my mind that you have the talent to become known for
> your poetry.
>
> Jackie
>
> Time is the school in which we learn.
> Time is the fire in which we burn.
> Elmore Schwartz	
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
> Houts via stylist
> Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2014 12:28 AM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: [stylist] Big Weepy Slob" - an Essay
>
>
> Here's a little essay I wrote some time ago.  Just found it languishing
> in my hard drive's jumble.  Presented here for your delectation or scorn.
>
>
> --Bill
>
>
> ---
>
>
> I saw David Lynch's movie, "The Elephant Man", when I was in sixth
> grade, during its first theatrical release. Being a weepy sensitive
> liberal even then,
>
> I was deeply affected by the film. I hated Joseph Merrick's sadistic
> exhibitor, played by the wonderful character actor Freddie Jones. I felt
> anguish as
>
> Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) wrestled with his conscience. Was
> the good doctor only exploiting the deformed man more gently than the
> freak show
>
> boss had done? I cried when the evil side show people broke into
> Merrick's comfortable hospital apartments and spirited him away, back to
> the side show
>
> misery from which he had been rescued. And of course I cried at the end,
> when Merrick dies, having laid his deformed heavy head down to sleep
> like an undeformed
>
> child.
>
> I was so moved that I wrote a passionately phrased poem the next day, in
> the journal I kept for Mr. Zeigler's sixth grade class. The poem wasn't
> very good,
>
> but it was deeply felt by the author. It was full of phrases like "I am
> human! I am alive!" --echoing, of course, John Hurt's famous
> declaration: "I am
>
> not an animal! I am a human being!" Although I don't remember his exact
> comments, I do remember their general timbre and the fact that they were
> written
>
> in lucid green ink. Mr. Zeigler knew he had a live one, and he nurtured
> the sensitivity of that kid with gentle praise, and a wish that
> everybody could
>
> be so free with such urgent calls for compassion.
>
> Today, many years later, I'm still affected by movies like "The Elephant
> Man" and am in fact a big weepy slob, as the poet Howard Nemerov once
> described
>
> himself. I am grateful to Mr. Zeigler for helping me to grow into one,
> when the world could so clearly use more of them, instead of fat racist
> blowhards
>
> like Rush limbnaugh, self-serving propagandists like Bill O'Riley or
> evil harpies like Ann Colter. And I am proud to say that I was THAT kind
> of kid, the
>
> little queer boy who railed mightily against the hardness of the world
> in a passionate loopy blue hand.
>
> Today, after wars and wicked presidents, poverty and disease, after
> twenty years of watching lovers die and blindness descend like an iron
> curtain, I am
>
> still a poet and a gleaner of noble things. You don't have to get hard,
> you don't have to despair. Remember that boy, that girl who wept and
> remember why.
>
> Honor that weird little kid in you, the the weeper, that loopy kid, the
> poet.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 


"Oh, Sophie!  Whyfore have you eated all de cheeldren?"