The Barefoot Muse

A Journal Of Formal & Metrical Verse

Issue #8, Winter 2008

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2/4/09

Contributors achieving recognition elsewhere recently include Judy Dowd, whose pantoum "Oblique Eulogy 2" appears in the current issue. Her poem "What's Not to Love About Bagpipes" appeared on Poetry Daily on January 31st!

11/24/08

2008 Pushcart Prize nominations from the Barefoot Muse.

From the Winter 2008 issue:

From the Summer 2008 issue:

May these nominations get the close reading from the Pushcart Panel that they deserve!

5/22/08

More good news about former contributors!

  • Rose Kelleher won the prestigious 2007 Anthony Hecht first book prize! Way to go, Rose!
  • Also with a new book out is Quincy Lehr. Across the Grid of Streets is fresh out from the Seven Towers Agency, with an accompanying chapbook, William Montgomery's Guide to New York.
  • Sally Cook gained an Honorable Mention in the second Best American Poetry online contest.
  • Contributors David Landrum, Marybeth Rua-Larsen, Rick Mullin, Maryann Corbett, Chris O'Carroll and Joseph S. Salemi, and former contributors X.J. Kennedy, R. Nemo Hill and Mary Alexandra Agner, all appear in the current issue of Measure, the premier print journal devoted to formal poetry. Also worth noting is that beginning with the Fall 2008 issue, Measure will be going to two issues per year.
  • Former contributors Gail White, Leo Yankevich, X.J. Kennedy, Joseph S. Salemi and T.S. Kerrigan will all be appearing in the upcoming issue of the Raintown Review, and I know that because I am the new Associate Editor of that fine journal!

Where DO I find the time?

1/28/08

Barefoot Muse former contributors are doing well for themselves.

Rachel Bunting's first chapbook, Ripe Again, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in March. Order by February 8th, and youíll receive free shipping! Visit Finishing Line Press online - head over to the New Releases page and look for Rachel Bunting.

Also, Former contributor Gail White was a finalist for the 2007 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, as was your humble Editor. The twelve finalists and the winning sonnet by Mike Juster will be published in the 2008 edition of Measure, out soon.

11/19/07

A little later than planned: my 2007 Pushcart Prize nominations.

From the Upcoming issue:

  • "Miss Ross" by Chris Bullard
  • "Sleeping Hermaphrodite" by James Wilk
  • "Turista" by Mike Alexander

From the Summer 2007 issue: (No surprises here)

I doubt this will be the year an e-zine nomination will win, but congratulations anyway!

10/17/07

Good news for sonneteers! I know I'm always griping about how many of the poems I receive in submissions are sonnets. Well, now there's a new online venue devoted to sonnets, so you can send them there instead!

The Zine is called 14 by 14 and the idea is simple. Every two months they hope to publish 14 sonnets by 14 authors. The selection panel includes Rhina Espaillat, twice winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Contest, and I'm on it too. So, what are you waiting for? Read those guidelines and get your sonnets in!

8/3/07

In an update to the last item, I am happy to report that Mr. Carter's book Cross This Bridge at a Walk was the deserving winner in the poetry category for the "Best Books of Indiana 2007."

Any other former contributors who have awards or other notable achievements to record are welcome to contact me and I will post their successes here.

I'd also like to congratulate Charles Simic on being chosen as the next Poet Laureate. I am a huge admirer of his poetry and, as an amateur book reviewer, his prose.

7/11/07

Good news from last issue's featured poet Jared Carter. His book Cross This Bridge at a Walk has been named a poetry finalist in the "Best Books of Indiana 2007" competition sponsored by the Indiana Center for the Book, a program of the Indiana State Library. I'd like to wish Mr. Carter the best of luck and we all hope that he will take home the winner's award on July 19.

7/1/07

It gives me great pleasure to present my nominations for the 2007 Best of the Net Anthology.

From the current issue of the journal:

"New Mother Reading" by Ona Gritz
"Crooked Streets" by Carol Frith
"The Next Morning" by Juleigh Howard-Hobson
"A Second Eden" by T.S. Kerrigan

From the previous issue of the journal, published on December 1st 2006:

"A Meditation on Dactylic Hexameter" by Maryann Corbett
"Expanding on Voltaire's Grammar" by J. Patrick Lewis

We had two finalists last year so we know this is one venue receptive to formal poetry. Good luck everyone!

***

On a different note, I've mentioned to a couple of aspiring contributors recently a journal called Sonnetto Poesia which publishes mainly sonnets.

Send your initial submission of no more than five (5) sonnets, quatrains, villanelles or other FORMAL rhymed verse for evaluative purposes only to: Richard Vallance. You will be contacted if your work is found suitable for the journal. Rather like here at the Muse, Sonnetto Poesia prefers sonnets in contemporary idiom on twenty first century subjects. Archaic language, forced rhyme and syntactic inversions are to be avoided.

6/3/07

In preparation for the future poetry contest I have been learning about all about forms. As you know I firmly believe online journals should exploit all the advantages of the medium, and therefore as a test run I have generated a short Reader Survey. This is your opportunity to tell me what you think of the journal. You can tell me your favorite pieces in this issue (and I promise to take that into account when considering my nominations for Best of the Net etc.) and make suggestions for the future.

Take the survey.

5/30/07

In the coming months I plan to announce the details of a new poetry contest, The Barefoot Muse Poetry Prize, to be awarded to a single formal poem 100 lines or less. There will be a small entry charge to cover the judge's fee and the prize fund. Winning poem(s) will be published in the Barefoot Muse, Summer 2008 Edition. Watch this space for more details.

1/16/07

Congratulations to former contributors Catherine Chandler and Michael Battram for almost making it into the Best of the Net 2006. Follow the links below to read their fine poems in our archives:

It is an honor to be a finalist in this exciting new annual contest, and visits to the journal have definitely surged as a result. Next year, we'll try for a winner!

12/14/06

Here's some very exciting news for all you e-zine editors out there. A discussion group has been started to plan an organization dedicated solely to your needs. Neither the organization name nor the mission statement are finalized yet, and we are a long way from implementation. However the mission statement under discussion is presently this:

To raise awareness and improve the public image of online literary publishing. Toward this end, we will work to provide resources to internet publishers, writers, and readers. We will further provide and advocate for awards and other venues recognizing excellence in online literary publishing and writing.

Any editor or interested party can join the discussion group, so if you want to be involved in this important venture from the beginning, simply click on the link below:

Click here to join literaryonline
Click to join literaryonline

12/06/06

I have just been informed that Issue #4 contributor Diane Lockward has been awarded the Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize from Wind Publications for her new book What Feeds Us.

Congratulations to Ms. Lockward on her fine achievement. I do hope to hear from other contributors, both past and present, when their work gains awards or recognition, so that I can publicize it on these pages.

11/15/06

And now what you've all been waiting for: my 2006 Pushcart Prize nominations.

From the current issue:

From the Summer 2006 issue: (No surprises here)

Ahem. I've been nominated twice for a Pushcart, both times by e-zines, and never won. The odds are stacked against you guys, I suspect, but good luck anyway!

08/15/06

I would like to present The Barefoot Muse's nominations for the Best of the Net Anthology to be brought out by Sundress publications.

From the Summer 2006 issue:

From the Winter 2005 issue:

Good luck everyone! It would be gratifying to see some formal/metrical work in the anthology.

07/05/06

A stirring defense of rhyming and/or metrical poetry is mounted in the July/August Issue of Poets & Writers Magazine by Reagan Upshaw, an NYC poet and art dealer. In answer to the question of how we can lodge our poems in a reader's memory he replies "Poems with rhyme and meter have a better chance of survival."

Also today, I discovered a new online poetry journal dedicated to formal poetry by women. Visit Mezzo Cammin for some fine poems by contemporary formal greats Rhina P. Espaillat and Jennifer Reeser, as well as criticism centered on women who write formal verse.

05/21/06

Recently I have been coming across more and more instances of journal guidelines which state "No rhyming poetry" or "No end rhyme." At first I wasn't sure if I should be disturbed by this or not. After all, here at The Barefoot Muse we only publish formal and/or metrical poetry. Don't other journals therefore, have the right to exclude rhyme?

Then I decided there was a subtle difference. We are a niche journal: we INCLUDE work belonging to the positive space defined by the boundaries of our niche. That's okay, in the same way as it is okay for a journal to accept only science-fiction poems or haiku. The difference in the "No Rhyme" case is that this is typically a mainstream journal defining a negative space--not our entire niche but a significant portion of it--and EXCLUDING that.

The problem with EXCLUSION as opposed to INCLUSION, as I think any minority group will tell you, is one of implied hierarchy. I don't believe there is a hidden message on this site regarding free verse: it simply doesn't belong in this niche. Personally, I read, write and credit a great deal of free verse. However, the hidden message in the "No Rhyme" journals is that rhyming poems are "no-good" or "old-fashioned."

Clearly I don't agree with that message. Nor do the top echelon journals--Poetry, for example, quite regularly publishes poetry in traditional forms.

Therefore I am compiling a Give Rhyme a Break List of all journals who have such wording in their guidelines. Please email me every time you come across a new example of such a journal. Note: other niche journals which exclude rhyme automatically because of the nature of THEIR niche, e.g. concrete poetry journals, do not count. Similarly any journal that has "Free Verse" or "Verse Libre" in the title may be excused. The oft-seen phrase "No Hallmark verse" doesn't bother me either. (I quite regularly reject whole batches of Hallmark verse and good riddance.) What we're trying to do here is to get those journals that believe they can represent the breadth of excellence in poetry today without including any rhyme, to analyse their own thought processes and justify its exclusion. I would love to hear from the editors themselves. In many cases, I think they may just not be aware of the kind of lyrical brilliance we new formalists can produce!

Let's get the discussion going.

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