Whale Sound and more

A poem of mine, Things of the Earth, first published in Brink Magazine (and one of my earlier publications), was read by the lovely Nic Sebastian and posted on the website Whale Sound. You can take a listen here. There's also a link to the text posted on the site.

I really love what Nic is doing - the internet is such a place that can promote poetry not only through text but also through reading and performance. To me these are both very important aspects of a poem (see much of my work with the TypewriterGirls). However, very very few journals/lit venues take advantage of this. What Nic is doing is truly awesome because it is a collection, not of poetry text with reading, but poetry reading with text (if that makes any sense. I haven't had my coffee yet this morning).

Also, Nic has awesome taste and has published/read/posted a bunch of poets I simply love:

Sandra Beasley
Mary Biddinger
Juliet Cook
Juliet Cook again!
Crystal Hoffman
Dana Guthrie Martin
Sarah J Sloat
Sarah J Sloat again!

There are a couple of other journals I enjoy that also post readings of the poetry contained therein on their websites:

Goblin Fruit - Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica P. Wick edit this fantasy poetry 'zine and I kind of love it. Amal and Jessica have the poets themselves record the reading of their poems, and it's optional, so not all of the poems have an accompanying reading, but I very much enjoy having the chance to hear a poem in the poet's own voice. Their fall 2010 issue just came out a couple of days ago and 5 out of the 9 poems published in it are accompanied by readings. As a bonus, the website gets a new design with each issue, and the designs are simply beautiful, which most of the time is thanks to resident artist Oliver Hunter. Even if you aren't a fan of fantasy poetry you should really browse through the back issues just to see how lovely a literary journal's website can actually be. And if you aren't a fan of fantasy poetry Goblin Fruit might very well change your mind.

The Dirty Napkin - This journal is more traditional literary journal in content than Goblin Fruit. In order to listen to all of the readings you need to subscribe (a year is $16), but each issue contains a few pieces that can be listened to for free. They require that all accepted work be recorded, and do so over the phone, so sometimes the quality of the recordings is not quite as high as in Goblin Fruit or Whale Sound, but you are always guarenteed readings here, and I do like much of the work that they publish. You can check out their archives and listen to all the free readings there, too. I'm not sure how one gets ahold of the readings in the archive. Another really cool thing that they do is they select one piece each issue to be featured as the cover piece and have it written on a napkin and then photographed.

So go forth and listen to some bad-ass poetry!

Make It So - because you need more proof of my geekitude

A series of events, most of them in my imagination, have lead to the creation of Make It So - a collection of Star Trek: TNG-inspired poetry.

You know you are a geek, deep down. You know you've written your own Ode to Spot, your own Klngon epic poetry, your own Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra.

Get the deets below or at www.makeitsomag.blogspot.com

I've been writing poetry about Captain Picard since I was about 8 years old (no, you may not read it). Now I'm a grown-ass poet, and I still want to write poetry about Captain Picard. It turns out that a fair number of us poets do. So I'm doing what any sane person who reaches this conclusion would do - I'm going to put together a collection of what is sure to be the most amazing poetry in the Alpha Quadrant, a collection of poetry about Captain Picard, the Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-D, and their crew.

My goal is to get this fine collection of literature out by June 16, 2011, aka Captain Picard Day.

"Margaret, how may I contribute to this amazing collection?!" you are surely screaming at your computer right now. Well, let me tell you in my best Majel Barrett voice.

I will actually be editing this - I'm not taking everything that is sent my way. If you want your poetry to be considered for Make It So, please email me up to 10 poems in a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file by, oh, let's make it February 14th, 2011 for fairly obvious reasons. Send them to makeitsomag (at) gmail.com.

Now, for other things you're probably wondering about. Defying logic, Make It So will be a print collection, hand-made by yours truly. There might be an online version. It's a one-shot. Don't expect this awesomeness on a yearly basis. Also, it's Next Generation only. I don't want TOS, I don't want DS9 (though that's a thought for the future. Mental note.), I don't want Voyager (though if you sent me an amazing poem about the doctor I'd weep silently as I wrote your rejection), and I'll probably get Klingon on your ass if you send me poetry about Enterprise. It doesn't have to be set in the Star Trek world - it can mention Star Trek, use Star Trek as a metaphor, describe your dream in which Patrick Stewart featured (well, up to a point. ahem.), etc. No porn, please (unless it's really hilarious, but then I'll probably reject it anyway - but it will be a good laugh!).

Make it funny, make it serious, make me really really wish that we lived in the same city and could dish about our old fanfic together (shut up - you know you wrote some awesome self-insert fanfic in the 5th grade), but above all, make it high freaking quality poetry about Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Bonus points for Klingon epic poetry with original text and translation.