I’ve been rummaging through mail that has arrived during my holiday. Most of it has gone straight to the bin. I had hoped for a little good poetry news, that some of my submissions had found a home in one magazine or another, but there’s nothing – only one rejection slip.
On the other hand, my copy of Orbis issue 140 arrived with two of my poems in it, and Magma issue 38 is here too. I read through the essays last night, and found that Roddy Lumsden, discussing new developments in poetry, gives a favourable mention to this blog (thanks, Roddy!). Eleanor Livingstone has a fine article on Scottish poetry. Magma editor, David Boll, has a very interesting piece on why poems get rejected (although it doesn’t really tell me why some of my better ones get rejected by magazines!). Mark Doty talks about the influence of Frank O’Hara on his work. Really good stuff. I’ll start on the poems this evening.
