Calls for Submissions: Poetry

Verbatim from Facebook: "Call for female writers located in St. Louis, MO! Bad Shoe is our region's only lit mag devoted to female writers in the St. Louis area. Please send poetry (2-5 poems) or prose. Send your work, pasted into the body of an email with your contact info, to submissions@saintlouisprojects.org. We look forward to reading!" (Note: I had thought Bad Shoe, when I bought its first issue, with its handsewn binding, in a basement a year ago, was a flash in the pan. Apparently it's doing just fine.) Deadline July 23.

Missouri or Kansas poets: Get your work carved in stone along the Riverfront Heritage bikeway/walkway in Kansas City and win $100. Missouri and Kansas poets are invited to submit 3 poems of not more than four lines each; they are EMPHATIC about sending three poems and only three poems max. No fee to enter. See contest guidelines; they want certain subject matter. They want submissions by email. Deadline Sept. 15.

Love and good luck, Catherine

Give and Take with an Editor

Kansas City Voices, an annual, last week chose a poem of mine for its 2010 edition, but the judge (his assistant called him "the poetry editor of the Kansas City Star") had suggested some changes in it. Open to suggestions? I always am; that's the nature of our business; plus, I had submitted that work in March and have since revised it, so I knew it needed revision. The assistant e-mailed me the judge's version of the poem. Golly.

Knowing that editors are not writers' enemies but their best friends, I gave the suggestions their due. About half of them would not harm the poem; about a quarter of them would help.

I printed out "their" preferred version and came up with my "corrected corrected" version. Naturally they were on deadline, so the assistant and I then worked by phone to reach a meeting of minds. I had cut out an image she liked. I explained how it was "over the top," and she suddenly saw that and agreed. I had deleted another line she said she hated to lose, so I let it back in. This mutual tweaking took about twenty minutes.

The result: The poem is better than when I sent it, and we are now both satisfied. How did that happen? Respectful. Calm. Informed. Orderly.