World Class Poetry Blog

32 Poems Sponsors Event With Indie Rock Band
28 February 2008, the poet @ 10:05 pm

Poetry plus rock music. This is such a cool idea I just have to write about it. 32 Poems is partnering with an indie rock band to stage a rock concert and a poetry reading. I’ve considered this myself. It seems like an awesome way to expand the reach of poetry and for poets to break new ground in finding an audience.

I’ve been to poetry readings in coffee shops, bars, libraries, community centers, parks, churches, and in people’s back yards. But I’ve never been to a poetry reading/rock concert. I do believe that indie rock bands and poets have something in common that they should share and to partner on these types of events holds a great deal of benefit for both groups.

The event is free and will take place at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Md. on Friday, May 9, 2008. The Caribbean will be the featured rock band and it starts at 8 p.m. Featured poets include Sandra Beasley and Bernadette Geyer.

You can learn more about this event by networking with 32 Poems Magazine at Facebook.

32 Poems has also recently announced that it accepts electronic submissions. I sent in two poems just this evening. The process is real simple and utilizes a service called ManuscriptHub. You have to join the service, which is free, but to send up to five manuscripts at one time to one publisher is $2. That’s for every submission.

Right now there are just three publications that are taking submissions through the service - 32 Poems, Meridian, the University of Virginia literary journal, and Best New Poets, an anthology published by Meridian.

The service appears to be an extension of the University of Virginia creative writing program. The only thing I don’t like about it is the $2 per submission fee. That seems steep for an online submission service.

If you send out two poems with a SASE through snail mail it won’t cost $2. Considering the economics of Internet commerce, I’d say that even half of that is more than could be expected. I like the idea of the submission service, but I’d like to see it offered as a membership site with unlimited submissions ($5 or $10 per month sounds reasonable to me). Of course, the way it is now, with only three journals to submit to you’d likely only be paying $4 every three or four months (that’s if you resubmit additional poems to those journals. Since Best New Poets gets its material from literary journal nominations, working poets can’t submit there.

At any rate, I can see potential for growth if other literary journals get involved. Given the right mix and number of literary journals, a flat fee membership service would assist both poets and journals through the submission process.

1 Comment a “32 Poems Sponsors Event With Indie Rock Band”

1. deborah — February 29, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
   

   Allen, I am tagging you in a meme. Visit my blog to get into on the 6-word memoir meme.

   Warmly,
   Deborah

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