Poetry and Prose Embrace

As writers, how we engage the reader on our journey is essential whether we write poetry or prose. There are a variety of techniques from which we can choose, and when we broaden our knowledge about the techniques available to us, we enhance our success: we use the best tools to serve a particular piece of writing.

Yet poetry and prose can embrace in the Elysian Fields of a text. Robert Bly observes that "the eye reports to the brain, and the ear reports to the heart." We can hear how the power of music works in poetry when we read Galway Kinnell's poem "Blackberry Eating." The verbal repetition of the consonances roll off our tongues: "knowing the black art of blackberry-making…which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy, black language of blackberry-eating."

We find an electric cross-current of poetry in the micro-fiction prose of Stuart Dybek's "We Didn't":

We didn't in the light; we didn't in darkness. We didn't in the fresh-cut summer grass or in the mounds of autumn leaves or on the snow where moonlight threw down our shadows. We didn't ... in the backseat of my father's rusted Rambler, which smelled of the smoked clubs and kielbasa he delivered on the weekends from my uncle Vincent's meat market. We didn't in your mother's Buick Eight, where a rosary twined the rearview mirror like a beaded, black snake with silver, cruciform fangs ... . At the end of our lover's lane—a street of abandoned factories—where I perfected the pinch that springs open a bra; behind the lilac bushes in Marquette Park, where you first touched me through my jeans and your nipples, swollen against transparent cotton, seemed the shade of lilacs; in the balcony of the now defunct Clark Theater, where I wiped popcorn salt from my palms and slid them up your thighs and you whispered, "I feel like Doris Day is watching us," we didn't.

Galway Kinnell's poem and Stuart Dybek's prose are just two examples of how rhythmic verse can elevate the text in a symphonic performance that stimulates the mind and excites the heart.

(Jensea Storie, Poetry Editor)

Writing a Lot

I'm afraid that a lot is eventually going to become alot.

Like many of you, I run into this mistake far too often. Not only do people speak it as one word (spoken and written English have always maintained an agreed upon and understandable discrepancy), but a frightening minority of them write it as one word. And another undetermined percentage are being saved by spell-check. (Which my newest, but not brand new, Random House indicates is hyphenated.)

Eventually "spell-check" is likely to become one word, "spellcheck." In the meantime it's evolving; it's engaged in the process of transformation which accompanies written language and is necessitated by a changing society. I can handle that when it comes to spell-check. I might even acquiesce if it comes to who verses whom. If the language evolves naturally and in some sort of semi-sane fashion, so be it.

A lot has never been a-lot. Sorry, but it hasn't.

It's certainly not one word: alot. I cringe to type it. Twice now, I've cringed.

Yet is this abhorrence inevitable? I see it in advertising and on posters. You can even find it in newspapers occasionally. Students, more often than not, write it as "alot." Evidently our high schools are producing malfunctioning spell-checkers. And I hate to say it but those students are the ones who'll be doing all the writing, once we're dead, although some may not realize it yet.

And here I am shaking my head. I'm thinking, "how could this happen?" I'm thinking, "this one's easy!" But all around us people are writing alot.

(R Woerheide)

Perspective is Everything

Astronomers have spotted a huge cloud of fiery gas speeding through a distant cluster of galaxies. They say it is the biggest object of its kind ever seen.

The gas ball contains more matter than 1,000 billion Suns, and is plunging through the Abell 3266 cluster of galaxies at about 750 kilometres per second. The fireball is about 3 million light years across, roughly 5 billion times the diameter of the Solar System, and reaches temperatures of tens of millions of degrees.

"The size and velocity of this gas ball is truly fantastic," says Alexis Finoguenov, a physicist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and one of the scientists who made the find.

Finoguenov says that the fireball is likely to become a massive building block in the growing cluster, which contains hundreds of galaxies.

(From Nature Journal. Image: photo credit ESA)

NPR and PBS on the Chopping Block?

House Republicans have decided public broadcasting and programming such as Sesame Street should be mortally under-funded. If you haven't received the e-mail circulating among liberals and moderates alike, asking you to sign MoveOn.org's petition, well . . . you must be living under a rock.

A nice, cozy, cool rock.

But hey, we can't all live like earwigs now can we?

As MoveOn itself reports: Everyone expected House Republicans to give up efforts to kill NPR and PBS after a massive public outcry stopped them last year. But they've just voted to eliminate funding for NPR and PBS—unbelievably, starting with programs like Sesame Street.

Public broadcasting would lose nearly a quarter of its federal funding this year. Even worse, all funding would be eliminated in two years—threatening one of the last remaining sources of watchdog journalism.

This would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting. The Boston Globe reports the cuts "could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs." NPR's president expects rural public radio stations may be forced to shut down.

Seems to us this is a bad idea. If you agree, here's the link to sign the petition.

(R Woerheide)

Seeking Readers for our Staff

Perigee is looking for readers to join its staff. As submissions continue to grow, and editorial duties are adjusted to fit that growth, Perigee looks to expand its staff.

Big things are in store for us as we file for 501(c)(3) status with an eye toward eventual grant money. Get in on the ground floor, become a member of this passionate group of artists and writers, and get your fingers inky among hundreds of submissions from talented writers the world over!

   •Applicants must reside primarily in the greater San Diego area.
   •Applicants must be writers or poets—either full time or part time.
   •Applicants must love to read, must love to work with words, and should be detail oriented.
   •Applicants must be able to attend bimonthly meetings in the San Diego area.

Apply here, without delay. Just tell us a little about yourself and why you'd be a good fit for Perigee.

Rejections, Beyond the Call of Duty

What a difference a word makes. A few words, even more so.

For some reason—perhaps my writing has begun to warrant it, or perhaps I'm just getting lucky—I have received several personally worded and encouraging rejection slips in the last week. It's not so much the encouraging part that's important here (although that is always treasured), it's the personal nature that has surprised me.

Let's face it, everyone knows editors (including those of us at Perigee) are overwhelmed with submissions. They're easy enough to go through given time, time, and more time, but when it comes to responding to submissions—particularly rejecting work—who has time to comment on the specifics of the writing? (This question ignores those submissions which are, unfortunately, so broken that no polite advice suffices.)

As a writer who receives at least one submission response a week, and more often two or three, I don't begrudge editors this fact of life.

Which makes it all the more pleasing when I receive first rate, thoughtful, and personally oriented rejections. Rejections, no less!

Just today I received a rejection from Barrelhouse regarding a piece of short fiction, which included: "This, of course, is easy enough to fix, but I think it points to a larger issue in the piece, which is that I never got much sense of the characters. He was, essentially, the Guy In Mourning, and she was, essentially, The One Who Died. I think for the story to be successful, the reader needs a stronger and more particularized sense of who these people are."

How's that for feedback? And the editor is exactly right (a fact for which I thanked him).

Or take this note from Fringe Magazine: "We liked the detail of this piece—the hunt for the cricket was fascinating to read. However, we thought the work lacked a sense of the narrator's emotional landscape—it was clear that he was obsessive, but not why he was. To put it another way, the question of the story was 'What is happening in the character's life to make him behave this way?'"

Both comments speak to the same weakness. How much more likely is it that the writer (yours truly) will be able to address this weakness, improve his writing, and return with work more effective and more publishable? The answer, of course, is "far more likely."

I think it is about time that as writers and editors we remember that we are part of a process—that, ultimately, we exist in a partnership, and that one cannot function at his best without the counterpart functioning at her best. We, here at Perigee, will do our best to remind ourselves of this—both as editors and writers.

In the meantime, this writer will continue to cherish editors who take the time to nudge him in the right direction.

(R Woerheide, With Thanks to Fringe Magazine and Barrelhouse)

Who the Hell is Perigree?

We have received yet another submission intended for some publication called "Perigree."

This is additonally baffling since the word doesn't exist. Pedigree? Peregrine? Perigee? Those exist, yes. But "perigree?" Nope, sorry.

For the record—and with profound hopes we'll never see this mangled moniker again—the name of our publication is PERIGEE. Caps optional.

Thanks.

(Perigee: the point in an orbit where the orbiting body is closest to the body it orbits. Primarily used for the moon in relation to the earth.)

Extending a Hand to "Absolute Write"

Speaking frankly, I take offense when another literary web site and writer's service is shut down for no good reason. Worse, for bad reasons. For C-Y-A reasons.

That is what has recently happened to Absolute Write—whose newsletter I've received for months and who has long been a bastion of literary information, often warning toiling writers away from scam artists and ne'er-do-wells.

With only an hour's notice, Absolute Write's ISP pulled their website, along with years of data. Now, this is all that remains.

Why?

That's a long story. And a good one.

Apparently, literary agent Barbara Bauer did not appreciate her inclusion in the 20 Worst Agencies list recently published. After a phone call to the ISP which has been described as "screaming" and "abusive," JC-Hosting pulled the Absolute Write web site. But not before a cease-and-desist order from Barbara Bauer. The whole thing is rather messy.

Bauer has alternately claimed (as well as I can tell) that Absolute Write is a spammer and that they are participating in libel. Enough to make any ISP shake in their boots?

But it doesn't end there. Oh no.

Without pause, Stephanie Cordray (the decision-maker at the ISP in this instance) has launched her own, suspiciously similar, writer's site. Tacky tacky. (Read the full story here. My fingers hurt.)

What's my point? Absolute Write needs our help. The balding type-A in my head wishes I weren't getting involved, but since I am, please read on. Click on the COMMENTS link directly below to read a note from Absolute Write's Editor in Chief. A call for help.

(R Woerheide, A.K.A. "Not Liable")

A Word About Dashes

Over the years I've grown increasingly mystified by the universal ignorance surrounding the dash punctuation mark. I'm not talking about proper usage—people tend to have a decent ear for that—I'm talking about the actual typeset.

For the record: a dash is not a hyphen; a dash is not a hyphen preceded by a space, or succeeded by a space; a dash is not a hyphen flanked by spaces. No.

This is a dash—believe me.

Most word processors will automatically convert "example--example" to "example—example" when a space is keyed after the succeeding word. If you're using a program that doesn't, just remember, two hyphens are acceptable. As long as their edges touch each other and the words; there are no spaces involved with a dash!

In HTML code a dash is achieved using "& #8212;" (remove the space btwn/ ampersand and pound sign).

" -" no
"- " no
"-" no
" - " no
" — " no
"— " no
" —" no

"—" yes!

Glad we cleared that up.

(R Woerheide, Editor)

Autumn Issue Submissions Open

Submissions for Perigee's July 15th issue are no longer being accepted. Those who have submitted work can expect to hear from us within six weeks, at the outmost.

We are now accepting submissions in verse, prose, and visual art for our autumn issue. This issue will also include the 2006 Fiction Contest winners, and is sure to be a popular read. Submit now for a chance to have your work included!

Those who have submitted to the July issue and are awaiting our response are invited to submit to our October issue at their earliest convenience—even before hearing from us on their current submissions.