submissions update

Verse opened to submissions on July 15, and we are having a great time reading work. The magazine's new format allows us to consider work in more depth, to have more context for the work, and to help shape a portfolio of material.

So far, for the next print issue we have accepted work by:

Martine Bellen [poem, novella excerpts]

Daniel Coudriet [poems, translations from the Spanish]

Alice Jones [poems]

Joseph Massey [poetic sequence]

Adam Wiedemann [poems translated from the Polish by Marit MacArthur].


We also have accepted some work for the Verse site, which will appear on the site over the next weeks and months.

We have room for another 10-15 writers in the print issue and are still considering submissions. If you haven't submitted a chapbook-length portfolio yet, there's still plenty of time. The deadline is November 14.

We are especially interested in multi-genre portfolios and prose (fiction, nonfiction, interviews), so don't hesitate to send unorthodox portfolios.

If you did submit work and have not heard back from us yet, your portfolio is still under consideration.

Recent & Recommended

Natalie Lyalin, Pink & Hot Pink Habitat (Coconut)
Rebecca Wolff, The King (W.W. Norton)

free classroom sets of VERSE

If you would like a free classroom set of VERSE, follow the above link. We'll cover the shipping. You just need to give the magazine to your students.

UPDATE: We have about four boxes left.

Including one box of The Prose Issue II

(contributors: Rene Char, Helene Cixous, Diane Williams, Elke Erb, Clayton Eshleman, Craig Dworkin, Matthew Cooperman, John Kinsella, Michael Heller, Douglas Messerli, Petter Lindgren, Kevin Prufer, Noah E Gordon, Karla Kelsey, Rita Rich, Joshua Harmon, Susan Maxwell, Joy Katz, Peter Boyle, Michael Dietz, Paul Maliszewski, Fred Muratori, Gregory Brooker, Kevin Craft, Michelle Noteboom, Paul Killebrew, Carol Quinn, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, David Roderick, Michael Fagenblat essay on Jean-Luc Marion, Brad Flis essay on Tessa Rumsey, Timothy Donnelly essay on Don Paterson, Michael Theune essay on Yusef Komunyakaa, Chris McDermott essay on George Oppen, Reginald Shepherd interview, Kevin Hart interview, Don Paterson interview, Dara Wier interview, Charles North interview, Gustaf Sobin interview, Ed Dorn interview, plus book reviews).

Jason Whitmarsh poem, from the archives

Jason Whitmarsh


EACH SWITCHBACK THE LESS SECURE


You claimed a weathered antique in your chest
of possessions and gave me reason to believe

I one day would sail in it,
or at least set rudder by its burnished reflection.

You felt a bit of the bends in the up and coming
and wished my lead belt were more lead, less belt.

Dappled in the underneath, we once (arrayed
in wetsuits) sank too slow—a haberdashery cut

at the first sign of trouble, the profits invested
in the wherewithals, smitten and sartorial.

You claimed a bit of what I carried.
You made your case through the mail.


[originally published in Verse, 16.3/17.1]

NEW! Poem by Michaël Vandebril

Michaël Vandebril

AMOUR FOU

ook
dit
gaat
voor
bij
en
ook
dat
zal
voor
bij

*

this
too
is
short
lived
and
that
too
shall
be
short


Translated by Brian Doyle

Pierre Joris, from VERSE

from the new issue of Verse (Volume 26, Numbers 1-3)

Pierre Joris

from meditations on the 40 stations of Mansur Al-Hallaj

29. Regrets for things lost (iftiqad)

but regret will not bring it back.
Nothing left to do but turn your

back on it. Tell yourself when you
know where something is

then it is not lost, even though
that something lie at the

bottom of the ocean. Nothing
ever is lost, & that may be

the only thing that is
real cause for regret.

Susan Stewart, from VERSE

from the new issue of Verse (Volume 26, Numbers 1-3)

Susan Stewart

A LITTLE ROOM

If you want to kiss in an elevator
you have to know when to start.
You can’t begin to bend any later
than the third floor. Your heart
is pounding (and buttons are lighting,
which means someone’s waiting,
though not for you). There’ll be springing,
whistling, and sudden abating,
two, then one, then two. Intent, intended,
push > < and pull me into your arms,
close and closer, suspended
(the lock switched off alarm),
above is looming, below’s the abyss,
and meanwhile the 3 is the charm.

Recent & Recommended

Karen Leona Anderson, Punish Honey (Carolina Wren)
Joseph Massey, Areas of Fog (Shearsman)
Alexandria Peary, Fall Foliage Called Bathers & Dancers (Backwaters)
Brian Teare, Sight Map (California)