Sherry Chandler

Stuff # 7

By way of Kate Bernadette Benedict, I have discovered this SpokenVerse channel at YouTube, at which I was immediately attracted to this reading of “A Conservative” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Don’t let the picture of Glenn Beck defer you. Play it at YouTube to cut out the middle man of embedded streaming.

Speaking of Kate, there is a brand new issue of Umbrella up. I invite you to explore.

Kate also has an incisive poem in the green issue of Soundzine, as do my friends Antonia Clark and Mary Meriam. I invite you to explore there, too.

Meanwhile, qarrtsiluni has completed its Health Issue, which includes my poem “Relics” and a bunch of other good stuff. Look around there, too. Co-editors Susan Elbe and Kelly Madigan Erlandson write in their summary:

Our hope was to focus on and highlight health — both the radiant, full-bodied, energetic variety, and the various ways health is impaired or depleted. We struggled to balance the issue, hoping to equally include pieces that celebrate the joy we experience in health and that explore the grief in our disease and dying. We were continually surprised at how difficult this was, as the majority of submissions we received focused on ill health.

We wondered why the focus seemed more on our dis-ease than on our vibrancy. Is it that we use writing to, as Gregory Orr says, “(sing) the pain back into the wound?”

Revealing of my age and health status that I tend to want to read that last sentence “sing the back pain into the wound.”

Rumors have reached me that the Dead Poets Society of America is planning a second annual Dead Poets Bash in Lexington Cemetery on Wednesday, May 5, at 3:30 p.m. If/When I know more, I’ll let you all know.

Kate Bernadette Benedict

Here’s what Kate Bernadette Benedict said about her ambitions as a poetry editor:

My ambition is to keep Umbrella’s standards high by publishing excellent poetry of an eclectic nature. I also feel that certain boilerplate styles hamper poetry’s power, so it’s also a key mission of mine to showcase poems that employ a fresh and ringing diction.

Kate is editor of Umbrella and, because I have had poems in that journal, her statement set me to shining up my gold star.

Kate is featured as interview # 9 in Nic Sebastian’s series, Ten Questions for Poetry Editors. When asked “How frequently do you get “exciting” submissions?” Kate made this encouraging response:

More frequently than I ever would have imagined! Each poem chosen excites in its own way. A poem scintillates when its umbrella idea marries perfectly to its execution … and when it moves me on a deep level.

I was surprised to learn that Kate serves as her own webmaster. I find Umbrella one of the best-designed, most readable poetry journals on line. That is why I sent my poems there in the first place.

Kate also gives kudos to her co-editors Rachel Dacus and C. E. Chaffin:

These people are all pro’s; there are no cons.

I have found Kate Bernadette Benedict a poet-friendly editor — open, professional, friendly but with very high standards. These characteristics are reflected in the interview, which I suggest you read in full.

Then go read Umbrella. You’ll find a link on my sidebar.

Read the whole excellent series.

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P.S. Kate is always looking for new voices:

An appearance of clubbiness is death to a journal, in my opinion. Though Umbrella gets submissions from lots of new people each quarter, the proportion of publishable work from that batch is lower than I would hope. It remains an important goal for me to keep the roster fresh.