Sherry Chandler

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.

Bumbershoot 2009

I am thrilled to announce that my poem, “A Weighty Problem,” has been published in the Summer 2009 Bumbershoot annual at Umbrella.

It’s a dynamite issue that includes a collection of children’s poems, “Words inside of Words,” by Richard Wilbur.

Also a neat collection of riddling poems, including one by Antonia Clark. I’m glad to reconnect with Toni in this lovely way. I first met Toni a couple of years ago at West Chester. You can read more of her work here.

Alas for me, I’m awful at solving riddles. So I move on to the parodies or the animal poems.

Check it out. We could all use a laugh on Friday.

Umbrella: Issue 8, Fall 2008

The new issue of Umbrella is up today and I’m pleased to announce that I have a couple of sonnets therein, along with the always excellent Marilyn L. Taylor and Anne Higgins, who has a new chapbook forthcoming from Finishing Line, Pick It Up and Read. I had the pleasure of getting to know both Marilyn and Anne at West Chester in 2008, and getting to know their work. Both are delightful human beings and powerful poets.

The issue contains a clutch of other poets, some known to me by name only, whose work I am looking forward to exploring, pluse “Kindred Prose” by Rachel Dacus, Eric D. Lehman, and Arlene L. Mandell.

Editor Kate Bernadette Benedict describes the issue thus:

Here�s to Autumn and a new Umbrella issue, a miscellany. Even when there is no announced theme, sometimes a theme emerges anyway. As summer ends, here we have a number of poems that explore ripening, the coming of age, night thoughts, memories, an awareness of death�not a �hurrahing in harvest� in the manner of Hopkins but more of an equinoctial melancholy that looks ahead to the near and inevitable winter solstice. A little wryness and eros leaven the bread and the poems run the spectrum from the strictly formal to the prose line. Here�s to eclectism!

I hope you’ll take a look at my poems and then peruse the entire issue.