Spring issue of The Puritan

Coming to the BPU desk today via email, good news from The Puritan -- a fine, substantial publication, operating under the banner "Frontiers of New English" -- that their spring issue is now online. NB: Puritan contributor rob mclellan has written previously for The Charles River Journal, a publication of the BPU's Pen & Anvil Press. 

* * * * *

The wait is over! The Puritan is back with our patiently awaited (and hotly anticipated) Issue 17: Spring 2012! And, most importantly, it's in an all-new, html format, making it easier to read, copy, save, and share!

Check out original fiction by Marc Apollonio, Andrew Boden, Melissa Kuipers, and Molly Lynch! Peruse new poetry by Sean Braune, David Brock, Amanda Earl, Alyda Faber, Sean Howard, Anna Maxymiw, Lynn McClory and Matthew Tierney! Read an inspired essay by rob mclennan! And open up two new interviews: Myra Bloom's conversation with Michael Lista and Jim Smith's discussion with Lillian Necakov!

While you're on our website taking in this great new work, be sure to note our ongoing contest: The Inaugural Thomas Morton Memorial Prize for Literary Excellence. The deadline for this prestigious award is September 30, 2012, so that gives you plenty of time to polish up that poem or short story and send it our way.

Our fiction winner will receive $650, our poetry winner will receive $350, and both winners will receive a prize package of books from some excellent (and small!) Canadian publishers (including Chaudiere Books, Coach House Books, Cormorant Books, ECW Press, Free Hand Books, Goose Lane Editions, Insomniac Press, Mansfield Press, Pedlar Press, and Tightrope Books -- approximately $500 worth of books!). Winners will also be included in a Best-Of print anthology and in an upcoming issue online.

Visit the submissions page for details on how to enter: http://www.puritan-magazine.com/submissions.php.

Also, we're still taking regular submissions of fiction, essays, poetry, reviews, and interviews for Issue 19: Fall 2012. Get those in before September 15, 2012 to be considered. And remember: we pay all our writers! $50 for a work of fiction or non-fiction and $25 per poem!

To help us reach as many readers as possible (and to help get our writers read), please share our new issue on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media. We can't continue without you!

Until next time ... Happy reading!

The Puritan Editors

Amazing new poem by Ben Mazer in Eyewear

From "Monsieur Barbary Brecht" by Ben Mazer (author of, most recently, POEMS), as appears at the Eyewear blog edited by Todd Swift:

In the hall the rich children glare and they stare

at the poor little visitor who enters there,

his musical prodigy greater than theirs

sends them scuttling in snide little groups up the stairs.

But the hostess is compassionate and hands him a score,

but he just doesn’t feel up to play any more,

and wonders what lies behind the magnificent door

where the children all vanished, and his vision is flecked

by the shadowy mustache of Monsieur Barbary Brecht!

Readers wanted for poetry stroll in Roslindale

Rozzie Reads, a project of the Friends of the Roslindale Library, is looking for poetry lovers who’d like to read their own poems or a poem of their choosing at the August 2nd "Poetry in Motion" event, part of Roslindale Summer Stroll. Local poetry fans, dressed in togas, will travel around the village and recite poetry as area residents enjoy an evening out of doors.

When? Thursday, August 2nd from 7 – 8 pm

Who? Three groups of five performers will be staged near restaurants and shops 

What do I do? Take turns reading or reciting a favorite poem or poems! You can read from a book, a paper or your phone or you can recite your poem from memory.

What if I don’t have a poem? Log onto www.rozziereads.org to find a selection of great and fun poems

How can I practice? Visit http://rozziereadspoetry.wikispaces.com/Tips+for+Memorizing+Poems for some handy tips for memorization

What do I wear? Wear something white and accent your outfit with gold colored accessories – you will look great!

I still have questions, who do I contact? Email Jennifer Dines at  jdines@lgfnet.org.

Awesome! How do I sign up? Visit this link, where you’ll fill out a form with your contact information.

Need more information? Log onto www.rozziereads.org.

Maria Gapotchenko in 3QD

How wonderful to see that the blog 3 Quarks Daily ("3QD is smart and high-class."—Robert Pinsky, former U.S. Poet Laureate) has selected a poem from one of our Boston Poetry/Pen & Anvil publications for this week's Sunday Poem pick. The piece, "Third Person" by Maria Gapotchenko, was originally published in Clarion #15.

In Third Person

a haze a heron in a tide-pool
and for a long time out of time
two children push a giant yellow globe

coyotes come and every June the same
the unrequited loneliness the same
out-of-tune expressions herons dance
the same blue wings
                           it all made sense
the way he asked me for the Book of Job
to make some pattern make some rhyme
out of his life before he die
the way he scrutinized his patterned robe

when he did die it's simply that he sensed
there was no more to do no other dance
to be composed no present tense