Missing email addys

We're missing email addresses for a few of you. If you haven't received an email from the Editors about sending your bio, please shoot a quick email to poetry2008@gmail.com so that we have you on our mailing list. The list will be used to gather bios, approve proofs, and announce anthology readings in your area-- nothing more (I hate spam too). Please do not email for any other reason-- only if you haven't received email from us.

Donations

To make a donation toward the publication of the Anthology, go to the Outside Voices website and click on "donations". There you will find a PayPal button as well as other ways of sending donations.

To make a tax-deductible donation, you must send money through Bootstrap Productions (Outside Voices' parent press). Mark that it is for the OV Anthology. If your place of business matches funds, I would especially encourage you to donate something (any amount!) so we can get the matching business funds.

Anthology release party/reading

The funding is coming along. A few of you have been generous and given $20-30 towards the cost of publication; that's awesome, thanks! In December I'll set up shop online to handle preorders, but it seems too soon for that just yet.

I'm beginning to think about the release party. Because of the number of people from IL, I'm thinking about having it in Chicago. The official release date is Jan. 1, 2008, so I think we could have a big party/reading/booze/music/food fest (bring your sleeping bags and we'll make it a sleepover) on New Year's Eve. A number of discount airlines fly through Chicago, and I figure it's more interesting/less stressful than celebrating New Year's in NYC.

Misplaced poems

If you have sent poems to me at any other address than poetry2008 at gmail dot com, it's quite likely that I didn't consider them (this does not apply if you sent your work via a member of the Editorial Board, who then forwarded it to the right address). So if you've been sending me stuff via MySpace, Facebook, and the like, and do not see your name on this page, please resend to the proper address. It is too big a project to make exceptions for friends. Thanks for understanding.

How many?

Though the sound and vispo files aren't all in yet, the count so far, with almost everything in, is over 250 authors.

At the beginning, I thought there were probably about 500 of "us" younger poets working today, at the peripheries of each other's consciousness. I still think there are probably that many, but I'm kinda glad they didn't all submit, because it's been a lot of work with half that many-- and I'm just getting started on the publishing side of the project.

Updates

Ah, poets. Nothing like waiting till the very last minute, eh? My inbox is swamped and my computer access unreliable, so:
- links for poets will be updated next week
- you may continue to submit poetry until Monday, Jan. 8. I will update acceptances Tuesday, so this is seriously the very last day to submit poetry. You may continue to submit visual work and soundpo (digital recordings).

Clarification

If your name appears anywhere on this page, your work has been accepted for print in the anthology. This is a grassroots operation. We don't have time to respond to everyone's work. If you sent work and your name is listed here, it was accepted. If you didn't send work or if you did and your name isn't listed here, your work will not be in the anthology.

Also re: bios and permissions. In late 2007 before the book goes to print, I will be asking for new bios and for information on who published the poem previously. Giving me that kind of information now is only to give me a sense of who you are. I realize that by this time next year your bio may be completely different. That's fine. There's room for that to change. I will ask for them all at the same time, sometime in, say, August 2007. Then I'll also ask for exact spellings and capitalizations in your names, since many of you use different names for email and life than for poetry.

Raison d'etre

Cf. entry for March 8th.

We accept authors for the anthology based on the strength of one or more of the pieces they submit. Thus, while for some authors it may immediately be obvious to us which poem we will use, for many of our authors we are not entirely sure until weeks later. If you want to use one of your poems for another publication, go for it. But please do not email us asking which poem of yours we have chosen to publish; we're still knee-deep in the organic process of "developing" the anthology.

The Project

The scene of young/emerging poets has reached critical mass. Thus, we (John Sakkis and Jessica Smith) are editing an anthology of young poets who are working within a certain artistic sphere. Although, as you will see, the variety of aesthetic viewpoints is wide-ranging, the authors are loosely held together by social, academic, geographic, and historic commonalities. They influence each other without necessarily sharing specific formal traits. This plurality may result from the availability of the internet to these authors from an early age--geographical proximity is not as essential as it was for the SF Renaissance or New York School poets, for instance. The "politically correct" mantra of the 1990s almost certainly encourages the aesthetic diversity as well; poets can respect and be inspired by other poets who may seem to have nothing in common with them aesthetically. This scene is so diverse, geographically and aesthetically, that it requires rethinking the "anthology" as a genre. Our anthology will be a massive collection containing critical introductions, a sample poem from each author, and author biographies. It is not intended to familiarize a reader with the depth and breadth of any single author's work, but it is rather intended to provide a detailed record of the sheer magnitude, energy, and plurality of experimental poetry at the turn of the millennium.

The anthology will be released at the turn of the New Year, 2008, by Outside Voices. Click here to email the editors and/or submit work.

Update: John Sakkis has retired as co-editor.

Print Ads

You're welcome to download these and paste them wherever you want. More designs will be up soon, and depending on permissions & legibility they may change slightly. For a text ad, write: Outside Voices 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets, edited by John Sakkis & Jessica Smith. Submit work to poetry2008@gmail.com or visit outsidevoices.org for more info

Editorial Board

Main Editors
Jessica Smith

I will be responsible for final selection, formatting, grant-writing, pre-press/press/distribution, and all those other nice editorial duties that make life worth living.

Editorial Board
Michael Carr, Boston
Jason Christie, Canada
CAConrad, Philadelphia
Corrine Fitzpatrick, New York
Eric Gelsinger, New York
K. Lorraine Graham, LA/San Diego
Aaron Lowinger, Buffalo


These folks are the touchpoints for their respective geographical locations. If your geographical location doesnt have its own editor, that doesn't mean you can't submit. We assigned editors to major scenes so as not to overlook minor/unpublished young poets on those scenes. We assume that smaller cities' scenes are more compact and people there will be gracious enough to spread the word on their own.