I’m thinking about radically changing this blog.  I like writing, but I don’t like blogging.  I’ve done my due diligence, trying to come up with things to post about, and I just don’t really care what I have to say, at least when it comes to poetry and editing.  And I think it shows.  More and more it shows, as more and more I come to the realization that I just don’t care.  And if I don’t care why would you care?  Do you care?  Would anyone be heartbroken if I deleted all 233 posts I’ve made so far and turned this into a travel log of my trips between the office, the grocery store, and the garbage disposal?  Honk if you’re horny, I guess.  I’m not.

Harvey Goldner passed away last week, from cancer at 65. I didn’t know him very well, but we published a poem of his last summer. The Seattle P-I has written a nice obiturary for him — he drove a taxi a few nights a week to pay for his room at a boarding house, and dedicated the rest of his life to poetry. There’s a simple beauty to that, at least in mind mind, and I hope it was as fulfilling for Harvey as it is in my imagination.

His poem from issue #25, “War and Peace,” is one that I still think of often, and so fits my definition of greatness. Perhaps like Goldner himself, it’s playful and important at the same time. He will be missed, but a body of work worth reading remains.

Harvey Goldner

WAR AND PEACE

Big bombs fell out of the
sky. Big bombs fell all over
the countryside. Chickens died,
some cows, a few lucky people
from down the road. Then the war,
the exhilaration, was over.

A new tax collector came by–
different uniform, same fishy
eyes. The craters made by the
bombs filled with rainwater.
Kids played in the bomb ponds
until Cousin Bob, the smart one,

came back from the big city
and taught us how to raise
catfish in the bomb ponds.
His lovely wife, Bobette,
gave us a dynamite
recipe for hushpuppies.

Now, when the new tax collector
(different uniform, same fishy
eyes) comes by on the first of
every month to collect, we
have a party–all the catfish
and hushpuppies you can eat.

So far, he hasn’t gotten too
greedy, not yet. But if he does,
Aunt Mary, the ancient one,
still has left some of the
good poison which she
murdered the last one
with.

Due to some gracious feedback, we’ve made a slight expansion to the guidelines for the Rattle Poetry Prize. In regard to a poem’s availability, the following now applies:

RATTLE’s winter issue (Dec. 2007) must be a potential first publication for all works submitted. No previously published works, or works accepted for publication elsewhere. No simultaneous submissions, except to magazines or presses open to publishing reprints after January 1st, 2008. [expanded 7/9/07]

What we care about for $5,000 is that, when we choose the winners, we get to be the poem’s first publication, no matter what. Originally we had said that we simply wouldn’t consider simultaneous submissions — but it’s been brought to my attention that some people are hesitating to submit poems that also appear in manuscripts that they’re trying to publish. Since the process of getting a book published is such a slow one, and all rights revert to the authors upon publication in RATTLE anyway, this really doesn’t matter to us, as long as the book wouldn’t come out before RATTLE #28 gets a month on the shelves.

Because we’re already mid-stream, I didn’t want to change the rule completely; it makes more sense to add this slight expansion to the guidelines. They will probably be entirely re-worded next year.

This postal rate hike sucks. Not only does Media Mail, our usual shipping method, go up 50 cents a package, but I just went to the post office and learned that they’ve eliminated the International Surface option. Everything now has to go Air Mail.

We have about 50 international subscribers from all over the world — Australia, China, South America. A very small portion of our subscription base, but when the average cost to ship an issue goes from $8 a copy to $27, that’s a lot of money to a little press. You do the math.

I’m not going to put our budget numbers out publically, but this rate increase is costing us an extra $2,500 on this issue alone, and that’s not an insignificant amount for us.

Next issue we’re going to try move to a mailing house, to take advantage of the bulk mail discounts, and hopefully offset some of this. We’re also going to have to jack up international subscription rates. Damn the Man.

Any other suggestions? I’m going to have to look into UPS or Fed Ex, maybe, for international shipping. Doubt it’s any cheaper, though.

_________

ps. At the P.O., I also picked up a couple hundred 2 cent stamps, so no one who submitted work before May 14th has to worry about their SASEs.

REQUIEM

The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
“Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do.”

The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

–Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Vonnegut got it — and he accepted the futility of getting it with heroic grace. This world is one big hospice, but we can still work to make each other as comfortable as possible. That was his lesson for me. Be kind.