Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Will Poetry Become Extinct before People Will?

It seems like that every generation has its own language by sabotaging, revamping, and creating a new set of vocabulary and signs and referents. Be that as it may, this is how language changes or evolves or devolves.

And we shouldn't lament this.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Introducing Ellen Reimschussel, assistant poetry editor:

Ellen lives in Seattle and is a creative writing graduate of State University of Utah.

Monday, April 28, 2014

An incident as literary editor

Almost three decades ago as an editor of my own rag mag, I began to receive submissions from someone in a Southern prison. The submissions did not indicate that the writer, though graphic and powerful a writer as he was in that kind of setting, could think beyond his present situation or the circumstances that brought him to his predicament. At first, the stories about prison life opened a window for this editor. But then, the stories were all more or less the same, with the upshot that the writer had no insight into the cosmic scheme of things and was happy to not think about it. But mind you, the stories were scary. Luckily I had a lawyer friend who I lunched with and I asked him if that writer in question would put a "hit" on me if I refused to publish him. My lawyer friend took a short puff on his cigar and said tersely, "All con men ought to be locked up." We then had a delightful lunch at Tai Tung Restaurant in Seattle as we did every Sunday. To resolve the issue of the prisoner writer, I wrote to him that there are literally 3,000 markets clamoring for his work in Len Fulton's directory of magazines and presses, and unfortunately, our magazine failed to see the merits of his work.

Monday, April 21, 2014

George Held reviews Koon Woon's book, Water Chasing Water

We normally don't self-promote, but this is a wider concern than just the reviewer and the author. Please see George Held's review of Koon Woon's most recent book of poems Water Chasing Water
from Kaya Press, 2013 http://www.alscw.org/publications/literary-matters/ in the Spring 2014 issue.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

SUBMISSIONS TO Five Willows Literary Review

Your submission, if not accepted, will be the least painful. We guarantee that no cyberspace lobotomy will be performed. We are not Procrustean either. You can come in any size or shape if you enjoy good literary health. Chances of being accepted are good, because we have a provisional mechanism for your tenure on the site. If your work tends toward the enduring end, we will host you longer; otherwise, you are here for a brief visit.

IN ANY CASE, WE ARE GLAD YOU ARE READING THIS AND PERHAPS THINK ABOUT TRYING YOUR WORK HERE. 


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