Poetry and Paris

I've re-immersed myself in poetry the last few days, completing a video for two poems that will appear on the YouTube literary magazine, Shape of A Box, in the near future. I'd never used the iMovie function on my MacBook, so it took me a few days to figure out synching up the images with my voice, creating transitions, title cards, etc. Using free images from Google and stock images from iStockphoto, I think the video looks pretty good for a first effort. I hope you'll agree when the video goes live.

I received rejections from two literary magazines last week, one of which didn't even bother to spell my name correctly in their email reply. It makes me wonder if they even bothered to read the work. Fuck 'em. I've put together a list of magazines to submit poems to this year, and I'm still at the top, so I'll just keep working my way down. I'm still amazed at the number of literary magazines that won't accept email submissions. Not only is is expensive and a pain in the ass, but it's a waste of trees. Come on, journals, catch up with the 21st century. There's no excuse.

Today, I emceed the state finals for the Poetry Out Loud competition at the Atlanta History Center. Gabriel Mustin was the winner and will represent Georgia at the national recitation contest in Washington D.C. in April.

On Saturday, I finished an essay called "Examining Place: The Paris of Conquering Venus," which will appear on Chelle Codero's blog. It's an extension of the blog tour for the novel, and I appreciate Chelle -- a fellow Vanilla Heart author -- for asking me to submit the essay. I'm working on a section of the second novel that is set in Paris in 1968, so the city has been on my mind. I'm also planning to be there for a few days this summer and I'm ready to get out and explore Paris all over again.

Speaking of Paris, if you haven't already checked out Paris 26 Gigapixels, please do so. It's an astonishing high-resolution panorama of the city, with little icons you can click for more information about Paris' landmarks.