Poetry Looms

The submissions doors are now closed and Flight Rialto U35 is underway. It looks to be a smooth one so far, with perhaps a little turbulence, but generally good weather is forecast. We’ve checked the cargo bay for stow-away over 40s and other potentially explosive compounds, and … OK, there’s only so far you can stretch a metaphor before it threatens to snap …

So, the little experiment feature that Michael and I planned for the 25th anniversary has turned into a big experiment. We’ve had approximately 300 submissions of between 1 and 7, sometimes 8, poems (but most have been well-behaved and stuck to the original requested 3-5) and all this is in 7 days. This now leaves the slightly huge task of reading and selecting from between 800-1200+ poems in two or so weeks.

Oops. That is a lot of poetry.

In fact, it’s so much (and so much of it seems to be of a pretty decent quality so far, on my initial Beirut-soundtracked read-throughs) that we’re thinking of extending it over more than one issue and perhaps using it as the start of other regular ‘focus features’; different ages groups, genres, or themes might be explored, for example, and different submission methods. We’re thinking about it. If you have any ideas, do get in touch.

One thing we seem to have proved is that there is — if you didn’t know already — a lot of poetry being written out there by younger people and that The Rialto continues to be a place these poets want to be seen. What also appears certain is that if you want to give yourself far more work to do than is healthy over a Bank Holiday weekend then you should send out an open call for poetry submissions via email, Twitter and Facebook, and then ruefully watch enthusiasm melt your inbox.

Anyway, I said I’d do it, so I will … it’s on with the show … excuse me, I have poetry to read … (and thanks to all those who helped spread the word through recommendations, reposts, tweets, and blogs)

[note: I am likely to be listening to a lot of Beirut while editing this feature, including the introduction. If any of you consider their East-European-folk-inspired melancholy potentially harmful to an adequate reading of your work, speak now or forever hold your peace. I am happy to consider suggestions of alternatives.]