The 2River View is an online publication of poetry, published four times a year. 2RV also has a video project. Reading Period for seasonal issues: Sept. 1 – Nov. 30 Winter Issue December 1 – February 28 Spring Issue March 1 – May 31 Summer Issue June 1 – August 31 Fall issue 2River considers unpublished poems only; poems that have not appeared in any form of print or digital media, including personal or public blogs. Simultaneous submissions can cause problems. If you are uncomfortable with a wait of up to three months, rather than sending simultaneous submissions, consider submitting toward the end of the reading period. Before submitting, please read several issues of The 2River View. The poems there best indicate the 2River standard. Each issue of 2RV consists of 10 poets only, and usually there are more than three-hundred submissions for each issue. [Note from Marlene: You could be…
What’s under your bed? Prompt #202
Today’s prompt: Write about the monsters under your bed. Oh, you don’t have any monsters under your bed? Well then, what’s in your closet?
What is the scariest season?
The Halloween season has passed and the holiday season approaches, the time of good cheer and good will. This might be the scariest season for some. Ted A Moreno’s guest blog post might help shoo away our fears. Guest Blogger Ted A. Moreno writes about “31 Scary Questions to Ask Yourself.” It’s all about scary this week as we approach Halloween and Day of the Dead. It’s a time when it’s fun to be scared, as long as we know that it’s just a movie, or someone dressed up as the walking dead. Truth is, there are plenty of really scary things out there. But by far, the scariest things are those that we hide from ourselves, the things that we are afraid to deal with. Unresolved issues that haunt us, pain we can’t seem to release, resentment that traps us in unhappiness. These are the monsters under the bed, the goblins that we…
Hope . . . Prompt #201
Today’s writing prompt is inspired by Ron Salisbury’s poem “The Ride Southbound.” When the writing prompt is a poem, you can write about the title, a line or a word. You can also write about Hope. Just write whatever comes up for you. The Ride Southbound by Ron Salisbury When I jerked open the cab door, Hope was sitting in the back seat, Prada dark glasses and lip gloss. This is mine, she said, but we can share until 34th street. What’s at 34th street? I asked. Just a sale at Macys. The driver put my two-suiter in the trunk and the extra bag on the front seat, I climbed in with my briefcase and umbrella. Is it gonna rain? she asked. You never know, I answered. What’s with all the bags? It’s been a long trip. You need all that stuff? Most of it, at least I thought I…
Concept is simple, execution is difficult.
Once again, I’m embarking on a new food plan. I’ve done this one before and lost a ton of weight. Then I slipped into old habits and all that weight I released came drifting back. This time, it feels like . . . scratch that. . . It is a lifetime change. I’m eating very simply: lean protein, most vegetables, some fruit and a little grain. Minimal processed food. It’s a very simple concept, yet hard to execute. It takes determination and keeping my eye on the goal: being healthy. It’s a lot like writing. Many of us want to write but either don’t have the time or don’t know how to start. Right now about 56,000 writers are participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). When you come up for air, NaNoWriMo Campers . . . let us know how you managed to fit writing time into your busy…
Take note.
It’s early Monday morning. The day is just getting started and it’s very quiet. The softly falling rain has hushed all ambient noises. No cars drive up our country lane. People are still sleeping on this soft-feeling day, not quite ready to begin the busyness of our lives. Even the birds are quiet this morning. And I’m wondering, do you want to write? Do you contemplate ideas to write about as you stay in bed just a little longer in the morning? Do you have brilliant, awesome thoughts for writing while you are driving? As you wait for sleep to settle in, do these brilliant ideas swirl in your head? And they are brilliant, I am sure. You tell yourself you will remember everything until you have time to write. Finally, you sit down to write and those creative ideas seem to have vanished. You stretch to grasp your dazzling…
Miss Desert Inn by Ron Salisbury
Reviewed by Dorianne Laux Ron Salisbury’s poems in Miss Desert Inn move us from the poverty of Maine, to the grittiness of New York, from the glitter of Las Vegas, to the glamour of California’s coast, informing us of the truth about this life, harsh as it may be, sorrowful, and wondrous and brief as it is. This is one man’s journey, and we learn as he does what it means to live with loss, with memory, with desire. An accomplished first book, informed by the poetry of Gilbert, Hugo and Kowit, these are poems of the middle passage, where there’s sometimes a woman and a glass of wine, always a good dog nearby, and a bad but beloved cat slipping out the side door. Dorianne Laux‘s poems have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Romanian, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Brazilian Portuguese. Her selected works, In a Room with a Rag…
Main Street Rag Publications
Main Street Rag Publications: Literary Magazines, Anthologies, Book Publishing, Contests. Main Street Rag Literary Magazine Fiction/Creative non-fiction: Please EMAIL THE IDEA FIRST. Main Street Rag will tell you whether the subject appeals to them and if there is space for it. Prefer social or political themes over How to, process pieces or literary pieces about the life of a literarian. Images: Need high resolution to print, but require low resolution to submit.” If you don’t know the difference, you’re not ready to have your work published.” We like it all—no subject taboo—but if you are targeting cover art, we like people doing what they do, street scenes, a world in motion. Send us a picture we can hear and smell. Interviews: Prefer interviews with those in the arts—mostly literary—but visual and performing arts will also be considered. Poetry: Up to 6 pages of poetry. That can mean one long poem…
Suicide Doors . . . Prompt #200
Today’s writing prompt is a poem by Ron Salisbury. You can write on the theme of the poem or the mood. You can use a line or a word for the writing prompt. Ready? Read and write. Just write, without worrying how your writing will sound. Suicide Doors Don’t put that in a poem, she said. What? Don’t put what I said in a poem. We talk and a week later I find what I said in one of your poems. What’s the matter with that? He’ll find out. He doesn’t read poems. His friends will tell him. His friends don’t read poems. Just don’t put me in your poems. How about I make it in the 1960’s and it happens in my 1951 Merc with suicide doors, I got a D.A. haircut, smell of Bay Rum and your angora sweater comes off on my sport coat. Then what happens….
So you’ve earned that MFA, now what?
Guest Blogger Ron Salisbury talks about MFA – Master of Fine Arts writing programs. “Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”–Flannery O’Connor Flannery may be a little tough but not far wrong. What will you do with your MFA in poetry or fiction or non-fiction or children’s literature? Is it different from what you thought you would do before you started that MFA program? The proliferation of Master of Fine Arts Writing Programs in the United States (some 200 as of this writing) requires new crops of students every year; cannon fodder, inductees to charge over the lip of the trench into the guns of Admission Departments and Student Loans without much chance of becoming that famous author, a goal which…