One Night Stanzas

Anon Magazine
Editors: Colin Fraser, Peggy Hughes
Established: 2003
Based in: Edinburgh
Website: http://www.anonpoetry.co.uk
Submit via: this link

Anon is a very different kind of creative writing magazine. The ultimate experiment in unbiased editing, this publication is all about anonymity, as the name suggests. Writers who wish to submit their work must do so via a top-secret electronic ninja submission form, which means that when the editors receive the poems at the other end, the writer’s identity is totally hidden. Anon pride themselves on judging the submissions they receive on merit alone, but they’re also interested in maintaining a dialogue about the wider concerns that surround editorship in general. Indeed, the magazine has divided opinion. However, although the anonymous approach is not to everyone’s taste, Anon has made quite a name for itself with a new editorial team and a run of successful recent issues that were chock-full of brilliant stuff.

As well as the magazine, the Anon team also produce poetry-related podcasts and are actively involved in a huge variety of literary projects in the wider lit community. The latest issue of Anon is the magazine’s seventh outing, and would be an excellent place to start for anyone wanting to find out more about the magazine. You can buy a copy here. Alternatively, the team are currently running a package deal where you can buy Anon 1 and Anon 6 together — a good way to get a feel for the magazine’s origins but also how it’s changed and developed over the years. Anon is also reliant upon funding and donations, so if you have a few spare pennies and fancy donating them to a very deserving literary cause, head in this direction.

Anon has published some of my favourite upcoming poets including former ONS Featured Poets Christian Ward and Juliet Wilson, former Read This Magazine editor Dave Coates, and in the current issue they’ve also published articles by Alastair Cook of this collection, filmpoem.com and DISSIMILAR, and even little old me. A highly recommended read and a great wee magazine to appear in — send them some submissions!

Know a zine, journal or other publication that deserves some recognition? Let me know in the comments box or by emailing claire@onenightstanzas.com!

(Photo by OdeToJoi)

A few days ago, the lovely Fiona Robyn emailed me to say that she’s currently on the lookout for fresh submissions to her blogzine, a handful of stones. handful aims to showcase short works — poems that, like smoothed river-pebbles, are small and neatly rounded but which also have some weight. Fiona advocates writing at least one small stone every day, and posts her own at a small stone. She also posts other people’s small stones at handful, and that’s where you come in.

Do you write short poems? Do you ever come up with great lines that seem to sit beautifully on their own, without needing to be put into a bigger stanza or series? Are you a master of haiku? Do you just fancy having a go at writing your own small stones? If so, Fiona wants to hear from you. Send your little pile of pebbles (no more than five at a time) over to fiona@fionarobyn.com — for more info, you can see Fiona’s own guidelines here, or my write-up of the blogzine here. I follow handful every single day — there’s always something short, sweet and though-provoking there. Good company to be in!

If I see a ONS regular at handful, I usually give them a shout here, too — another reason to submit! Good luck!

(Photo by Jugger-naut)

Form.Reborn
Editor: J S Graustein
Established: 2009
Based in: USA
Website: http://folded.wordpress.com/form-reborn
Submit via email: form.reborn@jsgraustein.com

I learned about Form.Reborn, a brand new online zine, from poet Christian Ward. At first I was unsure if it was right for me: Christian said they only accepted poems short enough to fit into a text message, and as those of you who have read any of my poetry will know, that’s not really something I do! However, I became much more interested when I discovered that Form.Reborn is so named because these short poems need to be re-works of accepted poetic forms.

Basically, the word-limit is a meagre 140 characters (yes, characters), which is fine for a haiku… but the editor of Form.Reborn is really looking for you to be creative. The F.R twitter feed recently stated: “we’re serious about wanting sonnets!” How can you condense the sonnet form down into 140 characters? That part is up to you!

Jessi (the aforementioned editor) is a very cool customer: incredibly friendly and running a seriously tight ship. Form.Reborn is a threefold project — if your work is accepted, first of all it is published as part of the Form.Reborn Twitter feed, and then on a more permanent site for all your friends and admirers to bookmark. And eventually, Jessi is hoping to collect up enough contributions to create a series of Form.Reborn anthologies, the first of which will be published in February 2010. Heaps of work, but there is a great wealth of fantastic pieces already in the F.R vault… and it’s only been up and running a short while!

There are a few specifications if you want to submit, as you can imagine… but don’t be put off! This stuff is very far removed from what I usually write, but putting together my submission proved to be a really interesting and rewarding exercise! Firstly, each piece needs to be 140 characters or under… short enough to fit into a text. Secondly, it must be in an accepted poetic form: haiku, tanka, sonnet, heroic couplet, blank verse… any form, as long as it has form! Thirdly, Jessi’s main goal is to produce snippets of enjoyable, accessible poetry. She says: “We want vibrant images and concise thought that readers will enjoy whether they’re in a doctor’s waiting room, in line at the grocery store, walking to class…” This formula makes for some unusual and amazing poems… give it a try!

About Form.Reborn: “Form.Reborn is an experimental poetry journal that seeks to boil the essence of form poems down so that they can fit in a mobile phone text message. Some forms can be tweaked easily to fit within the 140 character limit… Others, on the surface, seem to defy the bounds of possibility: villanelle, sonnet, sestina, etc. Can they be done with text-speak? Should they?”

Submission guidelines: “we want digestible poems written in present tense that mobile phone users will enjoy to the point of forwarding. Submissions should be sent in the body of an email to form.reborn@jsgraustein.com with “submission” in the subject line. Due to the unique formatting we need to use for posting on Twitter, please use your word processor’s wordcount tool to check character count. If your poem contains more than 140 characters (including spaces and punctuation), revise. Be sure to include the title of the poem, its form, your name & pen name, and a link to your bio in your email.”

Know a journal or zine that deserves attention? Drop me a line and tell me about it: claire@onenightstanzas.com!

(Photo by Houseoftext)