Holy Crap--I've Been TRANSLATED!

Quick, does anyone know German?

http://www.sonett-archiv.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=155

Mine's a little rusty, and Babelfish and Ubiquity only take me so far...but still, I'm really inordinately pleased with this discovery! I mean, I'm always tickled beyond all reason when I learn that someone, somewhere is reading my stuff anyway...but to learn that I'm being read in GERMAN? That's above and beyond!

Like I said, I can't make out very much, but it's fairly clear someone's using some of the Sonnet Project entries for translation exercises...which is a use for my poetry that I whole-heartedly approve! I just wish I knew German so I could tell if they're any good or not... ;)

And Sneaky, my translator, if you're reading this--please contact me! You've made my day!

And Yet MORE Poetry News!

Guess who's the Spotlight Poet for November 2008 over at well-respected and awesome poetry site The Hypertexts? That's right--yours truly, baby.

Editor Mike Burch has compiled a wonderful, extensive online poetry journal with a strong bent toward the classic and the formal, and I'm honored to have been noticed by him and invited to submit some of my best work. Not only that, but now I can say I've been anthologized with such poetry giants as Richard Moore, X. J. Kennedy, Rhina P. Espaillat, and Sonnet Boy's all-time poetry hero Jack Butler! So yeah, I'm pretty pleased and proud about the whole thing.

Check out the lovely write-up poet and editor T. Merrill gave me here, along with no fewer than 12 of my sonnets, some of them newly revised and improved. Let me know what you think!

Another Poetry Sale!

I found out over the weekend that one of my sonnets has been accepted for publication in Dreams and Nightmares, a long-running and well-respected sci-fi/fantasy poetry magazine!

This has been a banner year for my poetry thus far, as this makes the fourth time this year my verse will see publication in one form or another. I'm an overnight sensation after twenty-five years! ;)

No word yet on which issue will contain my versification, nor the publication date, but still, I'm well chuffed. More as information becomes available!

"Noir, #28" in the Current Issue of Measure

The latest issue of Measure: a Review of Formal Poetry is out, featuring the finalists in the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Competition, of which my SP sonnet, "Noir, #28," is one. I didn't make the cover, but that's okay...there's still time. :)

I read the rest of the finalists, of course, and I can only say I'm honored to be among them. I've had fiction published in anthologies and magazines before where I read the other authors and thought, "Jeez, I wouldn't have published that!" but in this case I'm feeling the opposite, like there must have been some mistake that enabled me to slip through the door and hang out with all these awesome, amazing other poems. But there I am, on pg. 88 (eight has always been my "lucky number"--it's true), a published poet at last.

So if you're collecting the entire published works of Scott Standridge, be sure and order a copy from Measure's website. Autographs and inscriptions for a nominal fee--or a beer. Or, you know, we could work something out. *waggles eyebrows*

God, I'm such a nerd.

Happy Birthday to the Sonnet Project!

Just realized today is the two-year anniversary of the beginning of the Sonnet Project. Which means yesterday was the one-year anniversary of its completion. Happy birthday to us!

And Will Shakespeare too! (Belatedly...)

The post where it all began...

Post-Pub or Perish Report

I slayed 'em.

Click here for the full story.

Click here for the set list (scroll down till the poems start.)

Pub or Perish 2008! It's a Barroom Blitz!

Wow. I've never had this much press in my life. Check it out:

I'm FEATURED!

Yep, that's me in the photo from PoP 2 years ago, at the Peabody Hotel. But this year I'm one of the mentioned names, which is more pressure but also immeasurably cool. See details one post below, and come out this weekend! I need the support!

(Also, if you're in LR, check the inside cover of this week's Times. I'm thinking of getting the ad tattooed on my back.)

UPDATE: NEW START TIME! According to the Times ad, the PoP 2008 festivities will start at 6:30pm instead of 7:00pm. If I read it right it's for "pre-show appetizers," but like I say I don't know when my reading slot will be, so just be aware. And please come!

Sonnet Boy Reads His Poetry THIS WEEKEND! Don't Miss It!

If you're in Little Rock and looking for a good time this weekend, drop on by the Arkansas Literary Festival in the River Market district for some literary fun and frolic. And once you've worked up a thirst for beer and poetry, come to the Arkansas Times' annual Pub or Perish fiction/poetry/essay reading, to be held this year at Sticky Fingerz bar & grill and featuring yours truly!

I'll likely be reading some more of my sonnets, and maybe some free verse and a limerick or two just to mix things up. Festivities start at 7:00 pm and go on till 9:00 pm or sometime thereafter, depending on how conscientious the readers are about staying within their allotted time. I have no way of knowing when my time will come up till I get there, so if you want to be a member of the Sonnet Boy Groupie Brigade, best get there early!

Beer, Buffalo wings, and sonnets. What could possibly be better than that? :)

Good Times

A nice little notice for yours truly in this week's Arkansas Times:

Success in the world of poetry and a $5 bill will buy you a cheap hamburger, but bragging rights and publication in a well-regarded journal might at least make the hunger pangs easier to bear. Scott Standridge, a Little Rock writer who programs computers to pay the bills, was a finalist for the 2007 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award...

Standridge's entry, “Noir, #28,” clothes classically Shakespearean themes in a Humphrey Bogart trenchcoat, describing a man's sensual but deadly encounter with a femme fatale.

It's a publicity blitz! Actually, it's just the fact that I know people.

People who do tings.

Tings like joynalism.

So, Can I Claim This Blog in My Publication Credits?

As my friends and readers know (if there are any of you still checking this blog), I've been kicking it into high gear lately trying to publish some of the sonnets from the Project, and meeting with some success. However, lately as I look at guidelines for possible markets, again and again I'm seeing this:

As far as online publication goes, we do consider something published if, before or during our issue currency, substantially the same work appears (or has appeared) on a publicly accessible website — and that includes personal sites and blogs as well as ezines.

That's from the guidelines for the excellent sonnet-centric e-zine 14x14, which I had hoped would consider some of my stuff--but apparently because I blogged the project while it was going on, I'm shit-out-of-luck. And they're not the only ones.

I have to say, I don't really understand this reasoning. I mean, if I put it in a notebook, and left that notebook sitting out on my coffee table for friends and visitors to read, would they consider THAT published? I know the internet is different, but still, it's not like I'm running a magazine here. And further, if I may be so bold, it's not like most of these places are offering cash payment.

I just wonder if I can now list The Sonnet Project as a publication credit when I write to other magazines--or if they would poo-poo because it's not a real publication (a point of view with which I would agree).

Anyway, it saddens me a little, b/c I think I've got at least a few good pieces here that I'd like to get considered by zines like 14x14 and others, and I feel I'm being punished for keeping a blog record of my poetry. What do you think? Anyone?

Not Rejected After All...

Well, I wouldn’t know it if I wasn’t so vain as to google myself regularly, but apparently one of my sonnets was published online by Modern Drunkard magazine:

http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/md_poetry.htm

It’s “Whiskey Wisdom, #113,” and it’s sitting at the bottom of the page, about to disappear forever the next time they post new material. Yay, another pub(lication) credit! It would have been nice if the editors had emailed me to let me know it’d been accepted. I assumed weeks ago it was a no-go.

They probably meant to e-mail me, but they were too drunk. :)

My Poem is Up at Aberrant Dreams!

Click here to read it! (Scroll down to mine).

And feel free to read the other content as well. ;)

Not as Single Spies...

But in battalions! Or at least in duos.

I learned last night that my sonnet "Langham's Pond" (#225, from December 4, 2006) will be published in the next issue of the speculative fiction/poetry publication Aberrant Dreams. Not only that, but they're paying me a dollar a line for it! Paid poetry--nothing to sneeze at, you know.

If I read them right the poetry only appears in the webzine version of the mag (with an option for print, though it doesn't sound like they typically do that), so I'll post a link here when it's up, which should be at the end of January or early February. Of course I like having a paper-bound copy to hold in my grubby paws, but still--fourteen bucks! :)

Two poetry publications, and not even through the first month of the year. I hope it's an omen. Guess I'd better send some more stuff out!

And Now for Some Good News...

Success! This weekend I learned that one of my sonnets, "Noir, #28" (from May 21, 2006) was selected as a finalist in The Formalist's 2007 Howard Nemerov Annual Sonnet Competition! Though it did not win the grand prize (which was literally a grand--$1000), as a finalist it will be published in the 2008 issue of Measure: an Annual Review of Formal Poetry. The Formalist and Measure have previously published poetry by such luminaries as Seamus Heaney, Richard Wilbur, Miller Williams, X. J. Kennedy, and Sonnet Boy poetry-hero Jack Butler. So it's kind of a big deal.

The issue containing my poem will be out in late spring or early summer, according to my acceptance letter. I'm not sure what stores carry it, but I am sure it'll be available through their website. Oh, and I took the sonnet down from The Sonnet Project when I entered it in the contest. So look for it in print!

Unsplendid Indeed

Well, I finally received my rejection from Unsplendid today. Guess I'm not unsplendid enough. :)

#s 111, 168, 205, 236, and 241 were the not-good-enough ones. In case you're interested.

Only a couple more batches still out.