Strangely Wonderful. The rambling thoughts and misadventures of Bear the Poet.: The gods tell me to get off my ass and go for it.

Well apparently all of my procrastination and tomfoolery has made the gods decide to give me some incentive. So yesterday I was on Duotrope, which I'm new to and still figuring out. Some months ago I used it to submit 5 pieces to the Black Warrior Review, and never heard back from them. Not even a rejection letter. Whatever. So I decide to snoop around for things that will actually pay me and I came across the awards section. Now I'm the paranoid type, with no copyright, (yes I know about the poor man's copyright, I have TOO MUCH STUFF and the all-knowing Wikipedia doubts it'll hold up in court, which adds to my paranoidiness. Yes I made it up on purpose,) geez where was I? Oh yeah, so I've never been the type to submit to poetry contests and shit. Madswirl, http://madswirl.com/ is as far as my work has gotten pretty much. Anyway there it was, the Walt Whitman Award, (https://duotrope.com/market_5311.aspx,) by the Academy of American Poets! Now, as you know, Walt is my guy. I studied Leaves of Grass exclusively for six months in 09, and not for a college or something, although back in college I did some kind of literary theory gazetteer on him. He and Bukowski are now at a tie for my all-time favorite poet. Today on the phone with a friend who recently left Alabama, our home state, for Maryland to do grad school, where she'll do fabulously, (https://twitter.com/readallthepoems,) she was telling me just how much she couldn't go anywhere in D.C. without bumping into something Whitman. My jealousy was at 115 on the 1 to 10 scale, especially considering all the other museums and literary things she got to do over there. Anyway, stupid story short, the Walt Whitman Award is given to honor a poet's first book. You must be previously unpublished. Why, that's me! All of my failure to get published, procrastination and paranoia might have finally paid off! In their words, it "will be open to submissions from Saturday, September 15, 2012 (23.1 days from now) through Friday, November 30, 2012." 23.1 days! I still have to choose the new stuff that I wanna put in the old Inverted Reflection manuscript, throw out some of the worse poetry, change dedications, (2 are out, 2 are in,) change acknowledgements and bio, and write a little intro about the dead dream that was IR, and how it came back to life in Strangely Wonderful. So, in other words, I have to go from 0 to 60 in 23.1 days, and finish, edit, and re-edit the new manuscript! And feeling so positive and somewhat productive lately, (hey I didn't start on the book today, though I said I would, but I'm still writing this blog!) I decided to go for it. So go get on my Facebook, write on my wall, and give me some uplifting words to be motivated by, (like, "hey you lazy bum, i'm glad you're getting off your ass to complete your book! here's to hoping you win, but at the very least, you'll have it done, and can put it on amazon!) Yeah, we'll see. I have so much good stuff to put in the book! I hope they like it!

How can they say no to that face?

Anyway, you're probably wondering what happened with that Inverted Reflection thing I keep mentioning. In a nutshell, a hopeful naive poet, who was friends with another poet on Yahoo and Facebook, made a deal with her to publish a book of his best poetry, 100 of his best to be specific, through her self-made "publishing company." I'm really trying not to name it or her right now. But I am a bad bad man and have no principles. (Truly Poetic Publishing, ahem cough cough...) She'd get 60% and he'd get 40% after the book was selling exclusively on Amazon.com. He'd get a copyright and ISBN, and could do all the self-promotion for it leading up to that day. Which he did in excess with Facebook posts, Animoto promo videos, and all manner of pictures and shit.

Pictures like, oh I don't know, THE FUCKING COVER???

She was lazy and didn't do shit in the end, except pump out the shittiest proof book known to man, with spacing errors as if a brain dead so-called "publisher" sat down to my carefully edited and perfected manuscript, and just began pounding on the spacebar like it would make her brain cells come on back home to mama...I'm sorry, where are we? The rage was setting in... Oh yeah, and the back cover which had quotes from a book review that a busy and well-respected co-editor of Madswirl.com did for his friend's book, was thoughtlessly done in such a manner that the quotes were cut off.

Exhibit A. The proof book. The only "proof" the bitch did anything at all.

I'm at least glad she never screwed me out of my money, which undoubtedly, she would have. Remember, if a publisher wants money to publish your poetry, it's a scam. Wish I'd known that then. Anyway, I put that review in the back of IR, and it'll be in the back of SW simply because he worked hard on it, and I'll explain what happened to the dream of the first book, the one he reviewed, in the intro. It's still gonna be the same poetry for the most part, (at least the individual poems he reviewed will still be in SW,) and the same poet, obviously. And yet not. I've evolved quite a good deal. So has my work, and my philosophy. So there you have it, I'm still chasing the dream. And yes, I'm going for it. No negativity, no siking myself out or doubting myself like I usually do, (thank you newest poem for helping me with that,) I am staying positive and have a good to decent feeling about it. Strangely Wonderful has an AMAZING cover photo, a portrait of yours truly done by the UNBELIEVABLY TALENTED Christian Millet of Denton, Tx. Meeting him was quite the experience. The man reminds me of Picasso, my fav artist. Check him out: http://christianmillet.carbonmade.com/ and by the way, this is it:

Amazing, right??? I did the text. The rest is just God flowing through this man onto a canvas.

I know right??? Buy his work, he's so money! The back cover will be an image of my own doing, through an online editing site. But I'm still holding out hope I can get another artist of a completely different style to do a portrait of me in his or her style, and let that be the back cover. Right now, I really don't have the cash but OH MY GOD the front cover was so worth the money. Anyway, (he writes for the 15th time,) I'm going for it, and nothing but the best will do. Still going with 100, or at the most, 120. Keep your tentacles and testicles crossed for me, folks. I need this. Did I mention the prize is a $2000 advance??? And a hell of a lot of respect and prestige for a poet's first book of poetry. What an entrance to the poetry world this could make!!! Don't forget to read my shit so you can love me like the rest of the world will one day. Keep an eye on the kid, honey. I'm fit to take over where the Buk left off, and then some. Told ya. Egotist. I know I'm the shit. Go read ten pieces of mine and tell me I'm not. But make sure you have taste first. Otherwise you'll hate me without realizing what you're saying. If you honestly don't like it, it's not your thing, then you can't be faulted for that. No accounting for personal taste. But I'm here to change lives and raise the dead. You just watch. This generation has no idea what hit it yet, but it will. I gotta hit the sack if I'm gonna get at it tomorrow. Don't forget, I have a facebook, I have a twitter, I have a girl tied up in my basement----DAMN YOU STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS SHUT UP!!! Yall don't need to know about that part! And neither does my husband. It puts the anthology in the basket!!! I'd publish me. I'd publish me so harrrd....