Thanks and Apologies!

Tonight is the start of Yom Kippur—which my son has learned to call, “I’m Sorry Day.” 

“What have you got to be sorry for?”  I asked him.  “Nothing,” he said.  I should be so lucky.  (And so blithely confident, but that’s another topic.)

Let me start with thanks: thank you –thank you VERY much to everyone who sent in submissions by the August 31^st deadline: we will be considering everything for the Fall/Winter issue—including those pieces which were sent months ago to be considered for a previous issue. (I’m so sorry!) We are catching up, but over the summer, we had a skeleton crew (just me, for the most part), and although we have reviewed much of the work that came in, we have not had time to write and send all the letters out. 

After the High Holidays, we will be back to a normal schedule, with regular editorial meetings.  And we will contact everyone who has sent us work.

I’d also like to thank everyone who contributed to the Spring/Summer issue, which is now available, and I would especially like to thank DAN BEVACQUA, our fiction/non-fiction editor, whom I inadvertently left off the masthead, but to whom we owe a wonderful short story by MATT ROSSI.

I owe one more apology to our first-prize winner, EVE FORTI, whose poem we printed without noticing a few mistakes.  We will be posting the corrected version soon so that you can see it as she meant it to be: go to the Contest section of the Common Ground Review website and click on her name.  If you click on the poem title, "Beautiful," you will see comments by this year's contest judge, IAIN HALEY POLLOCK.  (Thank you, Iain!)

The next blog will be about revising poems—several of our poets have agreed to let us post copies of versions they originally sent us, in contrast to the versions they finally wished to have us print.  In some cases, we went with the revision; in others, we went with the original, and we will talk about why we made those choices..

We have also been discussing having a theme issue, and we would love to hear your ideas on what theme(s) you’d like to write about.

Thanks for reading this—a happy, healthy, sweet new year to you, and well over the fast!

Spring/Summer 2013 Cover?

Common Ground Review's art editor, Lorna Ritz, had a grant to paint sand dunes in Cape Cod while she stayed in a shack without power or hot water.  We thought the ocean might be a great cover for the Spring/Summer issue.  (This June we are busily catching up on a year's backlog, selecting poems for the issue, debating, contacting people...and our contest judge, Iain Haley Pollock, is doing his part, too!)

For now, here is the possible cover, and some excerpts from Lorna's diary about her time on the dunes:

1 May.   It was pure joy to set my easel up on the cliff again. My entire color pallet changed from lush Western MA. I had to mix the colors together to very specifically find what color this place is. The ocean constantly moves and changes.

2 May By now I have lost track of days… Yesterday I got lost in the dunes again. What should have taken me 1 + hrs. to return to my shack turned out to be many more hours. I again got disoriented and lost my sightlines as I descended deep into the crevices of the dunes; when I climbed back up in sand, my sightlines were gone, so, I walked the wrong way. ... Jesse said , ‘Me and my wife never get lost. “ He added, 'you should have map quested the dunes."  (Impossible, in this case: I even had a National Park Service map which is of no help when disoriented).  A P'Town artist told me that people get lost all the time, many having to sleep outside in the night, in the cold, because they can’t find their way out. It was my instinct that got me ‘found’ each time.

2 May Today was my happiest day (not getting lost)!    Last night before I went to sleep, I lay flat under the mysterious sky full of brilliant stars, listening to ocean waves. The combination has put me in a good mood for a lifetime. I did another ocean drawing, paying attention only to the waves coming up onto the dunes. !!!!

 



   

Review: Richard Merelman's Imaginary Baritone

Richard Merelman has aptly named this collection The Imaginary Baritone (Fireweed Press 2012) as every piece exhibits low undertones of what it means to live. This collection of 32 poems is an insight to the mind, and the poems fit nicely together like puzzle pieces tell a larger story. This collection gives us a collage of people and places, whether actual events or fictional stories. There is commentary on a mother and father’s place in a family or a member’s place in the religious community and how they all fit into the world around them. It reminds me that no matter how small I feel sometimes, the world is not as large a place as it feels.

A poem published in Common Ground Review (Spring/Summer 2012), “Lizavetna Petrovna,” offers a perspective on historical truth, as well as on the human experience during times of war. Although language is a barrier in this piece, the author is still able to fully communicate the experience he’s had with the audience. The poem provides a reminder that we are all connected in some way and some concepts - sadness, grief, longing - are universally understood. Through Merelman’s writing, I feel as if I was there in that museum carefully watching Lizavetna Petrovna recount these memories: I don’t even know what she looks like, and I still want to cry for her.

My two favorites (because I can never choose) are “Walking the Labyrinth” and “Her Portrait.” The structure of “Walking the Labyrinth” jumps off the page because of the zig-zag form it follows; for example, the line “pause at the center” is placed where the poem changes directions; not only is this an interpretation of the poem but a literal interpretation of the structure. “Her Portrait” is short but poignant.  It all happens so quickly, the reader must be sure to pay careful attention or it will be over before you realize anything has even begun. A young boy and his father share a moment, not entirely understood by the young boy, by throwing a portrait of the mother into a river; however, the reason for this action is not explicit, it is left to the reader to interpret and decide. I think I love this piece so much because I can’t imagine why they would do such a thing and I’m left feeling curious. Overall, the whole book is fantastic and it makes me think a lot about how people fit into not only their own lives but in other people’s lives as well.

 

--Review by Cassandra Deal

 

This piece is the first in a new venture.  Common Ground Review is interested in reviewing books by its contributors.  If you are a contributor with a book, and you would like it reviewed on the blog, please let us know.

Queries

Is the Fall/Winter 2012 issue ever coming?

Yes.  Yes, it is.  We have sent copies to all the contributors as of March 15th.  If you should have gotten a copy but didn't, please let us know.  If you'd like to purchase a copy, send us a check for $10.

But if the Fall/Winter 2012 issue is out, what happened to the poems I sent last July?  Are they doomed?  I haven't heard anything!

That is our fault.  We are very sorry.  We were overloaded this year with both submissions and obligations.  But the good news is, your poems are not doomed!  At least, not yet.

Technically, we have deadlines for regular submissions. We would like to read all the September 1-February 28^th/29^th submissions for consideration for the Spring/Summer issues, and all the March 1^st-August 31^stsubmissions for consideration for the Fall/Winter issues. Sometimes, however, we read something that’s come in late, and it just fits perfectly into the previous issue, which we are in the process of formatting. So we add it. Sometimes, we fall behind. And so at the moment—with sincere apologies to those who are still waiting—we are considering all the submissions from last summer (and earlier) for the Spring/Summer issue.

What about the Poetry Contest?

Our contest deadline for the 14^th Annual Poetry Contest has officially passed, and we are reading the entries in the first round. 

But if you're reading the poetry contest entries, what about the poems I sent in earlier?

We're reading those, too.  Sometimes one editor will like a poem that another editor isn't thrilled about, and then we wait to hear from the third....  The poems we don't like get the fastest action, ironically.  Poems we do like tend to take more time.

 

Fall/Winter 2012 almost ready!

This is Lorna Ritz's new cover!  and it's giving us terrible problems because we can't get the dimensions exact enough for the printer.  But we are working on it....

Winter Issue

When we started reading for the Fall/Winter issue last summer, we had high hopes of publishing it in the "Fall" part of the year.  Fall became late Fall, and late Fall became Winter, and Winter is so cold that every time we go outside, the chill and the icicles and the crunching of snow underfoot tell us to go in and finish working on the magazine.  And have some hot chocolate.

We are still reviewing, discussing, and accepting work for the Fall/Winter issue.  We think we can finish this first stage very soon.  If we hear from the accepted authors in good time, we will be able to format the magazine and get it to the printer in early February, so it will truly be a Winter Issue.

And we thank you for your impatience!  The emails you've sent asking what ever happened to your submission?  they galvanize us into action.  

Next post, we'll have the Fall/Winter cover picture for you.