string of small machines

A new poetry magazine from House Press, operated out of Chicago, is seeking submissions. The deadline for work is July 1st - we hope to have the magazine put together for late summer or early fall. The format will be 8 1/2 by 11 inches, staple bound. Please send up to 10 pages of work. We would like to have a minimum of 3 pages of work for each poet. The magazine will also include a cd for sound work. Please include a short bio with your submission (if you'd like), and send as an ms word attachment to small_machines at yahoo dot com

Michael Slosek, Eric Unger, Luke Daly

p.s. Please feel free to repost this message on your blogs and please spread the word.

Rust Belt Event

Rust Belt Books
Saturday April 22, 6:30pm

Coupons≠Coupons
Joshua Strauss
Camille PB
& jUStin!katKO

Live Text, Video, & Book Launches

Free! Beer & Wine to be served!

* * *

3 books to be launched:

- BEARSBAREBEARS / by Coupons≠Coupons
- Plantarchy 1 / ed jUStin!katKO
- sincerely signature; or compressed air visually / by Joshua Strauss

Speaking of Ladies

The Pulitzer in poetry went to one who wrote this:

The Bat

We didn't know what woke us—just something
moving, lighter than our breathing. The world
bound by an icy ligature, our house

was to the bat a hollow, warmer cavity
that now it could not leave. I screamed
for you to do something. So you killed it

with the broom; I heard you curse as you
swept the air. I wanted you to do it until
you did. I have never forgiven you.


and this:


Surface Hunting

You always washed artifacts
at the kitchen sink, your back
to the room, to me, to the mud

you'd tracked in from whatever
neighbor's field had just been plowed.
Spearpoints, birdpoints, awls and leaf-

shaped blades surfaced from the turned earth
as though from beneath some thicker
water you tried to see into.

You never tired, you told me, of the tangible
past you could admire, turn over
and over in your hand—the first

to touch it since the dead one that had
worked the stone. You lined bookshelves
and end tables with them; obsidian,

quartz, flint, they measured the hours you'd spent
with your head down, searching for others,
and also the prized hours of my own

solitude—collected, prized,
saved alongside those artifacts
that had been for so long lost.

Hey ladies

Where are the girls at? The first issue I did of Spell contained only boys. This was not by design; I didn't say "submit to Spell only if you have a penis". Allow me to make a sincere plea to the female poets and artists: please submit your work for inclusion in Spell magazine #2. I really loved the work that comprised the first issue, but it would be great if I could include at least one female in this next issue. This is partly my fault, I haven't made a lot of connections and correspondence with female poets and artists, and I need to do better with that. So if you'd like to possibly be a part of this issue, please send your work along to eric.unger@gmail.com (and guys, keep sending your work along too). Thanks.

Spell: Issue 2

Attention people! A call for work in the experimental, emerging, or otherwise vein.

Here's what I'm looking for:

Poetry. Poetry with graphic elements or poetry in a distinctly 'visual' format.

Artwork. Artwork specifically suitable for an 8.5 by 11 inch format. I do not want to have to alter an artwork's size too much, if at all, ie scaling down.

Or something in between.

All of the content of Spell's second issue will be in black and white. The deadline is June, 20th. I have already been sent work, you eager beavers! Keep it coming and this will be the best Spell yet.

Send all submissions eric.unger@gmail.com