May 14, 2012
Dear Readers,
The Blue Pencil Online has issues.
Issues, plural. Last fall we inaugurated our new, issue-based format: a selection of accepted poems and stories bundled in the same publication. Now, I am proud to present to you the Spring 2012 issue. With the seasonal change, it is only fitting for The Editorial Board to produce something new: our Table of Contents flowers with fresh works of poetry and prose.
The new issue of The Blue Pencil Online in a way mimics the seasonal change. Renewal, growth. Consider the reading experience of Adriana Van Manen’s “Accidents,” the way connections are like roots: threadlike and able to be unearthed. Or, the story-telling voice in Mika Kligler’s poem, “Containment,” and its portrait of local progression through the seasons. We spring into this new issue in reaction to our surroundings: to grow, to progress, to thrive. Since December, the editors have received nearly six hundred submissions; we reviewed and accepted and edited through the chilliness of the winter months. March marked the turn from winter to spring and we selected the winners of The Elizabeth Bishop Prizes: Van Manen in fiction and Peter LaBerge in poetry, published herein. Here in Natick, Massachusetts, we break into May, blooming — enjoy what we have sown, and please keep posted for our next harvest come autumn.
Sophia Martins
Creative Writing, Class of 2012,
Managing Editor
April 23, 2012
Hello, readers!
Before we get to the real festivities, I want to extend a gigantic thank you to everybody who gave a go at a Pencil Shaving for “Punch”! We greatly enjoyed receiving your sentences, and we encourage you to submit again for the next prompt.
A Pencil Shaving, for those of you unacquainted with the term, is a single original sentence that is narrative or descriptive or plain old outrageous in a way that represents its spark word. The sentence does not need to include the word—at its heart, it must only be an indicator of it. We, the editors at TBPO, conducted our own Punch Factory, and have here some of our favorite results:
First came the sound of squeaking sneakers, then came the smell.
Shelly Pires
Wetness ran down his shoulder from where he had been hit, dripping off his splayed hand, down into the puddle of clear water below, and the water turned pink.
Anonymous TBPO Submission
The train smelled like moldy fruit cake drenched in the sweat of a wrestler after a match, and the man with pleated navy pants punched my train ticket while I reluctantly sifted through my coin purse for two dollars in quarters.
Adea Lennox
Theresa sits, loose dark hair creeping over her eyes, hands flitting over the top of the keyboard like five-footed harvestmen, and the keys recoil at her touch as if they’d rather be dancing, too.
Emily Kessler
I rest on this slide, tongue the warm foreign flesh between two molars, and miss that ivory cube that’s bobbing on the surface of stomach acid.
Allison Avila
Before they sliced the cake, he’d received twelve, seven of which were at his gut—he didn’t think he could blow the candles out.
Sophia Martins
Margot didn’t bother fishing out her earring—it was the kind that her grandmother had purchased for only a dollar or two and was losing its silver coating—for she supposed that letting it soak in the alcohol might do it some good.
Renee Richard
His head snapped back from the force of it; the baby had kicked his nose surprisingly hard and he gasped as the red dripped from his chin.
Anonymous TBPO Submission
Orange slices (once, they were wheels—rinds bumped against the ice cubes) wilted in the cranberry juice and ginger ale and frozen lemonade concentrate and melted ice, the pulp swimming in the beverage that had gone flat; it was two o’clock in the morning and they went to bed instead.
Sophia Martins
The best thing my big brother ever did for me: squared his shoulders and said, “Come on, now. Not like a girl.”
Laura Wanamaker
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If you’d like to see more Pencil Shavings, check out the “First” post from earlier on in the Features Blog. For information on submitting a Pencil Shaving, see Submission Guidelines.
The next spark word is: Ace.
April 9, 2012
The strategy you may be using—writing about yourself without persona, perhaps in a revealing manner—is an old one, established roughly fifty years ago by poets like W.D. Snodgrass and brought to the public eye by the famous poet Robert Lowell. Published in 1959, his third book of poems, Life Studies, was unanticipated by the traditional constructions of his early poems, and it surprised readers. His reflections on the self included honest accounts of his conflicted marriage; at a time when poetry of the day was more customarily lyric, his use of quotidian narrative challenged traditional boundaries. Traditionally, poems had speakers that avoided the first-person pronoun “I” and spoke for the entire readership: a universal audience. The self-baring nature of confessional poetry, a movement in which poets converted the poem’s speaker into the poet, him/herself, found its way into a post-war generation of political strife, existential mood, and renewed concentration on the individual. It was an epoch that naturally supported a more personal voice addressing a (sometimes universal) audience. Thus, autobiographical poetry emerged and flourished.
Many people begin poems in self-reflection. It is an impulse to write from the self, an impulse that takes permission from the confessional poets, who centered an aesthetic around it. Other poets succeeded Lowell, like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. It is to them we owe this provocative shift in craft. Currently, the majority of writers, (ourselves included, teenagers), consistently write about the self—as ourselves—using our own undisguised perspective, as though telling our story in verse lines.
The confessional poetry movement thrived throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, eventually slipping from a ‘movement’ to a popular mode in poetry, and the standard in academic mainstream poetry. Each compelling autobiographical poet achieves success because he or she writes believably and empathetically in his or her distinct voice. For example, Plath’s is urgent and biting, provoking emotion from the reader. The achievement of the autobiographical poet lies not in the guilt or pain he/she divulges, but in the trust he/she elicits from the reader: personal, but still engaging. The trust earned by Lowell, Plath, and others is familiar: it is the same trust shared with the protagonist in a novel. The speaker and poet are one and the same. While generally sacrificing the form and meter present in poetry earlier in history, the craft is still present—patterns, continuities, thoughtful construction. No sentimentality, no melodrama, no valuing the self over the readership. Rather, the potency of these poems comes from their access to universal themes, while not sacrificing the power present in poetry.
If you choose to utilize the confessional voice, think about your readership. Imagine it is universal; strive to craft autobiography in an original voice, with the compelling humility of the confessionalists.
–Sophia Martins, Class of 2012
March 26, 2012
Dear readers and writers,
It is with great pleasure that we announce the winners of the 2012 Elizabeth Bishop Prizes, Peter LaBerge and Adriana van Manen! We received a large volume of impressive work, but after much consideration we narrowed it down to LaBerge’s “Tremors” in the poetry category and Van Manen’s “Accidents” for fiction.
We’d also like to extend congratulations to the runners-up: Mika Kligler for her poem “Containment,” and Katia Diamond for her fiction piece “Crossing the Rubicon.”
Thanks again to all of the writers who submitted—we deeply appreciate your contributions and we hope you will submit again in the future!
Check back soon for our Spring 2012 issue of The Blue Pencil Online!
February 20, 2012
She didn’t call; she didn’t halt again. She climbed the stairs and didn’t look around as she came up; she faced ahead. Ahead, was the bathroom, with the door open. It was clean and empty. She turned at the top of the stairs toward the Weebles’ bedroom. She had never been in this house
February 14, 2012
Beginning this week, we at TBPO will be updating the Features Blog more or less weekly, and each post will be written (and directed) by one of our editors! We think you’ll really enjoy what’s ahead! _________________ For the first two weeks of our second semester, we read Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker
February 3, 2012
Thanks to all who have submitted poems and works of fiction for the 2012 Elizabeth Bishop Prizes. There were several hundreds of submissions. You have sent some extraordinary work, and we on the editorial staff are very busy reading it and selecting finalists. A reminder: All submissions are read “blind” and we will not know
December 22, 2011
Maximilian shocked himself and the bleachers of sweltering parents when he bounced off the ungiving finish line tape. Kaiyuh Cornberg It was the second time the kid let us go anywhere but McDonald’s, and after a bite into that twelve-dollar burger, she wiggled finger and thumb around in her mouth–my cloth-white napkin bloodied, a little
December 15, 2011
Dear Readers, Welcome one, welcome all, to the newly-refurbished TBPO! The site that you are presently admiring is the product of much discussion and careful toil, and we are now quite pleased to rinse our hands of sweat, blood, and (joyful) tears to hand to you our wobbling little internet infant in its glossy new bonnet! It comes