Another lovely review of The Son

To cover as many pamphlets as he can in a limited word count, David Morley reviews in Twitter-style in his largely appreciative review of pamphlets from Happenstance, Oystercatcher, Rack, Donut, Knives, Forks and Spoons, and Smith/Doorstop presses. Hence I think I can get away with quoting Morley's entire review of The Son (Oystercatcher, 2009) here without violating fair use: "Carrie Etter's sparkling, serious beating-out of prose poetry and catechism continues in a finely judged sequence, grieving and honouring and surprising on every page. 'It is time' (Etter quotes Celan) 'the stone made an effort to flower'. And so this fine book, its respect, sadness and subject." 

As The Son is the basis of my third collection, Imagined Sons, yet another positive review heartens me that much more. 

The Magazine Life

I love the magazine life--that is, publishing poetry in literary magazines. There's the hopefulness of sending poems out, the lows of rejection, the giddy pleasure of acceptances, and that's just getting started. 


Today's been an unusually full day for magazine activity. It began when I opened my email this morning to find proofs for the next issue of Drunken Boat. In the afternoon, I received an email accepting a personally important poem, "My Mother's Ashes," for the autumn issue of Poetry Review, and when the post arrived, there was my contributor's copy and cheque from New Welsh Review. Opening it and seeing the other poets therein was a treat: Chinese poet Xiao Kaiyu, translated by Pascale Petit, fellow stablemate at Seren and simply lovely person; Philip Gross, whom I see at events and conferences from time to time; Harry Man, who was my MA student the first year I taught at Bath Spa; and Marianne Burton, who once took a class of mine at The Poetry School and I've seen from time to time since. I'm looking forward to reading the issue.


And here's an email from Hayden's Ferry Review in the States, asking for a bio for my poem in their next issue. It's been a splendid day of little excitements.

Catching Up / Current Issues

With my overwhelming workload this past academic year, I haven't had as much time to blog as I'd like, but with classes over, I hope to change that. It's been a long time since I've given an update on magazines, but now's a great time with a flurry of appearances. In the UK, poems are in the current or next issues of Domestic Cherry, New Welsh Review, The Rialto, Shearsman, Under the Radar, and The Warwick Review.  In the US, poems are forthcoming in the next issues of Hayden's Ferry Review, Notre Dame Review, and The Same. 


Additionally, my series of prose poems for Sylph Editions' folio for Peter Coker's painting, "Sunflowers," is at the printer's now, I understand, and from the PDF I've seen, it appears beautifully produced. I also have a short essay on prose poetry coming out in the summer issue of Poetry Review.

Current Issues

Since my last Current Issues posting, I've had poems accepted for publication in New Writing 14 (Granta, June 2006), The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, The Rialto, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Reader. The year is ending well!

Online Appearances of Note

Much of my work available online doesn't represent me well, as my writing and my perspective on poetry have changed greatly over the last few years. Here are those online poems that I feel represent my ethos well.

"The Cult of the Eye" and "The Daughters of Prospero" at Limelight
http://www.thepoem.co.uk/limelight/etter.htm

"Fin de Siecle," "Escalation," and "Pathetic Fallacy as Necessary" at Poetry Review
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/review/pr93-2/etter.htm

"Land-Lock" and "The Taboo" at Poetry Review
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/review/pr93-3/etter.htm

"Red Acre," "Midnight, Illinois," and Infidel's Prayer" at Jacket
http://jacketmagazine.com/22/etter-poems.html

A range of my more experimental poems have appeared in several issues of Shearsman
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/magazine/back_issues/shearsman60/etter.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/magazine/back_issues/shearsman54/etter54.html
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/magazine/back_issues/shearsman51/page3.html

as well as in Slope
http://www.slope.org/archive/eleven/etter.html
http://www.slope.org/archive/issue16/page.phtml?url=etter

Current Issues

"Awake" and "Short Break" appear in the new issue of Critical Survey, 16.3 (2004), though I'm sorry to report that the latter, a prose poem, is not right-justified as it should be. Given that the magazine mostly publishes academic essays, it can be found in many university libraries.

My review of Ruth Padel's The Soho Leopard appears in the new issue of Poetry Review.

"Axes for Crutches" appeared in the 21 January 2005 issue of The Times Literary Supplement.

In the last few weeks, I've received word of three more forthcoming appearances. "Here Comes the Sun," "Occasional Poem," and "Outpost" will be in PN Review 162. "The Cult of the Eye" and "Horace's Wet Clothes" will be reprinted in the US magazine, Faultline, while "The Honeymoon of Our Attraction" will make its first appearance in Columbia University's journal, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art.

Current Issues

My review of Molly Peacock's Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems appears in the year-end double issue of The Times Literary Supplement, and my review of Kona Macphee's Tails is in the Autumn 2004 issue of Poetry Review.

My short story, "Prospects," appears in the Winter 2004 issue of New Welsh Review.

My poems appear in the current issues of Seneca Review (US) and Shearsman and are forthcoming in Stand, Critical Survey, Poetry Salzburg Review, New Welsh Review, and The Times Literary Supplement. Additionally, "The Trapeze Artist's Dear John Letter," originally published in Metre, was selected for and published in The Forward Book of Poetry 2005, and "The Bonds," first published in TLS, will appear in a new anthology of poetry by California (and, in my case, former California) poets.