an update on the Bop anthology

---Here is an update to those who are interested in the progress of the anthology of Bop poems that Tara Betts and I are doing.

We have not secured a publisher, despite some inquiries.  We have not sent out additional inquiries in the past several months to conflicts in our respective schedules and the necessities of having to adjust to personal emergencies.  During the winter break we will be sending out queries to publishers once again.  

The journal Brilliant Corners, edited by Sascha Feinstein, will have the Bop as its focus in the forthcoming December issue.  You will have a chance to read the original essay I wrote for the Bop in 1997, when I was a member of the first faculty to be invited to teach at Cave Canem.  There is also a small section of poems chosen by Mr. Feinstein from the manuscript of the anthology.  We plan to include this issue of Brilliant Corners in our queries to editors.

We are quiet happy with the manuscript of the anthology, but in discussing it over the course of the last two years, we have noticed there are not too many celebratory or even humorous Bops.  As you proceed as poets, please not that the Bop is for the full range from heavy to lighter fare in subject matter.

Also note, especially if you are teaching the form, that a poet should always choose or create a refrain that is free of copyright restrictions.  As I created the Bop for the workshops at Cave Canem, I was not concerned about copyright issues.  As the form has entered the public, I would like to emphasize that you treat previously published material in music as you would any other when writing.  A created refrain is the most secure, and as such, it can be inspired by music that is under the protection of copyright.  You need only say so and be sure your refrain is your own work.

We will release updates as we go along.

Thank you for being a part of this anthology project, and we are sorry it is taking so long.  We are doing the best we can.

Afaa & Tara





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
photo by Bill Larson taken at Austin Peay University Clarksville, Tennessee 2010 To the Heart of Things When I listen to people with terminal illnesses talk about the time they have left, it often takes me awhile to remember that I have had to deal with that, too. Maybe it's because I am fifteen years away from the diagnosis. I was forty-three years old, too young to expire according to many, not the least of whom was myself. However, people have died soon after they were born. People die at all ages, but I was busy doing stuff, as they say, when the diagnosis came and along with it the only solution, according to the doctors. They wanted to give me a new heart. I refused to be put on the waiting list. I wanted to try exercise, change of lifestyle, the geographic cure, and most of all, a return to my Taiji and all the related aspects of what we call Chinese medicine. But all that seems like chit chat. I think now of the place where I lived, an apartment on Philly's West...
Read more
Image
LIFE IN THE MONASTERY TEACHING TAI CHI CHUAN IN TAIWAN by Afaa Michael Weaver http://poetscafeunitedstates.spaces.live.com Taipei, Taiwan, is usually a very busy city, and it especially comes alive, at least for me, at night when all the neon signs are lit and a ride through the city in a taxi is mesmerizing. Or a night spent in the night markets with all the food and goods and the loud music of life is more than your sensors can process at times. There is the stinky tofu, so named for the smell it makes when it is being fried. However, disturbing the smell, I love the stuff. You can buy it at any time of the day. The city sits in a basin with the mountains of the northern end of the island surrounding it like a natural wall. The "pei" part of Taipei means north, and this is the northernmost me...
Read more
Image
Mei Nong Taiwan's Beautiful Farms Area Standing here on the top of Lion Mountain in southern Taiwan, you can see the area of Mei Nong, or Beautiful Farm. As you look over to the other side of the valley, you can see the southern end of the mountain range that stretches along the eastern side of the country, forming beautiful seashore areas where, in some places, there is a sheer drop from the mountains to the Pacific ocean. Here in Mei Nong the mountainsides are home to a variety of wildlife, including monkeys who shake the trees in the morning as they settle down to breakfast. This farming area is now being turned into a haven for the newly rich, as the old farm houses built by a Chinese ethnic group known as the Hakka give way to hacienda style houses that look like encampments, some with large metal doors and surrounded by stone walls. Mei Nong includes a smaller area called Long Du, or Dragon’s Belly, where two hundred children have been born who have later ear...
Read more